“Called”
Highlands
Presbyterian Church
February
10, 2013
Imagine
the look on poor Isaiah’s face as you listen to God’s words. “Whom shall I
send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah stands before the Lord in the temple. The
smallest hem of the divine robe swallows the holy house in eternal fabric; the
mighty seraphim, monstrous six-winged creatures now screech the praise of the
Holy One, and God, amidst the fire and smoke announces what it is Isaiah is
called to do.
“Go
and say to this people: ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking,
but do not understand.’ Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears,
and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with
their ears, and comprehend with their minds.
The
command is devastating to Isaiah. God commands the prophet to speak in such a
way that no one will understand what it is he is saying. Their eyes and ears
will be useless, so dull and sightless that their minds will be clouded with
confusion. As a result, their healing will be delayed.
And
God said, “Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut
their eyes.”
The
prophet is called…Isaiah is called to speak but his words will not make the people
any wiser of their lives easier, or their road smoother, or their
responsibilities plainer. Everything will be more confusing and less certain.
It will be more difficult to perceive just what it is that God wants from the
people.
Not
surprisingly, that eager prophet who in verse eight said, “Here I am, send me,”
the ready follower of the mighty Lord of the temple who is so anxious to do the
divine work, now sounds very different in verse eleven, after hearing what God
has in mind for him. Instead of "Here am I," the prophet bleats like
a goat going to the sacrificial altar, "How long, O Lord?"
How
long must I do what it is you have asked of me? And God said, a long, long
time. “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people,
and the land is utterly desolate; until the Lord sends everyone far away, and
vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.
You
can hear in these words an undercurrent of the response Moses once gave the
same God who asked him to go and command the great Pharaoh…"choose
somebody else, anybody else, please.”
We speak a great deal
about being called. Paul told us we have all been given one gift or another and God
expects us to use those gifts to bring peace to the world, food to the hungry,
shelter to the homeless, comfort to the ill, freedom to the captives.
Cotton
Mather was
an early New England Puritan minister, remembered for his role in organizing
the Salem witch trials. This was clearly a
man who believed in answering the call…even though, in his case it might have
been a wrong number.
Cotton
Mather said, “Every Christian should have a calling. That is to say, there
should be some special business, and some settled business, wherein a Christian
should for the most part spend the most of his time that so he may glorify God.
It is not lawful, he said, for a Christian ordinarily to live without some
calling or another, until infirmities have unhappily disabled him.” Mather
thought it “a wonderful inconvenience for a man to have a calling that won’t
agree with him.”
Isaiah
was given that “wonderful inconvenience” as were the fishermen Jesus
encountered that day along the Sea of Galilee. Imagine you are just living your
life, you have a family to care for. You’re a fisherman who has boats, nets,
mouths to feed. Along comes this itinerant preacher who starts the conversation
by telling you how to do your job.
You’ve
been out in the boat all day in the hot sun and haven’t caught a thing. And
this fellow standing on the shore watching you do all the work gets into your
boat and starts issuing commands. He says, “You’re not doing it right. Get back
in your boat, put out a little farther and drop your nets a little deeper.”
Probably
the most surprising thing about the story is that they do what they are told.
They load their nets, head out a little farther, drop the nets a little deeper
and lo and behold…the nets fill up with fish. The preacher was right! Others
have to come help. Boats overfill with the catch of the day. And scripture says
that when the fisherman, soon to be former fisherman, Simon Peter saw it, he
fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful
man!” SIN?
What
was Peter’s sin? After all, Peter did exactly what he was called to do…he took
the boat out, lowered the nets just as he was told. Maybe he regretted his
initial reluctance. He did initially question the call. He had all the
resources to follow the call but questioned Jesus when Jesus asked him to use
them.
So
what does it mean to be called. Scripture always tells stories that make it
sound as though there is a voice involved, a voice of God speaks or Jesus
speaks…that the sound of the call is actually audible. It’s not. And yet it’s
clear. Remember God’s words to Isaiah? “Make the mind of this people dull, and
stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their
eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds.” You don’t
get off the hook by saying you didn’t hear it, didn’t understand it. You’re not
supposed to.
William Booth was the Methodist preacher who founded The Salvation Army and became its first General in1878. General Booth
said, “Not
called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call? Put your ear down to the burdened,
agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help.”
A
little dramatic, but you get the point. You see the call is heard through the
gifts we have each received. It’s not all that hard to comprehend if you take
an inventory of the skills and gifts you’ve been given. Actually…the first
indication that you are being called is the fact that you awoke this morning on
this side of the sod. If you are alive…God is calling.
God
is very specific about what each of us is called to do by the talents, skills,
experiences, and resources we are given as individuals and collectively. For
some among us the call has been heard in their ability to plant a community
garden, for others the call is heard in the ability to knit stocking caps and
gloves, for some it’s the skill to work with those who have Alzheimer’s and for
others it’s the gift of empathy and experience to comfort and guide recovering
addicts.
If
you’ve been blessed to come out of poverty, God is calling you not to judge
those who are poor but to use the skills that helped you succeed to help others
to achieve the same success in their lives. If you’ve been homeless and now
have shelter, that’s the sound of God’s call in your life.
I
look back on my own life…God gave me a gay brother, alcoholic parents, time in
politics and law teaching me to speak and to write…time working among the
poorest of the poor in Nicaragua, time to work in public welfare and mental
health…all those experiences and gifts were more than spending my time waiting
for the Grim Reaper…they formed my call…seems clear to me that I have been
called to speak for the marginalized.
The
same is true in your life…look back over the years…what talents and skills did
God give you, what experiences formed your life, what gifts and resources do
you have? That’s God’s call.
When
Jesus asked the fishermen on the Sea of Galilee to use their talents and their
resources to go deeper, to venture farther from the shore…it wasn’t about
teaching them to fish. They knew how to fish. It was about saying to them, you
have the skills you need to find others, to lead others, to get them to listen, to
teach, to lead…and when they realized they were being called, not to simply
fish but to obey, they brought their boats to shore, left everything and
followed him.
Jesus
never once asked them to do that. Jesus simply gave them the confidence to see
that they had already been given the gifts and the experiences God needed at
that time and place.
Take
a personal inventory. What skills do you have? What experiences molded your
life? What resources have you been given. Then look carefully on the cross…see
that place where it intersects? That is the place where your skills, gifts,
experiences and resources intersect with the need God is calling you to meet.
Cotton
Mather said it’s not lawful for a Christian to not have a calling. I don’t know
about that…I tend to question anyone who thought his calling was to burn
witches at the stake…but I do believe it is not possible for a human being not
to have a calling. It’s why we are here, here at Highlands at this time in our
lives…it’s the purpose of our lives. And it’s not all that difficult to figure
out. AMEN
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