Reading
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.
Acts 13:2 (NIV)
Reflection
Exactly forty years ago tonight, I had an amazing experience. That’s the night I was ordained a United Methodist minister.
We were at Boston Avenue UMC, a cathedral-like church in downtown Tulsa I had visited many times. Down the street, my family owned a store that had been open since it was a pre-statehood trading post. I was on familiar ground.
I had no expectation of anything supernatural happening. I just wanted to get through the service without embarrassing myself. After all, I had my whole future planned. I had been offered my own church, but as an introvert, I had asked to serve as an associate—and that request had been granted.
During the worship service, I knelt, and three bishops laid hands on me and spoke words right out of the Book of Worship. All routine stuff. But it wasn’t routine at all. I felt something like electricity move physically through my body. I was changed.
Normally, I would have quietly slipped out of the reception that followed. Instead, I lingered and engaged in conversation. In that moment of ordination, the Holy Spirit gifted me with a passion to know people. My old introverted self faded away (mostly). The gift has remained with me for forty years.
At first, that sounds like my own personal experience. And in one way, that’s correct. But it’s not a complete description. On Sunday, Pastor Brandon said, “We tend to read biblical teachings as applying only to isolated individuals.”
He went on to explain that the Holy Spirit is given within the community for service to all. My ordination came about within a community—one that included the support of my family, my home church, the pastors who mentored me, the seminary faculty, and an anonymous couple who helped pay my tuition all the way through seminary. And that’s only naming a few. My passion for greeting and knowing people was not given to bless me personally. It was given to enable me to serve the community.
Paul (Saul) and Barnabas are sent in a similar way in today’s verse. The church gathered, the Holy Spirit moved, leaders laid hands on them, and they were sent. When you were baptized, you were set apart for ministry. You were empowered for ministry by the Holy Spirit. And it all happened in community.
Prayer
Today, Lord, let the Holy Spirit guide me to ministry. Let me experience the power of the Spirit as I go. Amen.
