Wednesday Words
October 4, 2023

"Being Rejected"
Pastor Mack Patrick, Northern Illinois Synod

Rejected. 

“You can’t be a pastor if…”

“Unfortunately, we have chosen to go with a different candidate.”

“You didn’t get the votes.”

Those are just a sample of the phrases I heard during a span of 555 days in 2018 and 2019. It was in the 555 days that my name ended up in numerous congregations across 6 synods. It was in those 555 days that I made it to the first round of interviews less times than I would like. It was in those 555 days that I waited on pins and needles twice to hear how a vote went.

The first time I waited, I began dreaming. Dreaming of my ordination day, of the joy that will come when finally, a bishop would proclaim, “Let it be acclaimed…” I began to look at places to live, dream about the adventures I would have.

Those dreams were shattered on Palm Sunday in 2019, it was the day of the congregational vote. The day that would result in me not getting the 2/3 vote needed to be called. It was the day that not only did I feel rejected by this seemingly loving community, but I felt rejected by the church.

Feeling rejected, is much different than being rejected. When I first heard the news, I shut down. How could the thing I love, the place I am called, reject me? How could I trust the intuition I was called to when it ripped my heart out time and time again?

This week, our Gospel is one of pain, it’s a reminder that no matter where we are, or who we are, someone out there will hurt us. But that’s the thing I have learned in the 1,489 days since I have been ordained, being rejected by others, by the church, by our work, doesn’t mean we are rejected by God.

It’s easy to feel that when we are rejected by the people we love, the thing we throw our entire life into, that we are being rejected by God, that we are being told to give up and to do something different, something easy.

It has been in the last 1,489 days that I have come to understand that my rejection in those 555 days, wasn’t God rejecting me. It was the fragilities of human nature, the fears that one hold even when they don’t realize it. The church, in the small c form, rejected me but thankfully our God is bigger than that small c church.

The rejection we face in our daily lives, invites us to wonder about what God is doing in the world and in our life. These last 1,489 days has taught me that those 555 days were hard, but God never left me, God never rejected me.

I hope you join us on Sunday to hear the promise of God, the promise that is in the broken body, that rejection may be there, but we are never rejected by the one who made us.