To Draw Near and To See

Luke 10: 25-37

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”  He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”  And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.  Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.  So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’  Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”  He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

 “To Draw Near and To See”

The question in this passage that generally gets the most attention is this one: Hey, just who is my neighbor, anyway? The theologian Eugene Peterson calls this a trick question – and that this lawyer is looking for a loophole when he poses it.

Of course, Jesus is not easily duped by this guy. And so he tells a story, and ends with a question posed right back to the lawyer – not who is MY neighbor, but – Who WAS the neighbor to the man in trouble?

And given the choice of three responses – the priest, a leader in the Jewish faith; or the Levite, who was something like a designated lay priest; or the Samaritan, who was considered not even worthy of attention by a Jew – this lawyer can not even bring himself to say “the Samaritan”. He responds instead by saying, “the one who showed him mercy.”

To which Jesus says, OK – go and do likewise. Go and show mercy.

Go and be sure that you don’t just walk on by, like the others did.

So why did the Samaritan show mercy when the others did not?

The other two saw him, but then crossed over to the other side of the road. Only the Samaritan drew near. And that is what led him to truly see this man’s awful situation – he had been beaten and left for dead – and so to be “moved with pity. Now pity can be defined as a gut level feeling of empathy for the suffering of others. And being moved means doing something about it.

How many of you have ever seen the movie “Tootsie”? This is the movie where Dustin Hoffman takes on the persona of a woman to get work, and gets into all sorts of crazy situations, and of course he learns a lot in the process. There’s a short video clip of an interview with Dustin Hoffman that was popular on the internet recently.

In it, he talks about an epiphany he had that came from drawing near, and experiencing the world through the filter of another.

Dustin Hoffman Interview Clip

What do these two stories have in common – the Samaritan’s response to the man who has been attacked by robbers, and Dustin Hoffman’s reaction to being made up to look like a woman?

Both stories include a description of what happens when we “walk on by”, and also the impact of “drawing near”, coming close.

Hoffman’s epiphany was that he realized he would, in essence, “cross the street”,when a woman didn’t meet his expectation for female beauty. He wouldn’t have bothered, in the past, to get to know her, or to learn what was interesting or unique or special about her, because, as he said, he had been brainwashed to believe she didn’t matter.

Because he brought himself near to the experience of another in this way, he was moved with compassion to do something.

If we don’t come close, we will not be moved.

If we don’t come close, we will not have the experience of knowing many, many, interesting people… because we, too, have been brainwashed.

Sometimes it’s because we are afraid. It may be a reasonable fear, or it may be a fear that has been passed on to us, one with no basis when it is held up to the light.

We live in a world that wants to eliminate all risk, and so we avoid anything that might go wrong, even though the odds are minimal.

We remember what we were told as children – “don’t talk to strangers” – and we continue to practice this as adults.

And we rely on the filters we’ve developed over time to tell us what’s safe and what’s not – who’s a stranger and who’s not.

But we have got to watch out for our filters getting clogged, because they can cause us to make snap decisions with long lasting, negative consequences. We must draw near to others to have any hope of knowing if our filters make sense anymore.

Sometimes it’s because we are just too busy.

Our work and our family demand our primary attention.

And then there’s time spent in exercise, and there’s choir practice and session meetings, and all the other things with which we fill our days and nights and lives. How can we possibly let anything slide if we stop to be a neighbor to someone in need?

But we must ask ourselves what priorities and idols we serve in the way we fill our lives, and what it would take to rearrange our priorities.  

For example: I remember the time my dad had a medical crisis.

I had young children, I had a high powered stressful job, and for the next four months just about everything else got minimal attention from me, so that I could be present for him and my mom.

Now, will I shift my schedule in a similar way to help another, to show mercy, to someone who’s not in my family or circle of close friends?

Sometimes it seems what little I can do won’t matter anyway. What good will a dollar or five dollars do if I give it to this homeless person, on this corner, this one time? The problem is so large, Lord, and I am so small. The tiny drop in the bucket that I can offer feels like a wasted effort. And I want my donations to be productive! Surely there must be a program out there that is trying to solve the bigger issue.

I’ll write a check to them instead.

But – the act of writing a check does not draw us near to one another, and we miss learning firsthand about the lives of the people we serve.

If we believe that God puts people and situations in front of us to teach us how to trust, and to love, and to serve, then we begin to respond differently to the people and situations we encounter. We may not be able to fix the whole problem, but often we can do something just because we were present at that moment.

Our gospels are filled with parables from Jesus about people bringing less than what is needed – the boy with five loaves and two fishes, the widow giving her last two pennies to the synagogue, even Jesus using ordinary stuff like water and mud – and from these came miracles.

 There’s an important message here for us not only as individuals, but as the church, the body of Christ, as well. This parable can help us see how the church can be a neighbor, and show mercy. But this means facing the ways we have been brainwashed as the church as well.  Can we suspend judgment, and trust, and truly be the body of Christ for those in need? Can we offer time and space to the stranger, to the lonely, to the troubled? – a willingness to stop and draw near and be moved by the compassion that we feel, not overcome by anxiousness that often arises when we consider what we ought to do? Can we show mercy by serving in new ways, even if we realize that we can’t do it all? Can we trust that God brings the right people and opportunities together, so that God’s will can be done?

When we are open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we see with new eyes. And the way we see our neighbor is the way God sees us. You see, God drew near to us, in Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate, and took pity on us, and acts with compassion toward us, caring for us far beyond what we deserve.

God willing, we will act with the same compassion, and not with fear, because of what we have been given, and how we have been loved; with the confidence that God is making all things new, and that God wants us to draw near to one another and to participate in God’s kingdom; knowing that whatever we can do, God will bring to completion.

Let’s pray.

God of grace and mercy,

Help us to draw near, as you draw near to us even now.

Help us to be neighbors to those in need, and to not just walk on by.

Move us with compassion, and give us new eyes to see the wonder in each and every person, every one your beloved child, so that we can be the kind of neighbor you desire, the kind that shows mercy beyond measure.

In Christ we pray – Amen.

An Undivided Call (Sermon - 3rd Sunday of Epiphany)

1 Corinthians 1: 10-18; Matthew 4: 12-23

I have told some of you about the unique way I attended seminary. The mission of the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary focuses on small rural congregations and Native American congregations.  In order to meet the needs of these worshipping communities, they developed a Commissioned Lay Pastor program about ten years ago – it’s now called a Commissioned Ruling Elder program and it is similar to what our own Kerry Border has gone through here in Michigan – and they made it into a distance program, with online courses, and with one or two onsite requirements. They did this to reduce the cost and increase the time flexibility of this education, because these small congregations could rarely afford to send someone away for residential seminary training. After about ten years, and having graduated over 2000 Commissioned Lay Pastors, some of these got back in touch with the seminary, saying “we want to be ordained as Ministers of the Word and Sacrament; we want to be able to get our Masters of Divinity using the same education process.”

So, since they had already refined the tools of online seminary education, they expanded it into the M.Div program they already had going on campus, and a distance learning program was added to their residential M.Div. I was part of the third group to start.

And so, in August of 2009, I made my first pilgrimage to Dubuque, Iowa, for two weeks of onsite classes.

These pilgrimages would happen twice a year for four years, in what was accurately described as the worst months of the year to be in Dubuque – August and January – the months with the hottest heat and the coldest cold. We came from all over the country, and even around the world – two classmates were from Lebanon and the Dominican Republic. It was a sacred time when we were together, and the online work also brought us together as a community in ways that we never could have imagined would happen.

God called us all, and that was the one common aspect of our journey.

Our ages were varied, our theologies were varied, our lifestyles and our home congregations were varied, but we had been called onto the same path, the same journey – to follow the call of our Lord and Savior.

The first intensive always includes some “getting to know you” and “spiritual formation” work. This includes a “ropes” course, to build trust among one another, and it also includes a trip to the labyrinth at a nearby convent called Sinsinawa.

This was the first time I had ever walked a labyrinth. It reminded me of one of the puzzles I liked to do in those Dell puzzle books – the ones that had not only crosswords, but also logic problems, cryptograms, and complex mazes you had to find your way through with your pen or pencil. Those mazes had only one correct path, but many, many dead ends you could find yourself caught in. I loved doing those things. I imagine that the corn mazes that pop up around here every year during harvest time are similar, although I’ve never been to one of those. [I don’t like getting lost.]

The labyrinth is different from a maze, though. Everyone goes in using the same entry point, and everyone walks the same path, and everyone eventually ends up in the same center point, from which they eventually choose to turn around and walk back out. In the process, you walk every step of the labyrinth.

The walk itself is a spiritual practice. Once you enter, it’s like a process of obedience: you put one foot in front of the other, and you go where the path leads you. You find yourself turning, going back the direction you just came. You get close to the center, and then the path takes you back out toward the edge. You encounter people who are walking the labyrinth at the same time as you; sometimes they come toward you on the path next to yours, and you move aside for a minute to give them room to go ahead on their path. Sometimes you catch up to them, and you need to slow down and let them do their walk at their pace, and you experience new things from pacing yourself with them.

Getting to the center can be an emotional experience – there’s a sort of release that comes, and then going back out is filled with meaning as well.

God speaks to you along the walk. It’s a beautiful walk, the labyrinth.

When I did this for the first time, as I rounded one turn after another,

walking in a way that seemed aimless but was clearly taking me in an intended direction, I suddenly had one of those “message from God” moments that come to me somewhat rarely, but oh, so clearly.

What I heard was God saying to me, you can only walk one path.

This was at a time when I was still trying to juggle many responsibilities and roles and expectations – my career aspirations, my aging parents, my almost-adult children, my church work, my marriage – and I had just entered seminary for reasons that were not yet all that clear to me.

And God said to me, you can only walk one path.

I knew that the path I had to walk was the one that led me to God, not to any of the other enticements or entitlements or false achievements that I had pursued for a long, long time. The labyrinth showed me that I was on one path, a path that many others had walked and were walking, but a path that I could no longer straddle along with any other. I had been called to follow Jesus – no turning back.

Our gospel lesson today is the familiar story of Jesus walking by the fishermen along the shore, and saying, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”

And immediately they leave their nets, their boats, their father, their livelihoods, their family, and they go on the singular path of following Jesus. Jesus will also call other disciples, and more and more people from many different life experiences will follow him on this same path, leading from death to new life, to which he calls them, and he calls us.

Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come with me; follow me. Come and see! And they do. And we do. But we so often drag our baggage along with us, uncertain how to let go of the things that have meant security to us all along, reluctant to take the risks that seem to be involved – because loving God sounds easy, but loving our neighbors, regardless of how they behave – that’s hard. And loving our enemies – how can we do that without jeopardizing our own comfort, safety, individuality, and traditions? So we try to do this at a safe distance from the path – we send off checks, we post on FB to show what we believe about caring for others, we get together for occasional potlucks or ecumenical services, but we keep our distance when it comes to truly being in Christian community with those we see as “other”, as “those people”.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is about the sorts of divisions that spring up, even in Christian community, when we let ourselves become divided, focusing on different paths than the one to which Christ has called us.

In the case of the church at Corinth, what we can tell from this letter is that the different house churches are not the issue for Paul; he is not concerned about whether they worship together or not. What matters to him is that they are competing for who follows the best leader – the most eloquent preacher, the leader who contributes most to their spiritual walk. And what Paul tells them, in this passage as well as through the rest of this letter, is that if they are focused on these other leaders, then they are not following Christ. He assures them that diversity is fine, but divisiveness and dissension is not; that the body of Christ has many members, and they all operate differently to help bring forth the kingdom of God.

But their unity comes from the one we follow – and that is Jesus Christ.

And so the path is a common path; the journey is a common journey –even though we will walk this path, this journey, differently, based on the season or time of our life in which we walk it; based on the unique gifts as well as the personal baggage we bring to it; based on the pace we take. We will walk it differently from one another. But we are on the same journey, to the same place, and we are united – as family members – brothers and sisters, as Paul calls us - with one another in Christ.

Something spoke to the hearts of those fishermen, to cause them to drop their nets and walk away, to follow Jesus. Perhaps something had spoken to their hearts long ago. Perhaps the longing for God was imprinted on their hearts since the beginning of the world. When Jesus walked by, perhaps what they heard was the answer to that longing, and so they could do nothing to resist it. Step by step, one foot in front of the other, not knowing where they were going, they followed the path of the Lord.

Saint Augustine wrote in the introduction to the first book of his Confessions that “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” Friends, it is our restless hearts that divide us and pit us one against another. Paul encourages us to have the  “same mind” and “same purpose”, and this is what draws us into our common commitment as Christians. It is having the mind of Christ to which we are all called in unity. And it is the cross of Christ, the foolishness that is revealed in this emptying of God’s power out on the cross to save us, that is the ultimate purpose and source of unity for us.

This is the good news of the gospel.

We are not saved by eloquent preaching, or great organizational style, or by unique worship or fellowship, but we are all saved by the great sacrifice made by the God of all creation – for all of us.

Brothers and sisters, we, the people of New Life Presbyterian Church have come from east and west, and from north and south. We have all been called to follow Christ. We have all been invited to the table and the great feast which Christ has prepared. Together. We can’t know for sure why God has brought us together in this time and this place, but here we stand as one congregation, in two places, in three worship services, from many backgrounds and neigborhoods, with many faith journeys. We do not know where God plans to take us, how God plans to use us. But we do know that we are united on one path and one purpose, serving one Lord, seeking to recognize and to show others the holy glimpses of the kingdom of God that are at hand among us all, right here and right now, and that will someday be fully revealed for all eternity.

So let us let go of everything that can hurt or divide us, that can push us off the path. Let us reach out to one another in love, let us practice truly loving one another, dropping the baggage of our divisiveness and dissension, and forgiving one another, so that we can truly show the love of God to all the world.

Let us walk this path together, following Christ in unity.

God is Faithful (Sermon - 2nd Sunday of Epiphany)

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus,

for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind

just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you

so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

John 1:29-42

The next day he (John the Baptist) saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel."And John testified, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God."

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?"  He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. 

One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed).

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This week’s gospel story is another story about Jesus and John the Baptist. John is not at work at the moment, so it seems. He is standing around with a few of his closest friends, and he sees Jesus walk by. So he says to his disciples, “Look! There goes the Lamb of God!” And as soon as he says this, the two disciples turn on their heel and go after Jesus, follow him.

It’s a strange sort of twist on the story in Matthew’s and Mark’s gospel about how Jesus calls the first disciples. It’s the same two people, Simon Peter and his brother Andrew. But unlike the fishing story, where Jesus walks by them and he says, “Follow me”, here we have Jesus walking by, and they seem to decide on their own to follow him. I wondered when I read it, whether John had told lots of things about Jesus to his disciples prior to this encounter. Maybe they had discussed the meaning of what John called Jesus, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”  Perhaps he had said, if you get the chance, go with him, follow him.

For whatever the reason, that is what they do. And for them, it is the beginning of a life of following Christ, and of bringing new followers along. Their lives were changed forever, as they answered his call, and took on the challenge Jesus gave them – to “come and see”, which is more than just passive observing, but is an invitation to come along, to hang out with him, to follow him along the road of his ministry.

And they experienced first hand that Jesus wasn’t staying anywhere, that he didn’t stay still, but he kept on moving on the path of ministry. Jesus brought along a group of 12 disciples who were not prepared, skilled or trained for what was to come.  They were fisherman, not rabbis, or Pharisees, or lawyers (which meant those trained in the law of the Torah). But their life work became obedience to God, using their speech and knowledge and God-given gifts to serve the Lord by loving one another. They answered God’s call, they dedicated their lives, to the best of their abilities.

The reading we heard this morning from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians was the introduction of a letter that addresses the divisions among them, and redirects them to unity. The introduction is filled with words of assurance about their ability to live their lives in community and in response to God’s call. You have everything you need, he tells them. You have speech and knowledge of every kind. You have numerous personal testimonies, based on the ways you have experienced God’s work in your life. These provide confidence to you and to those who hear you. You are not lacking in any spiritual gift, Paul tells them.

And you have the grace of God. You have unearned favor from God, which has nothing whatsoever to do with who you are as a person or the sins you have done, or the sins you will do.

We have the assurance and the confidence that God is faithful, and so we can live in God’s love and we can share it with others freely.

We know that the fear we feel is not of God, and that God will walk us through that fear to a place of hope, if we are willing to come along, to come and see.

This week we remember Martin Luther King Jr, and what he did for our nation, the great sacrifice he made to make us a better nation, a better people. Dr. King knew firsthand that God was faithful, and that enabled him to step out in faith and do the work to which he was called.

But it didn’t come easy.

Well before the March on Washington, or his “I have a Dream” speech, there was a defining moment for Martin Luther King, Jr. And it came past midnight, in a kitchen, at 309 South Jackson Street, in Montgomery, Alabama. Dr. King was 27 years old, two years into his role as pastor of nearby Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Over the prior month, Dr. King had been called by God, through his fellow pastors, to lead the Montgomery bus boycott. This was a decision that set off a series of death threats delivered by mail and phone to his home — as many as 30 to 40 calls daily, often at night. Normally, Martin could put the phone down and go back to sleep. But one call, on the night of January 27, 1956, stood out.

As his wife, Coretta, and 10-week-old daughter, Yolanda, slept in the master bedroom nearby, the voice on the other end of the line started off by calling him that terrible, offensive “N” word, and said: “We’re tired of your mess. And if you aren’t out of this town in three days, we’re going to blow up your house and blow your brains out.”

Dr. King hung up without comment, as had become his custom.

Threatening phone calls had become a daily routine in the weeks of the protests, and Martin had tried to brush them off at first. In recent days, however, the threatening phone calls had started to take a toll, increasing in number to thirty or forty a day and growing in their menacing intent.

Unwelcome thoughts prey on the mind in the late hours, and Martin found himself overcome with fear. When he spoke about it later, he said, "I got out of bed and began to walk the floor. I had heard these things before, but for some reason that night it got to me.

Stirred into wakefulness, Dr. King made a pot of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. "I felt myself faltering," he said. It was as though the violent undercurrents of the protest rushed in upon him with heightened force, and he surveyed the turbulent waters for a way of escape, searching for an exit point between courage and convenience – "a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward" – and he found none. "I was ready to give up," he said.

Dr. King thought of his baby daughter sleeping in her crib, of her "little gentle smile," and of Coretta, who had sacrificed her music career, according to the expectation of the Baptist pastor's wife, to follow her husband south. For the first time, he grasped the seriousness of his situation, the inescapable fact that his family could be taken away from him any minute, or more likely he from them. He felt himself reeling within, as the Psalmist had said, his soul "melted because of trouble, at wit's end." "I felt myself . . . growing in fear," said Dr. King.

Sitting at his kitchen table sipping the coffee, Martin’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden notion that at once intensified his desperation and clarified his options. "Something said to me, 'You can't call on Daddy now, you can't call on Mama. You've got to call on that something in that person that your daddy used to tell you about, that power that can make a way out of no way.'" With his head now buried in his hands, Dr. King bowed over the kitchen table, over the coffee cup, and prayed aloud. He said:

Lord, I'm down here trying to do what's right. I still think I'm right. I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But Lord, I must confess that I'm weak now, I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage. Now, I am afraid. And I can't let the people see me like this because if they see me weak and losing my courage, they will begin to get weak. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone.

As he prayed alone in the silent kitchen, Martin heard a voice saying, "Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you. Even until the end of the world." Then Martin heard the voice of Jesus. "I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No never alone. No never alone.  He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone."

And as the voice washed over the stains of the wretched caller, Dr. King reached a spiritual shore beyond fear and apprehension. "I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before," he said. "Almost at once my fears began to go," Dr. King said of the midnight flash of illumination and resolve. "My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything."

As he prayed, and placed his fear into God’s hands, Dr. King realized that God is faithful, regardless of the nature of the call, of the risk involved. He did not believe the risk was any less. As he said, he was ready to face anything. Like the disciples were.  Like Christ was, for us and for our salvation.

God is faithful.

Answering the call of God, dedicating your life to it, this is significant. Leading people to see God more clearly, love God more dearly, follow God more nearly, this is a life changing call.

We are ordaining and installing ruling elders and deacons today, leaders in governance, care and compassion for the congregation of New Life Presbyterian Church. Some are entering into roles they have not held before. Others are coming back to continue serving God by helping lead the congregation. All are answering a call, an invitation from Christ to “come and see”, to come along, to explore, to discover, to be transformed.

It’s a challenging call. They are signing on to help us become a new community, one that moves past the differences we feel as east and west – and into New Life. It is daunting sometimes.

We dwell in fear and uncertainty here sometimes.

We create fear and uncertainty for one another here sometimes.

We still sin, we are all still broken people.

But they know, as we know, that God is faithful. And God is merciful – so thanks be to God, we don’t get what we deserve, in response to our sin. And God is gracious – so we get far more than we ever deserve in love and care, in compassion and hope. In New Life.

So as we ordain and install and commit ourselves to supporting and working with these humble servants today, let us do so in the certain knowledge that God has plans for NLPC, plans yet to be revealed, and God is faithful.

Thanks to Charles Marsh / beliefnet.org for MLK Jr story.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2005/01/Receiving-The-Call.aspx?p=1#