Auditions. I’ve been active in Grand Rapids theatre for the last 20 years and that involves lots and lots of auditions. For me, that means a great deal of preparation in order to present myself as the best possible person for the role I want. I check out a script from the theatre weeks in advance. I study the role, and the relationship the person has to the other people in the play. If dialect is required, I brush up on one already acquired or watch You Tube videos to learn a new one. I read the script out loud to get a sense of what is going on and who this character is, and what they want. It’s all about putting my best foot forward so that the director can see that I am clearly the best qualified actress for this role, and without a doubt, the most talented actress in all of Grand Rapids. I deserve this role. That’s the narrative in my head, anyway.
It’s a different story when I’m asked to do something I’m really not qualified to do. My husband has prepared our income tax forms for years, but this year we decided it would be good for me to learn how to do it. I mean, I don’t even balance our checkbook….ever. I can’t add in my head and the times tables deserted me around junior high. (Are they even called the “times tables” any more??) I procrastinated, dragging my feet, coming up with lame reasons to do it another day. Clearly Bob is more talented in this area. He fixes my financial calculations all the time. How could I expect to do this? The story in my mind in this setting was that my incompetence would certainly disqualify me.
There are many stories in the Bible of people with the same narrative in their heads. Clearly unqualified. Yet, God steps in. Jacob, the trickster, becomes a great patriarch. Moses, slow of speech and tongue, speaks of release before the great Pharaoh. Gideon, from the weakest clan and the least in his family, ends up defeating the Midianites. Scared Peter heads up the church, a lowly girl becomes the mother of Jesus, and a broken woman inhabited by demons gets to tell the disciples of the risen Christ. Evidently God has a thing for inept, broken people. But I know that if I thought I was qualified to do what God was asking of me, I’d probably take some (all) of the credit. I’d deserve the credit. (See audition paragraph above.) But it is Christ living out his life in us that qualifies us and empowers us for what God asks of us—only Christ.
In her book Accidental Saints, Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber relates the story of the time she addressed a Lutheran teen convention. She told the attendees many of her own flaws—she had a past of alcoholism, drug abuse, lying, and stealing. Then she relates that she went on to say this:
I told them that is this a God who has always used imperfect people, that this is a God who walked among us and who ate with all the wrong people and kissed lepers. I told them that this is a God who rose from the dead and grilled fish on the beach with his friends and then ascended into heaven and is especially present to us in the most offensively ordinary things: wheat, wine, water, words. I told them that this God has never made sense. And you don’t need to either, because this God will use you, this God will use all of you, and not just your strengths, but your failures and your failings. Your weakness is fertile ground for a forgiving God to make something new and to make something beautiful, so don’t ever think that all you have to offer are your gifts.
This is where God meets us. We could not possibly do what God wants of us on our own. But the God who knows us, who formed us, who gives us the breath we breathe, qualifies us for what lies ahead through Jesus and his redeeming love and sacrifice. All we can say is “Thanks be to God!”
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:9
[Sandy Navis is happily retired and spends her days doing pretty much whatever she wants to do. She is a firm believer in the power of laughter, singing while doing the dishes, crazy dancing while cleaning house, and eating chocolate every day. Sandy has three grandkids, who she loves to talk about even more than breadmaking.]
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