Ordination Sermon - "that I May Serve You With All My Might"

Sermon Ordination

May this holy flame ever warm my [heart], that I may serve you with all my might; and let it consume in my heart all my selfish desires, that I may in all things regard not myself but you.” - John Wesley

That is the favourite quote, outside of Scripture, of Arleen Gomez. If you know her, and depending how well you know her, this will ring very true in your experience of our dear Sister and Pastor Arleen.

We’re here today for a very special purpose, a purpose that is joyful and worthy of celebration on the one hand, and very serious and sober on the other hand. We’re here to do what the Church at its best has always done.

That is to recognize what God has done in and through Arleen.

At its best the Church nurtures and encourages all believers to become genuine and deeply committed disciples of Jesus, and also to identify and support and nurture the giftings that God has placed within His people.

It is God who calls us to Himself when by His grace he gives us faith to believe the gospel.

And the Church, by that same grace, He empowers and calls to be a gathering place, a home, a hospital, a discipleship training environment, and a family for those God calls to Himself.

It is Jesus who calls us to abundant life, to freedom, to BE His disciples.

And the church, by His grace, He equips and inspires to nurture that liberty to love and serve God and people,

to be a place of healing from the pain of living, to be an arms-and-hearts-wide-open community of welcome to the beat up and broken inhabitants of our hurting planet.

It is God who calls and gifts and ordains his daughters and sons to ministry; it is the church’s joy and responsibility to recognize what God is doing and to confirm and affirm that holy work of God in a person’s life. And so that’s why we’re here today.

God does everything on purpose. Do you believe that? I do.

Always motivated by love, forever correcting and adjusting our pathways so that we end up in the centre of His will, or some would say in the vicinity of His will.

And having been led to the general environs that he wants us to be in, he then works through human happenstance to accomplish His will.

I first knew Pastor Arleen as a very upbeat and energetic YSM staff member who served at reception at 270 Gerrard, the mission’s Davis Centre.

Always smiling and exuding joy, and and constantly helping our community members there to connect with the support they needed that the mission offered - be it the foodbank, or counselling or spiritual support or housing - you name it,

Arleen knew how to impart respect and dignity to our community members as she sought to fulfill her role at reception.

I think she mostly knew me as a large, blonde, balding blur who would pass by the reception desk very often, typically rushing to get somewhere, and then somewhere else, at the mission, my office being quite close to and behind reception.

At one point the church offered a course called Network that’s designed to help people clarify their God-given calling, their spiritual gifts and their personal style.

Arleen took that course and that’s where I discovered, for the first time, that Arleen had what I will call a pastoral character. On every imaginable metric in the program, she rang the bell of a shepherd’s heart.

Through the process of taking the course, it confirmed to her what she had always known - that by her very being, by her spiritual gifts and by her personal style of engagement, she was designed to be a pastor.

I took note of this, but because there were many others in the course needing direction and attention, I didn’t particularly, beyond noticing what I’ve just mentioned, have any notion of how that might play out in Arleen’s life.

But I did learn enough about her to ask if she had ever preached or given a sermon.

She indicated that she had done a lot of teaching and was comfortable, somewhat, with that public role of giving a message.

So I asked her, as I would often ask YSM staff who I learned could preach, to preach on an upcoming Sunday a few months down the road.

She agreed and so I booked her in, again multiple weeks in the future, and only as a guest speaker.

In the interim the church’s Assistant Pastor for the past 5 years, Lee Shablitske, gave his notice that he would be retiring. That’s never welcome news as you can imagine.

So I immediately began the process of discussing the needs of the church with Pastor Jan and working through what we would need now in a new person who would take on a pastoral role at Church at the Mission.