At the Bishop’s Fall Gathering, someone asked me, “Where do you find joy?” And, while I find many places of joy, it got me thinking. When I opened myself to serve in this role as bishop, I wasn’t thinking of joy. My prayer was, and still is, that God would use me to serve. Even though I get to do so many wonderful things, there are days when I struggle. 

Saying yes to God’s call often brings us to places without blue sky and green grass, with imperfect people as our companions (just as I am an imperfect leader), into unjust systems that seem inevitable, inalterable, and irreversible. We say yes to walking into a broken world, and trust that God will take us as we are to do what needs doing. 

God may be asking you to accompany someone with dementia, to sit with a loved one in the hospital, to care for children who are sick or cranky or abused, to teach teenagers who do not want to learn, to clean after a toilet backed up, or to do work that pays the bills to support your family rather than choosing work you look forward to each day. These moments may not bring joy, but they do require our hands and our presence. 

“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none,” Martin Luther writes. “A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject of all, subject to all.” 

When we say yes to God’s call, we find the freedom and courage to step into each area of service presented to us in our daily lives. When we say yes to God’s call, we find the sustenance to walk Christ’s walk: the unhurried, step-by-step, person-by-person, moment-to-moment walk of God’s beloved in a very real place and time. In these holy moments there are glimpses of joy. 

Child of God, beloved, how are you answering God’s call? 

Grateful for how God uses you to communicate Jesus, connect people and create possibilities,

The Rev. Deborah K. Hutterer
Bishop
Grand Canyon Synod of the ELCA