The Call - Then and Now

Call. What is this? When we talk about calling in the United Methodist Church, we are referring to the moment when we knew God had a special plan for our lives that included ministry of some sort. Once we understand that we have a call, we discern what this calling is to. This looks very different today compared to calling in the early Methodist Episcopal Church.

In many cases, during this period, people would feel the calling and immediately be thrown into ministry. The call was usually interpreted as a call to preach, which was fine if you were a white man, but it was a problem if you were a woman or not of European descent. Sometimes, women and people of African or Native descent would still be allowed to preach, but rarely were the offered the opportunity to turn their calling into a vocation. For example, Richard Allen, a black man who would later become a bishop in the AME, was only ever considered a “local deacon,” an action that wasn’t ever recognized by the Book of Discipline (Richey, The Methodist Experience in America, vol. 1, p. 143). As for Native Americans, only few ever became preachers, among them being William Apess.

And what of women? As many do now, women helped to keep the church running, usually from behind the scenes. Once they lost the ability to be class leaders, though, they no longer held any power within the church. Women were not allowed to be preachers. However, many women who experienced a call from God would go on to become pastor’s wives. Hannah Pierce Reeves was one such woman (p. 151). She experienced a call to preach, and after she was married, she was an integral part of her husband’s ministry, often preaching in his place if he was sick. Other women, such as Sally Thompson, attempted to intenerate and preach on their own. In the case of Sally Thompson, it did not end well. The Methodist Church persecuted her, and she finally decided to leave for another denomination that did not try to oppress her voice and obvious call.

This is not quite the case today. Race and gender are no longer walls put up to keep people from preaching. What happens when we experience our call? Instead of immediately being thrown into ministry, there is a long and arduous candidacy process each person must go through. It is a chance to truly understand one’s call before going into fulltime ministry. It is understood now that some people are called to preaching, some to pastoral care, some to chaplaincy, some to work with children, some to work with youth, some to work with young adults… the list could go on and on. The goal now is not to fill pulpits and convert the masses but to truly understand the gifts and talents of each individual. When these are plugged into the right place, amazing things happen.

Seems like call and discernment happens in a much better way now. 

Eucharist - Communion with God

The celebration of Communion was very important to both John and Charles Wesley. This is evidenced from how often they took it, what they taught about it, what they wrote about it, etc. Communion was so much more than just another part of the liturgy.

It seems that today, most United Methodists have lost the deep meaning behind Communion. For a while, it certainly seemed that way for me. There were times when it was particularly significant, but for the most part, I mostly felt that I was simply going through the motions. The purposefulness wasn’t there. After I did a project on Charles Wesley’s Hymns on the Lord’s Supper, I reclaimed the grace and meaning of Communion.

The thing is, Eucharist has so much more to it that just some tasteless crackers (or delectable bread) and grape juice. The hymns in this collection really convey this. The first hymn beautifully portrays the meaning behind Communion, the whole purpose of the ritual:  

Hymn 1.

1 In that sad memorable night,

When Jesus was for us betrayed,

He left his death-recording rite,

He took, and bless’d, and brake the bread,

And gave his own their last bequest,

And thus his love’s intent expressed:

2 Take eat, this is my body given,

To purchase life and peace for you,

Pardon and holiness and heaven;

Do this, my dying love to show,
Accept your precious legacy,

And thus, my friends, remember me.

3 He took into his hands the cup,

To crown the sacramental feast,

And full of kind concern looked up,

And gave what he to them had blest,

And drink ye all of this, he said,

In solemn memory of the dead.

4 This is my blood which seals the new

Eternal covenant of my grace,

My blood so freely shed4 for you,

For you and all the sinful race,

My blood that speaks your sins forgiven,

And justifies your claim to heaven.

5 The grace which I to all bequeath

In this divine memorial take,

And mindful of your Saviour’s death,

Do this, my followers, for my sake,

Whose dying love hath left behind

Eternal life for all mankind.

If this hymn is the only one read, sung, or listened to out of the entire collection, a person will still gain some understanding of Communion. This hymn reminds us that Communion is done to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made. It is so easy to get caught up in the busyness of life and slip into routine. However, the ritual of this liturgy has deep meaning. How can we help our congregations to reclaim this connection?

Part of the issue is that in general, people aren’t using their minds as much. If we examine the lyrics to most of the songs sung in contemporary worship, they are devoid of depth. Oh, they have good messages, but they completely lack the depth of meaning and language of older hymns, even those written in the past thirty or forty years. We live in an age where people want to be told everything. Twitter will deliver breaking news directly to your iPhone. Google can find the answer to almost any question ridiculously fast (for example, it found 710,000 results for “cheese curds” in 0.30 seconds). It is no longer necessary to delve into something gain new understanding.

Perhaps churches need to shift part of their focus to reclaiming the depth and meaning that goes along with liturgy and ritual in general, and especially for Communion. After all, this is a distinctly Christian practice. It is the time when we come to remember the entire reason that the Christian community exists – Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.