How do I know my calling?

“How do I know my calling?”

Sermon for July 18, 2004, Proper 11-C

St. Luke’s Church, Jamestown

Eric Williams

I. Scriptures (Full texts available here.)

Genesis 18:1-10a

Abraham is visited by three men/angels and shows them hospitality. Then he and Sarah are blessed with the promise of a son.

Psalm 15

Description of godly person

Colossians 1:15-28

Call exemplified by Paul to: (1)believe in Jesus, (2)suffer on behalf of the church, (3)make the word of God fully known by proclaiming, warning and teaching

Luke10:38-42

Call to avoid being “distracted by many things” and to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen.

II. Sermon

This Spring we officially inaugurated a discernment process at St. Luke’s called “Answering God’s Call.” The wardens, vestry and I feel that this is an important moment at St. Luke’s and that we need to refocus ourselves and pay special attention to where God is leading us. We are looking back at our wonderful and rich past as a congregation, and we are looking at the community in which we worship and serve. This Fall we will be putting together what we have learned and especially what we have heard God saying to us through our prayerful discernment about where we are headed. Before we could even really discuss where God was calling us, we began to discuss what a calling is. And I was asked to preach about this important topic. I hope this sermon will generate some helpful discussion and reflection on your part. I will make copies available in print and on our web page. And I will also be available downstairs on the stage area of the undercroft after church to discuss it today.

Many examples of calling in the Bible. True calling can come to person or to the community, but usually comes to the community through a person, a prophet, a mouthpiece. Call of God moves us from where we are to where God wants us to be. Involves change, upheaval, repentance. Reminder of covenant relationship. Call is always to return to that covenant, to that relationship with God. Call is inward and outward: inward to holiness of life and outward to discipleship as a member of Christ’s Body the Church.

3 Things Necessary for Answering God’s call: Hard, Harder, Hardest

All three boil down to one thing—hospitality

1) Need to hear it. (HARD)

Abraham heard God’s call to have a child only after he showed hospitality to God’s messengers. Martha was prevented from hearing it by a misguided sense of hospitality. She was so focused on the fact that Jesus was there and getting everything right, that she forgot to be hospitable to the teacher himself. Mary wasn’t being lazy; she was making herself available to Jesus. I think that in the church we often make the same mistake about being hospitable to God and God’s word. Is church about “getting it right” or about experiencing the saving love and presence of God. What if the service goes a little longer than usual? Are we overjoyed to have spent a little more time in God’s presence or frustrated because our schedule got thrown off?

Several things we need to do to be hospitable to God and open to His call:

a. Be still. Take time every day for silent prayer. Come to the chapel. Set apart a space in your house. Go jogging or bicycling. Take a long shower. Sit by the lake. In your busy Martha life, don’t forget to be a Mary once in a while.

b. Be in the Word. The Bible is full of stories about God’s call. It is there we learn how God calls us and what he says. And these are not just stories of the past. God speaks to us today through the Bible. As we read particular passages and stories, they come to life and shed light on our life and reveal God’s will to us. The Bible gives us a faithful and reliable foundation for testing what we are hearing in our own sense of call.

c. Be in worship. This is where we practice listening to God, the discipline of placing ourselves in his presence. This is where we are saturated with God in the readings, prayers, hymns, music and anthems, even sermons. This is where we practice being OPEN to God and let down some of the hard shell we have developed for coping elsewhere.

2) Need to accept it. (HARDER)

Sometimes the hardest to do. Young man who loved Jesus but was unwilling to follow. Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees heard Jesus often, but rejected the message and the messenger. Lot’s wife looked back when heeding the call of the angels to flee Sodom. Jesus has hard words in the Gospel for those who only accept partially or grudgingly: “No one who looks back is worthy of the kingdom.” Accepting the call is the first step to conversion. There is resistance in all of us to God’s call. We are afraid of the demands it places on us, where it might lead us. We want to keep God at arm’s length.

This is where we need help. God has not created us to be spiritual lone rangers. Small groups of trusted friends can provide an essential support and testing ground for us. Over the past few years we have formed discernment groups and a book called “Listening Hearts” to help several parishioners test their sense of vocation and calling. It gives us tremendous support when others can confirm what we are feeling and hearing. And we have to admit we all have the capacity for self-delusion. It can be painful in the short-term, but life saving in the long term when spiritually grounded friends help to steer us off the wrong course. And we need the support of trusted friends when the call of God takes us in a new and frightening direction—when the careful plans we made for life are tossed out the window.

3) Need to respond to it. (HARDEST)

Second step to conversion. Once we are convinced God is speaking to us and reasonably sure of what he is saying, we need to take the last step and act on it. This often puts us in uncharted territory.

We have examples right here today of people who have done some pretty amazing things in seeking to respond to God’s call in a variety of ways:

	Short Mission Trips: Dorothy, Kyle, Brianna, Cathy, Kaitlyn, etc.
	Longer term missionary work: Carrs, Fitzgeralds, Mother Susan, Santanas

(It’s particularly gratifying to have Dan and Debra Fitzgerald with us from Cameroon today. We are midway through a ten year commitment to assist them in their work with the Baka people. It’s great for folks to actually meet folks who otherwise are just names on the weekly prayer list.)

	Theological education: In the past year both Sandra Dower and Virginia Carr have completed theological degrees
	Cathy Basile is working steadily toward ordination as a permanent deacon, and working with deanery churches on a plan for regular and continuing mission work.
	Dan Anderson has persisted in his sense of call to start a Helping Hands ministry and now has enlisted the men’s group to work together with a church in Gerry to meet basic needs of people all over southern Chautauqua County.
	A third group of parishioners will meet with Fr. Ross in the Guild of St. Columba starting this Fall.
	Another group of parishioners has started a contemplative prayer group.
	Another is meeting to pray and plan for ministry to downtown Jamestown.
	This is all in addition to our ongoing ministries like the Thrift Shop and Bishop Overs Guild.

These are all visible and extraordinary responses by some pretty extraordinary people to a calling from God. But we make a mistake if we separate ourselves from them. Everyone here today is extraordinary because everyone here is called and empowered by God. Not every calling works out the way we expect. Sometimes we face obstacles, delays and seeming silence from God. We make mistakes, we stumble, we get embarrassed, but we go on.

Something is happening at St. Luke’s right now. You may not see it yet in a full church on Sunday morning, or lots more kids in Sunday School. God is trying to get through to us, broadcasting on every frequency he can. He is calling us and we are tuning in, slowly, cautiously, but steadily. I hear it and see it in many of the ministries and people I mentioned before. It’s exciting, it’s scary and it’s hard to see exactly where it’s leading.

This Fall, we will be articulating what we believe God is calling us to be and to do at St. Luke’s Parish. One important part of that emerging call is to focus on the helping every member of St. Luke’s hear and answer God’s call in their own life. We will be offering regular courses to help deepen personal faith and regular programs on spiritual gifts. We will be encouraging you to find groups for spiritual support and growth. All of this is aimed at one simple thing—showing hospitality to God and answering his call to grow inwardly in holiness of life and outwardly in our discipleship.

I close today with our collect for parish discernment. Please pray it with me.

Almighty and eternal God, we praise you for your saints who provided us a solid foundation for worship and ministry at St. Luke’s Church. Grant that we may continue and build upon their legacy of concern for our community, appreciation of beauty and generosity, and determination to follow your will. So that we might serve you and all your people, deepen our faith and draw us closer to you; help us to hear your voice in the myriad ways you speak to us; and guide us to perceive within ourselves and in one another the gifts that will accomplish your purposes for St. Luke’s. We ask all this through your Son Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.