Simply BE

I asked on Facebook for some sermon help on Friday, “Tell me some memorable questions or incidents you remember from job interviews.” And boy did the responses come flooding in, some of them too racy or racist to repeat from the pulpit. But here’s a few examples.

“When I was 18 I was asked to describe myself in a single word. I said vivacious because it was the biggest word I could think of on the fly...oh 18 year old self, what were you thinking?”
A couple people were asked, “If you could be any fruit or vegetable, what would you be and why?”
A woman pastor was asked, “How do you expect to breastfeed in the pulpit?”
A person of color was asked, “What's your middle name? *You people* have such exotic names.
And I was told during an interview 20 years ago that I wouldn’t be a good role model for the youth at a church because of the earring in my upper ear. Good thing they didn’t know about the hidden tattoo under my shirt. :-)

But Jesus doesn’t interview anyone. He just calls them. We’re not sure if he knew them beforehand or just came upon them on the shore, but Jesus calls out to Simon Peter and his brother Andrew and simply says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” And then again when he sees James and John, the sons of Zebedee, and he called them too.

Immediately, in both instances, they followed Jesus. Accepted the call. There were no follow-up questions. No negotiations. No contracts signed. Come follow me, Jesus calls, and they did.

Can you imagine your call to a new job going anything like that? No? Good; because this call from Jesus was more than a new job, switching from fishing for fish to fishing for people. It was a call to a new way of life. A recentering of purpose. A reorientation of relationships. A new vocation.

Now when we start talking about vocation and call in church we can easily get into trouble. For far too long call stories have been reserved for ordained ministers only. Church leaders talk about our call stories because we are taught and coached to do so throughout our training. We have the luxury of working in an occupation where our faith, work, family and many other dimensions of our lives come together.

In a study on vocation sponsored by the Lilly Endowment several years ago, very few church members actually felt called; very few believed that what they did with most of their time mattered to God and the church or made a particular difference in the world.

Many of us, pastors included, have a hard time seeing a direct connection between what we do and what we believe, which is why we don’t feel called.

This is when I had an epiphany! Perfect for the Season of Epiphany, when light shines forth in the shadows to reveal something new.

So here’s the epiphany. God’s calling isn’t simply to do something, but rather to be something, a child of God.

Maybe being comes before doing.
Maybe being even makes doing possible.

Our first call, our only call, is the one rooted in our baptismal call--Child of God.

James and John, Andrew and Peter didn’t know what they were going to do when Jesus summoned them to fish for people. They probably didn’t even know what that meant at that point in the story, but they knew that Jesus saw something in them, something of value and worth. They had no idea where they would go or what they would do, but they knew that Jesus was calling them to BE his disciples and they trusted that the rest would become clear in time.

You are called. Without an interview. Without a contract. The Holy one sees value in you and calls you to BE, simply be, a child of God. God honors you, loves you, names you and claims you and says, “Follow me.” And if you’re open to living in that light, you learn over time what it means to live in that relationship and find all kinds of things to do in response to God’s call.

As I pondered this epiphany about being and doing this week, I couldn’t help but think of Norm, our beloved member who died this week. Many of you knew him as the usher who greeted you at the door. He was definitely a “do-er” around here. He could fix anything and did manage almost every corner of this building. Would he have said it was his calling? I don’t know.

Yesterday as we celebrated everything he did for this congregation and the many ways he served here, we also celebrated and remembered his faithfulness as a child of God, his primary call. Like many Lutherans, Norm didn’t necessarily talk about his faith, but we knew his faithfulness. Though he absolutely did a lot around the church, what we primarily remembered about him at his funeral yesterday was his being a child of God--called into the mercy and love of God’s kin-dom in life and in death.

I see you living out your call as children of God in the world, in your families and among your friends, at your work and in your school or neighborhood, in your relationships. Do you recognize it as a call from God? It turns out most of us don’t, but maybe we need to be reminded that it is.

In this week’s e-news opener, Jonas Ellison writes about the baptism of his daughter Rory, two years ago. She was four, and Jonas called it one of the most sacred days of their family’s life. He wrote, “We are loved by God from our first breath to our last and beyond” and that “baptism is a sacred symbol of God’s incessant, untiring, undeserved, unmerited, unconditional and unfailing love for us through the word of Jesus Christ.”

That is our call. At this font, nourished at this table. You may or may not have memorable questions or incidents from your job interviews, but in this space or another like it, there were questions asked, too. Of you, or those who brought you, or the assembly who surrounded you.

Parents, do you promise to help your child grow in the Christian faith and life? To nurture them in faith and in prayer?
Do you renounce the devil in all the forces that defy God?

And when we affirm our baptism we’re asked, “Will you live among God’s faithful people, hear the word of God and share in the supper, proclaim and serve, and strive for justice and peace?

So instead of job interview questions, let’s think of these questions and the promises of our call. Let’s tell baptism stories and remember our call to be, simply be, children of God. Rory could tell you. And so could her parents, as Jonas wrote to this beloved congregation, “It was one of the most sacred days of our lives. I just think that’s lovely.”