Your Mission, should you choose to accept it

No doubt you'll laugh when I say that being Mandated to provide coffee hour at my church is like being Asked to be sit on the church Board of Trustees when everyone runs the other way, is like being Commanded to carry Jesus' cross on Via Dolorosa, is like being Called to preach the punishment of the house of Eli.

You can laugh, but first let me back track: This past week, an announcement was sent out to the members in our congregation saying that a sign up sheet would be available for volunteers who wanted to provide refreshments for our after-worship Coffee Hour. We were also told that if we did not sign up, we would all be assigned dates on which we were responsible for providing refreshments for said after-worship coffee hour. After being involuntarily signed up, it is our duty to check the calendar to see when we needed to provide refreshments, and swap dates with a substitute if we "can't make it the week assigned." We were told that if everything worked out, "each family or pair" would only need to do this twice a year.

Coffee Hour in our church used to be a fun affair. We celebrated many birthdays, met with many guests and visitors, and ate a lot of great food (and a fair share of bad coffee). Sometimes coffee hour blossoms into a full-on 3-course lunch. Other times, we satisfy our taste buds with donuts cut in half. Regardless of what's offered at the table, Coffee Hour served up fellowship -- spiritual and physical nourishment for the weary soul.

Because of this, I believe strongly that Coffee Hour (in all its manisfestations) in any church ought to be a voluntary ministry of the people of the church. If the people in church find coffee hour an important ministry deemed good and beneficial for fellowshipping, then we need to do it -- graciously, willingly, unreservedly. Coffee Hour is a time to gather after we have worshiped together and greet one another, to inquire about each other's lives and work, to welcome new guests, and to visit with old friends; for many of us, it is the weekly time (in between worship and meetings) when we get to renew our acquaintances and inquire about each other's well-being.

When you think about it, isn't the table set up during Coffee Hour an extension of Christ's Open Table set out for all, to welcome all to celebrate the Love Feast? Is that not a way of opening ourselves up to partake of God's Love through food that nourishes the body and the spirit, to build community?

Seems to me you take all that away if you start assigning people dates. I wonder, if some people didn't want to volunteer to bring refreshments, you think assigning a date to them is going to help change their mind and spirit? And after you assign them a date, you tell them they need to check the calendar to know when to bring the refreshments that they didn't want to bring in the first place.

I don't know about you, but that is not a love feast set out with open hearts. Whatever that will be served certainly will not be served with sweetness and kindness. If the church believes this is an important aspect of our community, then perhaps the church budget should dedicate $50 bucks for coffee and donuts each Sunday.

I haven't even started talking about the unseemliness of putting such an announcement in our church bulletin. The language did not sit right with me. I believe strongly that anyone who feels like they're a part of the church family would want to join in Coffee Hour. If they do not, there must be a reason, and whatever the reason, we should not be printing such messages of "mandatory volunteerism" in places where our guests and visitors unfamiliar with our church traditions and customs might find confusing, strange, even ridiculously presumptuous. Might a visitor read the message as saying "Join our church and you're assigned this task whether or not you like it"? What else does it say about the way we do things at this church? What does it say about how we communicate (or not) with one another? What is this business of "telling it slant"?

And, yet. (Here's where I'm trying to speak to the other part of me.) Isn't being a member of Christ's family sometimes a little bit like being coerced into doing something you were originally unwilling to do? Yes, Christ's table is open for all to come and partake, but once you've partaken, baby, you're taken. There's no going back. You've started something that sometimes might leave you out of control. Whether you like it or not. (Yes, I'm skirting the issue of free will here, but let's just leave it there for the moment.)

I'm on the fence about this little issue, and I can't seem to decide one way or another how I feel. Like it, or not. Sometimes, it's not. I'm not sure why contributing to coffee hour has not been on my radar. (It has something to do with being a single, young professionals who is poor.) But I have contributed to Coffee Hour, and when I do, I do it wholeheartedly b/c I want to. Not because I'm forced to. Not because I want to impress them (though all the moms like to scuttle around and ooh and aahh that a single young woman can cook). Because I have a choice.

But, some say, isn't it more of a sacrifice if you do something that you don't really want to do? (I can't tell you how often I've heard "this is what it means to be a Christian making sacrifices." Puh-lease.)

This Sunday's lectionary includes I Samuel 3, in which good ol' Sam is called by Yahweh in the middle of the night for a secret message. This is not, my friends, a visit from the Tooth Fairy in which you get a shiny new coin beneath your pillow. Take away the over-whelming awesomeness of being called by name by God and you have to face the fact that little Sam is entrusted with the awe-ful task of revealing the vision of punishment and destruction dealt to the house of Eli, his teacher, guardian, master, father figure, what have you. He's called to say "ahem, your house has been marked by Yahweh." Not a pretty Calling. Not a mission that any boy, good or bad, young or old, could take lightly. All night Sam laid there, and with the morning coming on, he still was afraid of his task, afraid to speak his vision, to complete his assignment. He could not delay the inevitable forever. Even if he did not complete his assignment, the truth of God's vision would still be fulfilled. He had no choice but to speak.

Now take Mission Impossible: At the beginning of every tv show episode (and then movie), there's a mission that is assigned to a special agent or team. After every assignment is discussed, the agent or team is told they will be disavowed if they are caught. It's a mere t.v. show or blockbuster movie, but the idea is intriguing: When being called to a mission of jeopardy, when it is impossible, and might even fail, though you may not like it, and though you may want to reject it, the question remains unchanged, "should you choose to accept it."

It is not with a little embarrassment that I say I'm upset about the coffee hour assignments. Not because I don't want to bring refreshments (I make a mean Thai Dessert!). It's that there seemed to be very little choice, perhaps none at all. I'm not Moses or Abraham. I'm not Esther or Elizabeth or even the young rich man asked to sell all his possessions. And I know that sometimes when asked by God you do not bargain as if you have a choice. But, maybe, just maybe, I'll be petulant and demand that unless I, too, get my directives from God (preferably in a great booming voice) I don't want to be assigned anything as if I supposedly volunteered to do something I don't want to. And definitely not in the weekly newsletter.

(Oh alright, just so you don't think I'm merely a complainer, I eventually did sign up for Coffee Hour. For Father's Day.)