John 1:43-51
“Who’s Calling?”
January 17, 2021
He described his own call as “neither dramatic nor spectacular.
It came neither by some miraculous vision nor by some blinding light experience on the road of life. Moreover, it did not come as a sudden realization.
Rather, it was a response to an inner urge that gradually came upon me.
This urge expressed itself in a desire to serve God and humanity.”
Wow! On this weekend when we observe and honor what would have been his 92nd birthday, this may be the closest I ever come to saying that I shared almost the same experience as did the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when it came to my call to ministry.
King’s response came from a request to compose this statement back in 1959 from the American Baptist Convention because the leadership was discovering that so many young people felt that unless there was a blinding light or a burning bush, they hadn’t been called.
To be called either to believe in God and follow God’s prescription for living or to receive a particular call to do a specific task or take on a specific role in life usually happens for most of us in pretty ordinary ways.
To witness an injustice and to know that you are called to address it could be as simple as calling someone out for hate speech.
You may have been called to the career you pursued after recognizing how much good you could do for other people.
Perhaps your call to parenthood came from a desire to raise a child in this world so as to provide another being with unconditional love.
Maybe that organization you were called into being a part of offered you an opportunity to use your gifts to give something back to the world.
The voice and demeanor of someone through whom your call finally sinks in can make all the difference.
I remember when discerning my call to ministry which was far from a lightening bolt moment, it was a simple question asked by my pastor in her kind and supportive way that helped me see my call for what it was.
Here in today’s passage Jesus leans into Nathaniel’s strength.
He offers him a kind of gentle invitation.
He doesn’t resort to demands or intimidation.
Instead, Jesus starts by complimenting Nathaniel and engaging in a conversation with him.
The gentle invitation to Nathaniel is to a way of life where he encourages him to come and see and be.
Life will change because of this call and it won’t always be easy.
To listen and take seriously the call to which God is beckoning Nathaniel and each of us means we have to be willing to be changed.
As Frederick Buechner describes it, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC’s)
Following is our call.
We are to be like Jesus, but we are not being asked to be Jesus. When Jesus says to Philip as he says so many other times in so many ways, especially in John’s Gospel, “Follow me” it is a call to discipleship that he is offering not an expectation of perfection. The words “Follow me” are creating an expectation that we will spend our lives in constant student mode. Jesus is to teach us. When we call ourselves Christian what we are saying is, as one writer puts it, that we are “following Jesus” – listening to him, learning from him and doing what he does.” (Anthony B. Robinson: “How to follow the leader,” The Christian Century, January 11, 2012, pp. 30-33)
Right now, our nation is at a point of upheaval – some of it scary and hard and unnerving.
What does being a follower of Jesus – as one who answers to live a life of love of God, self and neighbor mean – while so much anger and division is being volleyed back and forth?
How can we, in our little corner of the world, where we hope we are insulated from so much of the ugliness of our country, use that call as a Christian to affect the change we desperately need?
Are we willing to follow through on that call, facing down the hatred and sowing the seeds of love that come with the one we’ve committed to imitating?
As each of us considers what it means to follow our call from God, regardless of how loudly or softly it is uttered, let us take these wise words from Steve Garnaas-Holmes to heart as we each determine the part, we will play in healing our hurting world:
Every great hero is the tip of an iceberg.
Few of us are called to be the tip.
But all of us are called to take part,
to be the bit that holds the chunk
that lifts the tip that changes the world.
The hero is not the powerful one.
The movement is the power.
The leader is simply asking us
to do our part.
We are made of the same stuff,
all of us, called to the same work,
leaning toward the same dream.
God chooses which bit is at the tip.
But we choose to be part of the movement,
trusting that our small part
is not small.
You may be an even greater inspiration
to your neighbor, without ever knowing.
To be Martin is not our choice,
but to be in the march with him is.
Choose.
Amen.