OCR Document

From the Pastor's Pen, October, 2005:

“What do you want to be?”

"What do you want to be?" An interesting question! Depends on what one means by the question. It makes a difference. The question might be asked of a child or young adult about their career choice - as in "what do you want to be when you grow up?" (As if what we do for a living defines who we are as a person! It doesn't!) To a younger child, the question might be a simpler one, about the choice of a Halloween costume.

I was going through some old pictures at home the other day, and came across a series of Halloween pictures of John in costume. Our agreement was always simple at Halloween. Nothing violent or scary, and a costume must be made from items around the house or what we could buy at Goodwill. One year he was a cowboy, one year Peter the High King of Namia (from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"), and another year Sherlock Holmes. "What do you want to be?" for a child at Halloween, might mean "what costume do you want to wear?" or "what character do you want to pretend you are?

Once I heard from a mother of a three-year old daughter that they had decided together on a clown costume for Halloween. But when the mom had finished putting the clown face on her daughter, the little girl was frightened by the way she looked. She burst into tears, begging her mom to take the makeup off. The mother, a bit frustrated as trick-or-treat time approached, said "But what do you want to BE?" Through her tears, the daughter answered, "a PERSON!"

"What do you want to BE?" It might be a good question to ask ourselves as people of faith. I'm not talking about Halloween costumes now (though I have heard of some churches having great fun dressing up as characters from the Bible; including, notably, "The Holy Ghost" and the "parting of the Red Sea.") Rather, if we ask the question "What do you want to be?," maybe we are asking a deeper question, seeking a deeper meaning in our lives. To me, the question implies asking ourselves what matters most to us, what we want to be like; perhaps even what God is calling us to.

In our society, we so easily confuse doing with being. Our greatest call as Christians is to be, as that three-year old said, "A person!" We are first of all children of God. We are called to be followers of Christ, no matter what our work, our interests, our special gifts. "What do you want to be?" is not about career choices or dressing up at Halloween. It's about being who God calls us to be, each one of us a Child of God. It's about simply living the life that God has given us, so abundantly!

How we express that being, then, is what we offer to God. As someone once put it, in bumper-sticker terseness, "What you are is God's gift to you; what you become is your gift to God." That gift we offer back to God is as unique and individual, and as varied between us, as our choices of Halloween costumes when we were children.

In the life of our local church, just in this month of October, there are many ways to offer ourselves to God; from the teamwork of making pasties and serving our 75th annual Sauerkraut Supper, to the nurture of our spiritual growth through worship and Christian education; from the efforts for world hunger relief of the Lansing area CROP Walk to our continued efforts for hurricane relief through UMCOR. Our annual stewardship focus, Consecration Sunday, reminds us of the opportunity to respond thankfully to all God has given us. The Christian Education committee has planned an all-church outing to a Cider Mill on October 30th also. There are many opportunities to serve God, to be in Christian fellowship, to learn, and grow (and eat!).

"What do you want to be?" I hope the answer is "a child of God." How do you want to respond to God's Love? May we spend a lifetime living out the answer!

On the Journey with you,

e-mail Pastor Baker-Streevy