You and I are called to follow Christ, proclaim God’s love with our lives, and we help each other both hear that call and live it.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 14 B
Texts: Mark 6:1-13; Ezekiel 2:1-5; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
As recruiting pitches go, these stories are pretty bad.
If God’s Word today means to call us to serve God, follow the path of Christ, and proclaim God’s love with our lives, these stories are pretty counterproductive to that goal.
Ezekiel is called to speak God’s Word to people God calls “impudent, stubborn, and rebellious.” There’s a good chance, God says, they won’t listen. Paul today says his service to Christ is filled with “weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities.” Seriously, he was stoned nearly to death for proclaiming Christ. And Jesus, with a near total rejection in his hometown that limited his divine abilities, sends out followers in pairs to do the same job, clearly instructing them what to do if they’re also rejected.
It’s important not to oversell a recruiting pitch. But you and I could be excused for walking away from today’s readings thinking, “thanks, but no thanks. Not the job for me.”
But we could also say we’ve not heard a call as clearly as these.
When was the last time you heard God’s actual voice calling to you, as Ezekiel did? Paul met Christ on the road to Damascus, who set him on his way. And these initial twelve were sent out by Jesus himself, God-with-us. Maybe they faced hardship and rejection, but at least they heard their calls clearly.
Those of us who’ve been Christian our whole lives, and maybe even those who came to faith later, likely say in this age that our sense of faith isn’t attached to God’s direct voice calling. Most of us don’t get visions. We rarely claim to hear God’s actual voice, and these days that might lead you to seek medical care rather than the road of discipleship.
So are these readings at all meaningful to us today? Since most of us don’t share a call story like these, and most haven’t had major setbacks and persecution because of our discipleship, maybe we’re off the hook.
But God is supposed to speak to us through Scripture, to lead us to faith and life in Christ. So don’t climb off that hook just yet.
Maybe it’s a question of how we listen for God’s call.
What are you looking for? What do you need to feel God has called you to follow Christ and proclaim Christ to the world in word and deed?
Now, this may actually distract from that question. But my call to ordained ministry was nothing like these calls today. In high school I thought medical school might be a path. But then I considered what I was good at and loved to do. I wanted to help people, and had gifts for that. But I felt I’d struggle if, as a doctor, I couldn’t save someone. I loved my church and serving in the liturgy, and the whole community of faith. I found theology exciting. I was good at public speaking. So simply on practical terms, I decided I should be a pastor. It wasn’t until years later I could say with confidence it was a call from God.
Here’s why that’s distracting: we’re not talking about career calls today. My call to Word and Sacrament ministry is no different from calls any of you have received that led you to a certain career path or life choice. All jobs, paid or not, are holy vocations, Luther taught us.
What God’s Word today is asking is much more important: how am I called, as Joseph, to be Christ in the world, beyond my paid job? And how are you called that way?
But I shared that story for the process.
I didn’t expect nor receive a vision. I didn’t think I’d hear God’s voice speak aloud. It was just practical.
And maybe that’s how we could think about our life in Christ God might seek in us, since most of us won’t have a dramatic experience like so many in Scripture.
What do you see in yourself? Are you good at some things that others aren’t? Are there things you understand and care about more than other things? Are your passions drawn to certain problems in the world? Do you have wealth you could share? Some way that you might weigh your wealth against the needs of the world, as Paul talked about last week? Do you have time that you could give to something? What if you put all this information together, along with anything else you can think of? What do you then hear from God?
Theologian Frederick Buechner describes it this way: “The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. … The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”[1] The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
So each of us has some listening to do.
And let’s at least address the poor recruiting pitch.
It’s true that if you live as Christ you might get pushback from others, feel threatened, have to let go of things you’ve clung to tightly. Jesus never said that we’d have it easy. He talked about sacrificial love. He modeled vulnerability to others, even those who are evil. He called us to love our enemies and pray for them. If you and I listen, and hear, and then follow, sure, there will be hard consequences.
But since when is this an easy world to live in? We’ve got setbacks and challenges of all kinds. Not being Christ in the world doesn’t change that. Playing it safe with our wealth or time, holding onto prejudices and biases, ignoring the pain of our neighbors, doesn’t ensure a safe and happy life.
But the witness of people of Christ through the ages is there is a joy and peace and hope that comes with following, even in adversity. A sense you are part of God’s healing love that leads you through all circumstances. Following Christ might be hard, but living in this world is hard. And in following, the joy of the Spirit lives in you and fills you with peace from God and hope for the world.
And remember: we’re in this together.
We help each other listen, and see gifts and abilities in each other. We don’t serve Christ alone. None of us has all the answers we need, all the resources, all the patience, all the endurance and strength, all the vision. But in this grace of our community, together we can be a wonder of Christ’s healing in this world.
So listen for where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. And let’s each help each other listen, because God is calling. Together, we’ll also help each other live into that calling, until God’s hope for the world’s healing comes to be.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
[1] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, Harper and Row, 1973, pp. 118-119.
