If you watched any of the Olympics this past summer, you might have heard the name Ilona Maher. If you haven’t, I encourage you to look up more about her. She is a phenomenal athlete, representing team U.S.A. in Rugby and helping us secure our first medal in Women’s Rugby, but she also is such a great role model for what it means to be a powerful woman that is judged because she may not look or act how people think a woman should. She quickly became one of my favorite athletes after watching her play this summer, and I know I’m not alone in that. I bring her up today though because she was recently asked in an interview how she overcomes imposter syndrome, to which she responded that she doesn’t have that.
If you are unfamiliar with the term “imposter syndrome,” it is often ascribed to women, but not exclusively, and it’s the thoughts and feelings we have about being unqualified for the positions we are in, regardless of how qualified we might be. Part of this has to do with the fact that it’s deemed “unladylike” to express confidence and to acknowledge that we have actually put in the work to earn our place. It’s often difficult to feel like we can list the strengths we have in our work, but the list of weaknesses just keeps growing, and we are afraid that someday, someone will see us as the fraud that we believe we are. While I know many women who have experienced this throughout the course of their lifetimes, I’m not going to say that it is exclusively a female experience because I think that many people deal with feelings of unworthiness and distrust in their own capabilities throughout the course of their lives. There are times when we are told by others, or sometimes by God, that we need to do something, and it feels like they are choosing the wrong person. They must be making a mistake. We can list all of the reasons why we shouldn’t be called, instead of acknowledging that we are.
Take our Scripture readings for today as an example. We have three incredibly important men in Scripture: the prophet Isaiah, the apostle Paul, and the first disciple, Simon Peter, who all feel that they are unworthy and incapable of the task they are being called to. They list all the reasons why they are not suited for the role: unclean lips (Isaiah 6:5), a history of persecution (1 Corinthians 15: 9), and being too sinful to even be in Jesus’ presence (Luke 5:8). Imagine where the church would be, what our Scripture and our history would look like if Isaiah was never a prophet; there goes half of our Advent lectionary, not to mention his telling of the Babylonian Exile. Or, what if Paul never repented for his mistakes and then went on to preach the Gospel and grow the fledgling church. Who knows if we would even be here right now, but even if we were, we would also be missing most of our New Testament. Or what if Simon Peter took the overflowing nets of fish and went home, like nothing had happened, who knows who Jesus would have called then. God called these three for a reason, even if they couldn’t see what that reason was for themselves.
This isn’t to say that we should never have humility, especially in remembering that we are part of God’s creation, and at the same time I think that these examples go on to remind us that God calls us and equips us for the work of ministry, even when it feels like God made the wrong choice in person. We are all given different gifts for the sake of the community and the world. This doesn’t mean that everyone has to get up and preach in the coming Sundays, unless you really want to, but it does mean that God has already called us to this work not in spite of who we are, but rather because of who we are. When we see ourselves as being unworthy of this call or even unworthy of God’s love, we are reminded over and over again that we do not have to do anything to be worthy of this love and that God already has or will soon equip us for the work that needs to be done. It may be growing into those skills we already have, or by bringing people alongside who can help in living out our calls, think about Aaron and Moses.
You’ve probably heard me say before that I have a hard time trusting the pastors that say they’ve known they were going to be a pastor since they were a little kid, that they never had any doubts along the way. Perhaps I’m biased though because almost everyone I met in Seminary jokes that we came into ministry drug kicking and screaming by the Holy Spirit. This talk about imposter syndrome doesn’t mean that we can’t ever question or doubt, that we can’t spend actual time in the discernment process regarding what God is calling us to. And, at the same point, I think it’s important to name the many times in life when we sit out on something because we feel like we don’t deserve it or because others tell us, in little and big ways, that we aren’t worthy of it.
For example, I am used to getting comments from strangers all the time about how I don’t look old enough to be a pastor. Am I sure I’m not actually a teenager? I really hope not; I would not like to relive my teenage years, thank you very much! A lot of these comments come for two reasons, in my experience. One is that people aren’t used to seeing young folks in church and have a hard time understanding why some of us would go into ministry. The second is that people have a hard time understanding how and trusting that someone with significantly less life experience than them is supposed to walk with them through life’s troubles. Not so much as a chaplain next door, but this was vocalized several times in my chaplaincy internship days. While I’m more confident in my call now, when I was first getting started as a chaplain intern, I certainly went home many days wondering if God made a mistake and that I’m not actually called to this work.
We also have societal expectations of who is a pastor and who isn’t. When I was in Seminary, I had the experience of buying my first clergy shirt, except I needed black pants for Good Friday that would go with it. Growing up, my grandma was always insistent that I couldn’t wear multiple shades of black, but they all had to match as best as possible. Now, a different person might have just carried it with them to try on with the pants, but they had also been encouraging us to get used to wearing it and noticing how people respond, so I wore my clergy collar around the Mall of America for several hours. An interesting social experiment, but one I would rather not do again any time soon. But I had the strangest interaction at the end of that day, with someone who thought it was a fashionable piece, and asked us where we got it because she thinks her daughter would like one of those too. It was clear from the way she said it that this wasn’t because she thought her daughter was going to go into ministry, but she would like the black color and the high collar… My mom and I just paused awkwardly before saying, ugh, it’s a clergy shirt… I do not look how most people expect a pastor to look, and they usually use their voice or their facial expressions to tell me so.
I say all of this because I think many of us can relate to the experiences of our three men in today’s Scripture who either internally or externally are told that they aren’t good enough for what God is calling them to do. That God must be getting it wrong here, because why me? Yet, we have Isaiah who ultimately responds to God’s call by saying “Here I am; send me” (Isaiah 6: 8b). Paul goes on to be one of the most prolific teachers and preachers in our Scriptural tradition. And, Simon Peter goes on to be one of Jesus’ first disciples. I’m sure they still had their doubts along the way, but I want to emphasize that God calls us, even when we feel unworthy of that call. God continues to remind us that we are worthy, that we are loved, that we are equipped to share the love of God through word and deed. This is going to look different for all of us because of our different vocations, but it comes back to trusting that God knows what God is doing. That we were created good, as a part of this larger creation in which we get to live. We may have been given different skills and gifts, but that makes us all the more needed for the work of the body of Christ.
At this moment in time, it might feel easier to sit on the sidelines. To let other Christians speak up and make decisions about what it means for us to be Christian. This week we saw that come through very clearly when Lutheran and Catholic social service organizations were met with money laundering allegations because people don’t seem to understand that our faith calls us to actually help our neighbors. That isn’t just a little catchphrase we say to get people in the door, to make us feel good about ourselves while we don’t actually do anything about it. Our call right now is to continue to live out our faith, with the values we hold dear, even when others are trying to tell us that this can’t possibly be what it means to be a Christian. In this moment, and in our other moments of call throughout our lives, we have to decide if we are going to let our fear of not being enough, of not being worthy of our call, get in the way of us answering it. We have been called to such a place as this for such a time as this. I might not have the answers to why, but this is where we lean into the trust that we have in God, trust that we will be working together in our calls, as we seek to share the love of God as we understand it with a world that so desperately needs it right now. Because, despite our feelings of unworthiness, our stories today remind us that God works through perfectly imperfect humans, of which we get to be a part, should we choose to answer our calls.
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Sunday February 2nd, 2025 Worship