Your Call

The scriptures referred to are 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21, Galatians 5:1, 13-25 and Luke 9:51-62.

What's the difference between a job and a calling? You might just fall into a job. You answer an ad or a friend tells you about an opening or you just follow in the footsteps of one of your parents out of familiarity with what they do. A calling is usually a strong attraction to a field or profession. You just feel that this is what you were meant to do. While some people like their jobs, people with a calling feel passionate about what they do. There are a lot of jobs you don't need to be enthusiastic about to carry out, though it helps. But a calling demands a commitment over and above merely punching a time clock and collecting a paycheck. You want your doctor or a special ed teacher or your defense attorney to be more emotionally invested in what they do than the person who bags your groceries.

We have always referred to clergy as having a calling. At least we hope that they entered into the priesthood or pastorate out of a deep sense of mission, rather than as an arbitrary choice of a career. The difference can be seen in the life of John Newton. His father was a shipmaster who took him on 6 voyages. His father had intended for John to work at a sugarcane plantation in Jamaica but John opted to become a sailor on a merchant ship. Eventually he became the captain of a slave ship. But then he became a Christian and slowly came to feel that slavery was not something he could be a part of. In fact later he said he did not consider himself fully converted while a slave captain. After giving up the sea, he felt called to the ordained ministry. He applied to become a priest in the Church of England but it did not happen for more than 7 years and during that time he also applied to the Methodists, Independents and Presbyterians. Not only did he become a popular evangelical priest he became part of the abolition movement. He convinced William Wilberforce to stay in Parliament and worked with him to abolish the slave trade in Britain. He also wrote hymns, the best known of which are “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken” and “Amazing Grace.”

John Newton fell into being a sailor but he felt called to the ordained ministry. He also had problems as a sailor, at one point trying to desert, being flogged for that and seriously considering murdering the captain in revenge and then committing suicide. He got along so badly with the crew of another ship that they stranded him in West Africa. He himself was enslaved until he was rescued by a sea captain who had been asked to find him by Newton's father. John was much more successful as a priest and abolitionist. This was obviously the best use of his gifts.

Our Old and New Testament and Gospel passages today are all about being called. In our passage from 1 Kings Elijah is sent to anoint 2 kings and his successor. In our gospel Jesus calls a number of people who have a variety of responses. And in our passage from Galatians, Paul talks of our being called to freedom in the Spirit.

Though the words in Greek and Hebrew translated “call” have as many different definitions as the English one, today we are primarily speaking of being called in the sense of being invited or summoned by God to serve him. In 1 Kings these people are being called to serve in specific roles, rather the way a person is named to a position today. They are serving God and his people in clearly defined professions.

In Luke Jesus is calling people to follow him, which is both more general but in a way a more difficult task. Following Jesus is not a job but a way of life. It affects every aspect of our lives which is why Jesus indicates that he wishes a wholehearted response. To the guy who says he will follow Jesus anywhere, our Lord spells out that this means not settling anywhere. Jesus is traveling up and down the country and so this man has to put aside any desire of his to having a place to go home to each night. To the other two who say “Yes” to Jesus, he says he wants people who make following him their top priority. He doesn't want people who are so tied to their old life that they might, by taking a pause in answering his call, find themselves enmeshed with old commitments that will tempt them to stay home instead.

What does being called to follow Jesus mean? Paul spells out a number of things, but he starts by saying what we are called to: freedom. Paul uses the concept of slavery to illustrate this.

Before getting into his metaphor, let's look at what slavery meant at that time and in that culture. Slavery was ubiquitous, with 1 out of every 3 people living in Italy and 1 in 5 elsewhere being a slave. And no one at that time opposed the institution, except the Essenes who lived in monk-like isolation near the Dead Sea. During the period of the Old Testament the Law protected slaves in various ways and Israelites who sold themselves into slavery to pay off debts were to be freed every 7 years. In the Roman Empire, however, slaves had no legal rights. Those slaves who were civil servants or were domestics often had it better than those who were free but poor. Many doctors and teachers were slaves and were paid for their work. Slaves could save their money and buy their freedom. Masters could and often did free their slaves in their wills. And a family member could buy a person out of slavery. Such a relative was called a redeemer.

In the Old Testament God is often called the Redeemer of his people. And in that vein, Paul writes in the prior chapter of Galatians, “So also we, when we were minors, were enslaved under the basic forces of the world. But when the appropriate time had come, God sent out his Son, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might be adopted as sons with full rights.” (Galatians 4:3-5, NET) So in today's passage Paul continues with the metaphor, contrasting slavery and freedom. “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Slaves are constrained in their actions, obeying the commands of those who have mastery over them. But what is it that enslaves those whom Christ came to redeem?

Paul uses the Greek word sarx, which literally refers to the body and is usually translated “flesh.” But a better way to understand it is as human nature, following its own appetites and instincts, without any regard to the things of the Spirit. Our bodies are good gifts from God but they are not meant to act as driverless cars, mindlessly going through life, following the basic programming. Yes, we are animals but animals with a difference. Bears, cats, dogs and even primates have been observed eating their young. Ducks, geese, bottlenose dolphins and chimpanzees will forcibly have sex with other members of their species. We would call that rape. When food is scare, a male otter might kidnap a pup and hold it hostage until the mother pays him off with food. When certain humans do those same things, most people condemn such behavior. Why? After all, animals don't debate the ethics of what they do. If we are merely animals, why do we not endorse behaviors that otherwise would be considered natural? Because nature alone cannot tell us what is moral and what isn't. That's what Paul means when using the word “flesh.”

So he enumerates the things that result from people being slaves to their unredeemed human nature. “Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.” Sounds like topics in our daily news, doesn't it? Paul says this is what you get when people are slaves to their basic human natures, untouched by the Spirit. This is what Jesus came to free us from.

But what did he free us to? Paul says, “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.” We are called to be free to love others.

But what is this talk about becoming slaves again? Actually the word in question, though related to the Greek word for slave, is a verb so a better translation is “through love serve one another.” As Bob Dylan sings, “You gotta serve somebody.” You are either serving your basic unredeemed nature or you are serving the Spirit of the God who is love.

But doesn't freedom mean “free to do whatever you want?” Not really. A person who is a free citizen is still not free to violate the law. But he is free to do things a slave cannot. That's why we have been talking of freedom in terms of what you are free from and what you are free to do. Paul is saying we are free from all of those destructive and self-destructive things he listed, the stuff people just naturally fall into. And we are free to “live by the Spirit.” When we let the Spirit of the God work in us, we find a very different outcome. “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Those are undeniably better qualities in a person and in society. A person who is living by and guided by the Spirit is a person who is in the process of becoming a better person, the person God created him or her to be.

That is what Jesus is calling us to. For instance in today's gospel he is calling us to be people who do not act as James and John do. They want the Samaritan town who wouldn't receive them destroyed but Jesus rebukes them because that is not the Spirit in which they should be operating. Besides, he received a snub, not armed opposition. Yet it is human to wish to retaliate against others who are less than welcoming and in a disproportionate way, to boot. The action of the Spirit of Christ is seen in Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman (John 4), healing a Samaritan leper (Luke 17:11-17) and making a Samaritan the hero in one of his parables (Luke 10:30-37). Jesus doesn't exacerbate divisions; he come to reconcile divided people.

We are called to bring that Spirit into our everyday lives. Paul writes, “All these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people's trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God was making his plea through us...” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20, NET) In Ephesians Paul also calls this the “gospel of peace.” (Ephesians 6:15)

Nor is this merely peace with God. As love of God should also result in love for all people, who are created in his image, peace with God should lead us to make peace with others. Again in Ephesians, Paul says that Jesus' death on the cross did not only reconcile people with God but people with each other, putting to death hostility and making peace between Jews and Gentiles. (Ephesians 2:14-18) Jesus called us to be peacemakers. (Matthew 5:9) And in order to do that we must be at peace ourselves. Because we are called to proclaim peace and reconciliation not merely with our lips, but with our lives. And we can't do that effectively if our lives are in chaos.

As Paul writes, “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to live worthily of the calling with which you were called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:1-5)

Notice that in this passage Paul repeats several aspects of the fruit of the Spirit, such as love, peace, patience, and gentleness. Paul also includes humility, because it reminds us that our calling and its fruit are not our own doing. As he says in 2 Timothy, “He is the one who saved us and called us with a holy calling, based not on our works but on his own purpose and grace, granted to us in Christ Jesus...” (2 Timothy 1:9) God doesn't call us because we are so good but because we so badly need his goodness. Like our hearts, which pump blood to the whole body, yet need their own blood supply, so we are both recipients of grace and channels of grace. We are, as Martin Luther said, beggars telling other beggars where to find bread. We are not ourselves the baker.

All Christians are called by God. Sometimes people think that callings are restricted to those of us wearing collars and bearing titles. But those are further callings to certain specialized roles within the body of Christ, and while they are more visible, they are not more important. And while they require specific talents and skills, they are not granted because of our talents and skills. Rather those things are gifts granted to empower us for our offices. And none of us clergy have the complete skill set we should ideally wield. If you ask me, that is how God keeps us humble and reminds us that we can't do it all and that we need other members of the body of Christ to fulfill our callings.

So too you have a calling in Christ. If you don't know what it is, look for it at the intersection of what you love, what you are good at and what people need. Often in finding what God has called them to do, people have found who they were meant to be. Their talents and experiences now make sense as they see how they come together in fulfilling their calling.

It need not be flashy or anything the world highly values. After all, who would folks miss first: the people who make our TV shows and movies or the people who make sure we have water and electricity? Our world values glamorous and highly visible jobs over the ones that actually keep things running. And it should not be that way in the body of Christ. We should not forget all the people who make it possible for us to have a safe building to meet in, bulletins to follow, music to worship with, bread and wine to distribute, goodies for coffee hour, paper towels in the rest rooms, etc. We have people who volunteer and then are elected to oversee everything, making sure the bills get paid and things get repaired. We have people who take it upon themselves to invite others to the church. We have those who help others out of Christian love. We have people who do several of those things and more. Every member of the body of Christ is important.

Jesus calls us to follow him. The Spirit equips and empowers us to do so. But we must respond. We must put aside whatever hinders us and distracts us and dissuades us from acting. We must leave behind all that enslaves us and accept the freedom of serving Jesus through serving others and thereby finding our purpose in life. It's your call. And it all begins when you answer God's call with the words, “Here I am, Lord. Send me!”