Some are called to service, some to preaching, some to politics. Bill Haley feels he has been called upon to help others discern just how God is calling to them. The 42-year-old ordained pastor is an associate rector at the Falls Church and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, where he writes and teaches about how to connect faith with daily work. He spoke with The Washington Examiner about his own beliefs and how they have led him to work in some of the world’s most broken places. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a Christian. I appreciate most that it is a faith in a God that is real, personal, powerful, active, and full of love. God so loves us, and the world, that he did and does something about it, and invites us to be a part of that, too. It’s a faith that is full of hope, dignity and, when properly practiced, compassion.
Did anyone, or any event, especially influence your faith, or your path in life?
I heard Mother Teresa speak at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994. She changed my life. She talked about loving Jesus by loving the poor, and seeking union with God in the heart of the world. About a year and a half later, I went to Calcutta to meet her and volunteer with her work. Her example changed me. Or more accurately, the presence of Jesus in her changed me.
Jesus says that he is, in some way, powerfully present in people on the margins — and that touching them is like touching Jesus. I had a powerful sense of that with the work in Calcutta — I got to love Jesus by loving this emaciated, dying person. Somehow, I was in his presence. The image of God is in everybody — everybody. And somehow, in trying to love those who can’t do anything for you, you’re loving them only for love’s sake. And somehow that opens our eyes to God.
Christians sometimes feel stuck between the belief that God is with us as we muddle through imperfect lives, and the belief that faith requires us to live better lives. How do you find the balance?
The answer lies in both. Yes, God is with us, loving us in our imperfect lives. And yes, faith calls us to live more. That invitation of faith is not one to inspire guilt, but rather an invitation not to settle for less than we can be, or less than God invites us to be — for our own sake, and for the sake of others.
The great news is, when we don’t live up to our own standards, let alone God’s, he’s there to forgive us, and keep on walking with us, and help us be who we ourselves actually want to be. I don’t want ever to forget grace, or to forget that grace is not a license to coast.
What can you tell people who say that the search for one’s vocation, or calling, is a luxury not offered to us all?
This is where most people live, actually, without the luxury of a perfect match between their vocation and occupation. The good news is that everyone still can be faithful to the deepest vocation that comes to us all — the calling to love those who are in our lives. God is love, God made us to be like him. To love is to be faithful. There’s also great dignity in providing for ourselves, and those entrusted to our care. To work to get paid is honorable, all the more when it’s hard. And most work, in some way, connects to something to which God is very committed — human flourishing. Hard work outside of one’s area of passion so that children can be cared for, for example, is profoundly honorable and beautiful. Sometimes we need to thoughtfully consider how the work we’re doing, whatever it is, contributes to human flourishing.
At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs?
I still feel like I’m only at the beginning of understanding this, but I believe that God is love, and that God has made us to be like him. That means that we have to be love, too — or rather, that we get to be. The more deeply we understand this, the more our life begins to take on more richness, more color.
– Leah Fabel
