"Your Grand Call" - Sermon for Epiphany 3, Jan 25 2015

Sermon:

Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who calls us to grand vocations.

I’ve been thinking about call stories this last week. It started with our annual meeting last Sunday. We gave some money out of the Alice Anderson fund to three groups. The first was to Light in Africa, started by Mama Lynn who spoke here last summer. The second was to Gayle Strochien and her organization Hope Ministries, and finally to the Kooiman Family as they head down to Guatemala to live and minister in the medical field.

Each one of them I'm sure has their own call story, Gayle and Kooiman’s a call to go do medical work overseas in poverty stricken areas, and Mama Lynn’s wonderful story of feeling called to leave where she was and move to Africa as she stood outside a travel agency. It’s an amazing thing to not only hear such a direct call to something, but then being able to go through with it.

This last Monday was Martin Luther King, Jr. day, and every time it comes along I always find myself reflecting on how much he did, and how young he was when it all started, just 25 when he became Pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, and became nationally known just the next year. That year he was chosen to be the local clergy group’s leader, and when Rosa Parks was arrested for not moving from her seat on the bus, it was Dr. King that was chosen to lead the boycott of the bus line. It was this boycott that lead to him being a national figure in the Civil Rights movement. Dr. King's call to ministry and to be active in the Civil Rights movement almost seems less call, and more thrust into the midst of it all.

Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call story of course makes me think of Martin Luther’s own call story. As he rides home through a massive thunderstorm and promises that if he survives he will join the priesthood as a monk.

And then I look at our readings for today, we see what is the second call of Jonah. The first is when he instead ran the other way and was swallowed by a massive fish in the midst of a storm after being thrown from the ship he was using to try to get further away. Here he is spit up on the shore and after recovering God again asks, well, Jonah, now are you going to go to Nineveh, that great City that you hate, and proclaim to it that in 40 days God will destroy it.

And then looking at our Gospel, we see Jesus calling the first disciples. Saying to Simon Peter and Andrew, and then James and John, come follow me and become fishers of people.

I look at all these call stories from near to far, from recent to far in the past. And I think of my own, being a college student at Iowa State and being involved in Campus Ministry. And as I spent my time in Campus Ministry, I found that my life revolved around the church, and well, I kinda liked that and well, Seminary is where that could be realized. And then getting more support from family, friends and others, I found myself graduating and being called here.

But, it’s no thunderstorm, It’s no civil rights movement, it’s not a big fish swallowing me, it’s not Jesus calling me himself, I’m not moving or traveling to Africa or Guatemala to minister.

And I think that’s a problem we have when we think about this whole call story thing.

It feels like to me and probably many of you that if I’m not called to something really grand and far flung, it’s not really a call. I’m not giving up the life I led, I’m not moving across the world. No thunder is threatening me. No fish appearing.

But, your call story is indeed grand! Why? Because it’s God that gives it. God also calls us all to be fishers of people, to go out and spread the good news that Christ lived, died, and was resurrected, but it’s also more. God calls us to our vocations. We need to move beyond thinking of our jobs as jobs, but as God called vocations. God has called some of us to be Civil Rights workers, to be reformers, to be missionary and health care workers across the world. But, God has also called some, especially at this time of year, to be Tax Preparers, doing the work of God in helping everything keep working. God has called others to be teachers, to be nurses, lawyers even! And salespeople, stay at home parents, cashiers, business managers, shift workers, quilters, secretaries, administrative assistants, nursing home workers, journalists and newspaper workers, gift store owners, grandparents, pharmacists, business owners, online salespeople, call center workers, farmers, bankers, and every single other vocation that you may have.

That’s your call, your vocation, what God has given you the gift for. Maybe you haven’t it quite found it yet, but, remember God is indeed calling you.

This week in confirmation we were looking at what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, and we settled on it meaning, someone who follows Jesus. Following Jesus, doesn't mean following him to the ends of the world, it means following him through our vocation. We talked about how Jesus called the 12 disciples, and then 70 more and sent them all out to preach, teach, and heal. But, then we ended with looking at the last verses of Matthew. “I have been given complete authority in heaven and on earth, therefore Go, Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this I am with you always even to the end of the age.”

There we find our true answer about call, we are called to be disciples in the midst of our vocations, working to follow Jesus in our everyday lives, and we received this call in the midst of our baptism, marked by the cross of Christ forever.

And the greatest reason for knowing that our call is so grand? Christ promises to be with us always in the midst of it. I am with you always even to the end of the world. Hearing that in the midst of our call means we can accomplish so much, reach so many, whether we are here or afar.

Let us pray,

God of call, we thank you for calling us to our various vocations, help us to see you at work through is in those vocations, help us to hear your call to us, and help us to know that we do indeed do your work, both here and afar.

Amen.