January 15, 2006
(Second Sunday after the Epiphany)
Answering God's Call
by The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer
1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20) • Psalm 63:1-8 • 1
Corinthians 6:11b-20 • John 1:43-51
(From
The Lectionary Page)
The phone rang during dinner on Monday evening. Sadly, there’s nothing unusual about that. National Do Not Call registries notwithstanding, telemarketing happens, and invariably at the least helpful moment. This of course is why many of us have a caller ID function on our phone. That evening, I glanced at the read out and saw that someone from St. Luke’s Northland was calling. My heart immediately leapt into my throat, as a call from that hospital either meant that my Dad had had a medical emergency or that one of you had. “Hello, this is Sue Sommer,” I said with mounting anxiety. “Hello,” the voice at the other end replied, “May I please speak with Susan Soh-mer?” “This IS Susan Sommer,” I replied. The caller then gave her name and identified herself as calling from one of the large telecommunication companies offering a special rate on some feature that I really didn’t care anything about. Because at that moment, several emotions were battling for mastery of my head – relief that there apparently WAS no medical emergency, confusion over the erroneous read-out on my caller ID, and irritation that a service we pay good money for to screen unwanted calls had somehow been breached and that my dinner was growing cold as a result. Make no mistake, we clergy want to be contacted when one of you is in crisis. We adult children want to be called when an elderly parent is in the ER. We parents want to be called when our child is having some emergency. Where there is a kinship or a friendship bond, we are open to being called. But where there are no bonds of kinship or friendship, we place limits on our temporal and emotional availability. We pay for caller ID or screen our calls through answering machines, we install peep-holes in our front doors, and Spam filters on our computers. As privileged citizens of this wealthy nation, we reserve the right to decide who we will bless with our availability and who we will not.
Our lessons today have to do with calling and with availability. Our first reading today is all about how God called young Samuel to the work of prophecy. Samuel, you may remember, was born to Hannah after years of infertility. In thanksgiving, she dedicated her son God's service and so from childhood on Samuel lived with the high priest Eli in the temple at Shiloh. Samuel had been formed since early childhood in service to God, he slept next to the ark of the Covenant, for Pete's sakes, and God had to call him three times before he recognized that it was God who was calling. And for all we know, God would have had to keep on calling if Eli hadn't finally set him straight by telling him to respond the next time he heard the voice. So Samuel was available to God in the sense that he was physically present in the temple, but he needed Eli to help him be available to how God was calling him.
We see a parallel in today’s gospel. In the verses immediately this passage, Jesus calls Andrew to be his disciple and Andrew goes off to find his brother Simon Peter to bring him along. Today's reading repeats that motif. Jesus calls Philip who then goes off to find his buddy Nathanael to bring him along. John makes it clear that Jesus called all four men to be his disciples, but that the call of Peter and Nathanial were in a sense mediated through Andrew and Philip. Nathanael’s initial scorn for all things Nazarean notwithstanding, they were available -- available enough to walk away from discipleship with John the Baptizer and follow Jesus. They were open to the possibility that God was doing something radically new.
Indeed. God was. And is. And as such, God is routinely in the business of calling. God has called all of us to be disciples and to minister from our baptismal vows. Sometimes we think that God calls us only in spectacular ways, and that if we haven't experienced such a phenomenon, then clearly we’re off the hook. To be sure, God does sometimes call in very dramatic ways. But more often than not, it takes an Eli or an Andrew or a Philip…or a Martin Luther King….to help us interpret what we aren't otherwise hearing. It often takes another person to bring us to a ministry we wouldn't otherwise have engaged. You think that's not God calling you? Think again.
The larger issue for us contemporary Americans is how available we are to being called. Certainly when it comes to telecommunications, we tend to be either amazingly available, or completely unavailable. Cell phones with instant messaging, speed dial functions, e-mail, we are as plugged in as can be for those who are important to us. So how available are we to God? What does that availability even look like?
It starts with making it a priority in our lives. We choose, as a plugged in people, when and to whom we are available. To choose to be available to God means to commit one of our most precious resources – time – to this endeavor. This is no small thing. It may mean a re-ordering of priorities. It may mean finding time and space each day for listening for the still small voice of the Spirit speaking to us. It may mean paying attention to recurring patterns in our lives, and discerning what God may be saying to us in these patterns. It certainly requires openness and humility, and the setting aside of preconceived notions. Being available to God means taking some risks, trying things out, asking God some tough questions and trusting that the answers will come, though probably not in instant-message format.
That God is calling the people of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral to do justice and love mercy and to walk humbly with God is not in question. Of course God is calling us to discipleship. God calls us all the time, sometimes dramatically, but usually not. The challenge for us is to commit to being available. Chances are good that right now God is calling you to some ministry.
Might wanna pick up.
