A question of identity

For clergy and church workers:

Ecclesiastes 3:9-11

The God-Given Task

What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Who are we?

Without our buildings

Without the paraphernalia

and trappings

of our role,

Who are we?

Without the ceaseless round 

of meetings

and admin,

of services

and visits

Who are we?

Without the busyness

and the status

we are often conferred?

Who are we? 

When we have to stay home.

When we are not in control

When everything is being done remotely

or not at all?

Who are we?

Without touch

With relationships maintained

at a distance

Maybe... just maybe

we are simply 

who God created us to be

Beloved

Fearfully and wonderfully made

Vulnerable beings

with whom God craves intimacy

Such knowledge

might save us the agony

of trying to fill the space

with work created

out of fear and uncertainty

and enable us

to be enfolded in God

Who are we?

Beloved of God

created, loved and called

for such a time as this.