By Nicole Sotelo

Sotelo gave this keynote address during WOC's Post Conference Leadership Course, which followed the Second Women's Ordination Worldwide Conference in Ottawa, Canada.

Good morning. I am so happy to be here. Here amongst women and men called by God. Called by a God who yearns for us to respond with those ancient, holy words, “Here I am.” A God who desires us to discern and answer our call with the whole of our lives, with our deepest, sacred “yes.”

And each one of us is called, called to Church leadership. For we are the church, and every one of us is called to take part in building up the body of Christ, the human family—whether that be in the field of religion, art, education, parenting, healing, government, writing, and more.

We have been called to more than just the current sacramental vocations of marriage or religious life. God’s calling and our capacity to respond goes beyond simply two categories. Each one of us is called by God to say “yes” to the diverse gifts we have been given.

And yet we comprise a church in which some members of the hierarchy do not want us to say “yes” to God’s calling. Instead of welcoming our gifts, many church leaders say “no” to our calls. “No” to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who feel called by God to love. “No” to men and women who feel called by God to a renewed model of church leadership. “No” to healing professionals who feel called to save lives by passing out contraception. Our Church hierarchy asks us to say “no” to the gifts we have been given, to the suffering in our communities, they ask us to say “no”…to God.

This is intolerable. And it is spiritually and physically dangerous. But those of us gathered here today, have refused to tell God “no.” Whether you have worked for justice in our church and world for one day or one lifetime, you have chosen to say, “Yes.” “Here I am. And here we are. We are ready to walk in Christ’s footsteps. We are ready to walk in the footsteps of all your sacred people. For you have called us by name and we are listening.”

And I know those of you in this room have listened and responded to our call to be holy and just people as best as we know how. And I thank you. As a young woman in the church, I appreciate every work of your hand and squeeze of the heart you have poured into transforming our church and society. However, I worry for my generation and those after me. In twenty or thirty years when those who knew Vatican II have passed from our presence, who will comprise our church? Where will its focus be? I wish I knew. But I do know that as we continue to work as the body of Christ in this world, the only thing about which we can be certain is that we must discern, discern how we are to live our lives as just and holy people. So today, may we take this time together to renew our commitment to listening to our call and to responding with the fullness of our lives. Our church and our world depend on our discernment. They depend on our ability to answer with our sacred “yes.”

But how do we discern our calls to Church leadership? How do we exercise leadership in the body of Christ in its diverse and manifold ways of healing, teaching, loving? It is something I often wonder myself.

And, so, this morning, we have set aside time to renew our commitment to discernment, as individuals and as a movement, and I offer all of us a short reflection, or refresher course, if you will, on some history and practices of discernment that will help us as we continue the discernment journey in our lives. What is important to note is that no theologian or biblical scholar has found the key to perfect discernment. Indeed, there is not one specific way that we are called nor one particular reflection process to be used. However, I will highlight three considerations or characteristics that appear repeatedly in our Christian tradition and in theological reflections on discernment. These three are, quite broadly, attentiveness to the Spirit, attentiveness to ourselves, and attentiveness to our communities. These three characteristics remind us where to look when we seek to understand how to live our lives.

The first characteristic, quite simply and quite profoundly, is attentiveness to and discernment of the Spirit or spirits.

This phrase “discernment of spirits” is a traditional step in the discernment process and it comes to us from Paul’s writings in first Corinthians. He believes that the Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts. We are to use the gifts we have been given but we need help in discerning what gifts are truly from God. For Paul, the way to distinguish what gifts are from God is to measure them against the mark of community building. He believes those gifts that build up the body of Christ must be from God. Paul wanted unity of the early Christian communities and, according to him, that which would disrupt the body of Christ could not be from God.

But Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza reminds us that a simple hope for unity is not the only measure of God’s word. In her book, “Wisdom Ways,” she does not erase Paul’s notion that building the body of Christ is important. But she helps us to discern what body of Christ we are building. She uses the metaphor of a hermeneutical dance, or a way of interpretation, that includes using one’s critical faculties of suspicion, evaluation, etc. when discerning God’s word. With these additional discernment steps, not only are we able to build a community, as Paul had hoped, but we are also able to build a community whose unity and boundaries are not dictated simply by those in power.

So when we discern with this first characteristic of attentiveness to the Spirit, we must not only discern the spirits or gifts that will build the body of Christ as dictated by a church hierarchy. We must also ensure that the body of Christ we are building celebrates the diversity of the gifts that the spirit brings. It is to this body of Christ that we are called and to this body of Christ that we may genuinely respond “yes.”

Now, a second characteristic of discernment is that we must be attentive to ourselves, our very human selves. Because it is within our own flesh and blood that the Spirit speaks to us and helps us to discern how to live out our call within human bodies. None of this stuff about separation between spirit and flesh. The discernment process is an embodied process. I find it so beautiful. We must be attentive to ourselves, our very bodies, if we are to truly hear God’s word. This is so important for those of us who too often sacrifice ourselves in unhealthy ways in the name of God’s call. Even theologians, in part, recognize this. The theologian Frederick Schleiermacher reminds us that we may use our own inner feelings to understand God’s call. And Thomas Aquinas believed that our human reason, although not enough by itself, assists us in understanding God’s word. Indeed, as mentioned before, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza teaches that part of discernment is using our human heads and hearts to interpret our church and callings through the hermeneutic dance that keeps us from simply blindly following hierarchical leaders. So in order to discern, we must pay attention to those tears we cry when the church has hurt us. We must not let go of our reasonable doubts and our anger at injustice. For it is human emotion and intelligence, our very bodies, that we have been given in order to discern.

A lovely example of this second characteristic of discernment comes to us from the book of Exodus. When we take a good look at the story, we see that Moses already had many of the gifts embodied within him that he would need to seek justice with the Israelites. First of all, Moses felt angry at the injustice being done against his people and didn’t try to suppress his strong emotions. Although, unfortunately, he expressed his anger through violence. I suppose he had not yet heard of civil disobedience! After killing an Egyptian in anger, Moses fled to the wilderness and appeared to be simply minding his own business, but, you’ll remember, his business was minding flocks of sheep. You see, Moses already had most of what he needed in his very human life in order to lead the Israelites. First, he used his emotions and felt angry at the injustice he witnessed and, then, he finds himself gifted as…a pastor. In pasturing his sheep, he was doing ministry through care for the earth’s creatures. So when we see this story with new eyes, we discover that God calls Moses’ attention to Moses himself, to the gifts he already possesses. Moses knows how to call out oppression, and from his pasturing, he knows how to guide, to care, to seek out the lost and forgotten ones and to bring them home again. Just as he, later, would guide and care for the Israelites suffering in oppressive Egypt and, help bring them back home…to God. Now, the Israelites were definitely not sheep and Moses wasn’t always a perfect leader, but Moses was able to use his gifts to assist with the exodus. What a beautiful reminder that the Divine has equipped each individual with emotion, reason and skill to do the work of justice and to discover the Promised Land.

So when we discern with this second characteristic, we turn our attention to ourselves so that we may see the gifts we already posses and respond with our very bodies as we step closer to the Promised Land, a land that begins by answering our call with that sacred “yes.”

The third and final characteristic of discernment to which I will draw our attention this morning is that of community. In order to discern we must be attentive to our communities and the signs of our times. Theologian James Cone tells us that discernment of God’s word begins with attentiveness to communities of the oppressed and takes place within the crux of human suffering. It is here that we may understand the grave seriousness and urgency of the task to which God calls us.

One of the best examples for this third characteristic of discernment, comes from our own prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, it is injustice and suffering within Jesus’ own community that called him into ministry. Often the 40 days in the wilderness are pointed to as a time of his discernment. However, if we read the Gospel of Mark, the oldest gospel we have, we find that it is Jesus’ community that also calls him into ministry. The text reads that Jesus, “was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him” (Mark 1:13). But then, the next line reads: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near” (Mark 1: 14-15). It was only after John was arrested that Jesus enters the city to begin his ministry. It was John’s wrongful jailing that stirs Jesus to proclaim God’s kingdom. Yes, perhaps Jesus discerned while he was alone in the wilderness but he also discerned when and where to act according to his community and the suffering he knew from his cousin’s arrest. It is through his community that he discerns his call.

We must also note that it is our communities that remind us that our calls shift and change. An example of this comes again from Jesus’ own life. As you will recall, he initially thought he was meant to lead a renewal in his own Jewish tradition. But later, Jesus meets a Syrophoenician woman in his travels. She reminds him that the gentiles need his message and touch of healing just as much as the Jews. I imagine Jesus smacking his head and saying, “of course, why didn’t I think of that.” But it was a woman in the community that helped Jesus to realize the fullness of his call. He needed to be in relationship with a woman to understand how to do his ministry. How I wish the Vatican was listening to this story! Nevertheless, it is a story for us all, a reminder that we must not only discern as individuals, but within relationships, within community. It is not enough to only say, “Here I am, God” But we must also respond, “Here we are.”

And the last point I will emphasize about this third characteristic of discernment and community is that it must be done within our contemporary setting. Jesus always discerned his call through, with and for his particular community and culture. We must do the same today. As Christians, we no longer have crucifixes where people are put to death, but where are our death chambers today? We do not have Gehenna which was the garbage dump of biblical times and often a metaphor for hell, but where are our modern day gahennas? And Jesus saved a woman about to be stoned. Who are the women in our very midst who are about to be stoned today?

So, this third characteristic of discernment reminds us that we need to turn out attention to our communities, particularly those of injustice and deep suffering. It is only then that we may know how desperately we are needed to respond with a wide and deep “yes.”

In summary, we have these three characteristics of discernment that aid us in knowing how to live our lives: attentiveness to the Spirit, attentiveness to ourselves and the gifts we already possess and, finally, attentiveness to our communities and the signs of our times within them.

Being attentive to these areas, however, is not always easy and discernment is something that takes place over a lifetime. Some of my favorite words on this topic come from a quote I shared at a liturgy when Ida Raming, one of the first seven women ordained, came to Boston. Written by Jill Ruckelshaus, it reminds us of the difficulty of the quest for a just world and a new kindom. She says:

We are in for a very, very long haul.

I am asking for everything you have to give.

We will never give up.

You will lose your youth, your sleep,

Your patience, your sense of humor,

And occasionally the understanding and support of people that you love very much.

In return, I have nothing to offer you,

But your pride in being a woman,

And all the dreams you ever had for your daughters, and nieces, and granddaughters

Your future and the certain knowledge that at the end of your days you will be able to look back and say that once in your life you gave everything you had for justice.

Indeed, we are called to give everything we have for justice, for a renewed world, for our call. If we are Christians, we are to follow Christ’s example and to spend our lives doing the work of healing and justice in all the beautifully diverse ways that the Spirit has gifted us.

And so as we go forward today, let us renew our commitment to discerning the Spirit in our individual and collective lives, through our very human bodies and through our culture and communities. May we dare to challenge Church and societal leaders who ask us to say “no” to our call. And may we continue the tradition of a long-line of holy justice-seekers who courageously respond to the call of the world with the whole of their being, who respond with their deepest, sacred “yes.”