“Called” or “uncalled” that is the question?

A sermon on Ex 3:1–15 , Psalm 105:1-6 ,13-25, Romans 12:9-21 & Matt 16:21–28 by Sylvia Sandeman, 28 August 2005

© LaughingBird.net

 

Recently at Rosanna Baptist we gave one of the members Irene, a gift for 40 years of service to the Girls Brigade at the church.  As she thanked us, she said a few words that for me made sense of those 40 years.  The church has marvelled that she has completed such a long time. That she has continued through the dark days of the untimely death of her husband Rex, the death of her parents, through the difficulties of 15 years of her daughters battle with MS and the constant need for leaders for the brigade.  But still she continues.  What she said that day was – “ I believe that God called me to do this”

 

In a moment the call made sense of it all for me.

The call has strengthen her when she was without strength

The call has kept her going long after others would have given up

The call gave meaning and direction when her world was falling apart

Irene’s sense of call makes sense of it all

 

I am reading, as are others in the community, a book called  “The Cloister Walk” This is written by a married woman who is described as very Protestant, with more doubts than faith, who chooses to spend time in a Benedictine monastery with celebrate men.  She quotes from a book entitled the “Hopeful Imagination” that suggests “a sense of call in our time is profoundly counter culture” – that “the ideology of our time is that we can live an ‘uncalled life’, one not referred to by any purpose beyond one’s self”

 

I have read these words many times in the last few weeks, pondering and reflecting on them

Is this true?

Do we today live uncalled lives?

Is the disease of our day - living uncalled lives?

Are we so griped in our “today” culture that we have no purpose beyond ourselves?

This is scary stuff

 

Norris goes on to suggest the shadow side of this uncalled life is that we resist the notion that others may be different, that another may have experienced a call and is seeking to live this call out in their daily lives.  She thinks that this may explain our mania with credentials for they allow us a way to measure difference  - “a call” on the other hand cannot be measured, quantified or controlled by institutions

 

Recently I have seen two films – one was the new film on Luther and the other on Mother Teresa.  Both films showed how “counter culture” their lives became.  Both tried to keep their call within the bounds of acceptable behaviour, but it would not be contained.  Their call was not just “counter culture” outside the church but also “counter culture” within.  Their greatest opponents came from within their church

How dare they suggest such a thing?

Why should they question?

Who gave them such authority?

But           -            Through all the darkness and there was    often deep darkness

Though all the pain and difficulty

Through the discouragement and the aloneness

Their sense of call held them fast

 

So what for us as a church?  Is it the same as for individuals?   I suspect that churches too can live the life of an ‘uncalled community” when they get caught up in things that are only for themselves.  

 

For the church as for individuals also God’s call will make sense of

What we do

Will hold us fast through tough times

Will send us out on mission made possible by God

But this may well be counter cultural – and may well also be counter cultural within church community

 

In last weeks lectionary reading in Rom 12 2 says   “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you in to its mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and move towards the goal of true maturity”

 

When a small group of people from this church decided to worship in a very different manner surely they were acting in this way.  They sense the call of God to a new way of worship, which was very different to other Baptist Churches and they kept on going when it seemed as if they might almost fail.   Last Sunday there was a NZ man here who gave me a message for Nathan who he had come deliberately to see.  He said when the tsunami happened – “I had no works for my people” – tears were rolling down his face – God took the web site of a small insignificant church in Melbourne, Australia and to give words to the world

 

Tonight our OT reading was about the call of Moses.  This tells us something of how God calls us as individuals but I believe that it is similar for Churches also

First God gets our attention

We are called to do something

Then God waits our response

Moses was wandering around in the wilderness, minding his own business with his sheep, which he had done for many years.  When suddenly something breaks into his day.  Fire in a dry land.   Fear may have gripped his heart. As it would us if we were alone with a possible bush fire about to happen before us.   He turns aside to check things out.   Then realises that it is not what he thought.  In fact this fire is different – the fire is not burning the bush – real fear of the unknown now takes hold – then a voice speaks to him and tells him to take off his sandals as he is on holy ground – he has entered a sacred space – a place where God is.   God has got his attention.  God now tells him what he wants him to do.

 

God says that he has seen the plight of the Israelites in Egypt, that he has heard their cries and has remembered his promise to their ancestors and is sending Moses to Pharaoh to bring the people out of Egypt to a new land.  Just like that.    Now this was not exactly the activity that Moses had planned for his old age.  He knew that he was safe in the desert.  He had been there so long he had no idea if he was still on Pharaohs hit list. So he thinks up reasons why he should not do this

Who am I to do this? I’m a nobody.    -  I will be with you

If I do this, the Israelites will ask me what your name is?  - My name is I Am who I Am – tell them that “I Am”

But they will not believe me – God shows Moses 3 miracles

I can’t talk, a am a hopeless public speaker – I will give you the words to say

God – please don’t send me – at this God gets mad and says – you can take Aaron, your brother, I know he can speak well

Finally Moses accepts Gods call and starts on the road back to Egypt.

 

So Gods call may come when we least expect it, often when we are not looking for it and at any age.  Samuel’s call was when he was very young but Moses call came when he was almost 80 – so that gets us all.   The churches call may well be different for every generation or the vision the same but the expression different

 

The Bible is full of stories about Gods call.  One story is of Jesus calling to ignorant fisherman and the other to an educated, upper class young man. Jesus ‘s call comes to them all, like Moses they understood what it meant but they do not all respond the same way.

 

The rich young man turned his back on the way of freedom and “trudged back to the bondage of the past” but the fisherman left all followed Jesus into a future that was to change their lives forever.  Little did they know what would happen and where the journey would lead when they took that first step.   Moses call changed his life and the course of the history for his people forever.

 

God calls us, as individuals and as a church, to a journey with him.  But sometimes we find ourselves sitting at a station watching the trains go by.  Many Christians tell impressive stories of how God has acted in their lives, but all too often if you ask what is God doing in their lives now, or what new ways God seems to be opening up before them, you will get an uncomfortable shuffling of feet and a few clichés about continuing blessing and guidance but nothing of substance.

 

Isaiah 43 18 – 19 records

“But the Lord says ’Do not cling to the events of the past, or dwell on what happened long ago.  Watch for the new thing that I am going to do.  It is happening already – you can see it now!  I will make a road through the wilderness, and give you streams of water there’ ”

 

There is a widespread tendency to set ourselves easily reachable goals of Christian acceptability, a sort of simple Christian Ideal, and then just stay there without ever considering that Christ may be calling us to more than that, that we may being call further down the pathway of holiness or commitment or discipleship.

 

But we are sitting at the station watching the trains and God has moved on.  

 

“Do not cling to the past”

 

When the call came to Moses as to the disciples they were confronted with quite a choose

 

They loved their jobs.  They were good jobs, healthy, worthwhile; it was the thing that they really knew.  They could continue doing what they knew and live godly life’s – surly this would be OK

 

But it was not what God wanted.

It is easy to choose between two ways when one is clearly right and the other clearly wrong.  It is not so easy when both alternatives are good.  It is always easy to find good reasons for doing what is wrong.

 

“Do not cling to the past”

 

What do we cling to? What do we find hard to leave behind?  Home, family, Children, Processions Privacy, Job or simply the old ways, dreams and hopes.  Or even the heavy burdens that we came here with.  They gospel reading reminds us “If any person wants to follow me, let him denounce himself and take up his cross and follow me”

 

“Do not cling to the past or dwell on what happened long ago – look for the new thing that God has already begun to do.  He will make a road in the wilderness” - in the impossible place and will bless you there with streams of water – water is a symbol of all that is live giving and life affirming”  He fed Moses with Manna from heaven and “sweet water from hidden springs.”

 

Many people will never taste those streams because they are back at the station or at the last stream that is now running dry – they are sitting by the billabong, a safe place in the desert where there is known water.  But it will dry up.  The God who takes each new day as a new journey has moved on, joyously dancing an unpredictable path into a mysterious future.

 

And though that can feel frightening and insecure, it is ultimately a safer place than sitting resolutely a drying up billabong, because in Jesus Christ we have seen that no matter how uncrossable the wilderness and how devastating the cross, God will always lead us to resurrection and the streams of life giving water in the desert beyond.