I’ve said a number of times that I don’t feel worthy to be the vicar or rector of a church, a curate in a parish, a deacon in the Church of God. I don’t! I’m not!
The question, I guess, is whether I want to be worthy. By God’s standard neither I nor any of us are worthy, yet God declares those whom He calls worthy, despite ourselves. The need is still present to yearn for and to strive for worthiness – for holiness, perhaps. Do I want to be worthy?
To be worthy, or rather to engage in the pursuit of worthiness – the pursuit of God – requires me to turn onto a different path. There is a different way of living and moving and having one’s being. To be deacon and priest, I am no longer a man as most men are, but one whom God calls and more importantly one who gives over his life completely to God and God’s will. That is the call of all of us who claim Christ – to give over our lives to God completely – but to be deacon and priest necessitates different responsibilities and different accountability. Do I want to be worthy? Do I want that kind of responsibility? Do I want to give over my life entirely?
I doubt my ability, but if the community and those responsible for these kinds of things believe I am called by God to hold these offices, then they must see some sort of ability or worthiness in me. I realize, more fully now than ever, that it is not by might, nor by power, nor my intelligence, nor my ability to empathize, nor organizational skill, nor anything for that matter, but by the power of God – His grace, His love, His compassion, His mercy, His wisdom, His power, His discerning that I can do anything. By all this, by the Holy Trinity, I can stumble through and do. Worthy? No. Do I wanna be worthy?