We Are Called
One of the things you get pretty good at when going through the ordination process in the United Methodist Church is talking about your call to ministry. I’m not yet ordained, but so far in the process I’ve had numerous committees and boards and District Superintendents and mentors ask me to tell the story of my call to ministry. What had happened to me or in my life that would make me want to walk this path on purpose? When I was first starting the process, I remember being very self-conscious about my story. There was no singular event, no dramatic moment when I heard a voice or felt a hand on my shoulder. Peers of mine, and colleagues, could point to a moment when they knew they were called. In my struggle to tell my own story at first, one of my mentors through the candidacy process gave me some language to describe how I had been called. She referred to it as a “journey of a thousand yeses.” It was saying “yes” when asked to teach Sunday School and classes for adults. It was saying “yes” when asked to read and then preach at various churches. It was saying “yes” again and again and again, until I realized that each question was a recognition of my call by someone else, and that each “yes” was me affirming that call for myself.
For the second week in a row now, we’re hearing an account of Jesus starting his ministry and calling the first of his disciples. It’s a funny quirk of the lectionary that we get basically the same story two weeks in a row. Two different versions of how the first disciples of Jesus came to start following him. Last week, we heard about the disciples who left John and began to follow Jesus, not waiting to be invited, but stepping out on their own to see if that call might lead them somewhere. This week, these disciples were asked, or rather, told to follow. They were told to leave behind the steady work that they knew, to abandon the family business and, really, the family as well. They were told to leave their homes, their houses, and to become homeless as they followed the itinerant preacher who had so far only preached one sermon: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” They were invited, and they said “yes.” This week, that call came from Christ. But last week, if we remember, it is John who tells his followers about Jesus, at which point they respond by following. And then it is those first disciples who go and call the next disciples, who say “yes.” When we are called, it’s not always the voice of Christ that does the calling. But it is the work that we share with Christ that draws us in—the work of healing, of sharing the Good News of God’s preference for the poor, of working for justice, of practicing love in community. For each of us who has responded to some sort of call, for those of us who are actively responding to that call, or who are discerning, it is important to remember that the voice of the one who ultimately calls to us can come from many places, and can speak through many people. And so we must listen.
One of the things I find most interesting about this version of the calling of the disciples is that it’s not just the story of Peter, Andrew, James, and John being called to ministry. It’s also the story of Jesus being called. This passage comes just after Jesus has spent his time in the wilderness being interviewed by the adversary. Maybe that’s his period of discernment, his probationary period. As he emerges from this time in the wilderness, he hears the news that John has been arrested, which we know is because of John’s ministry and his explicit preaching against the actions of those in power. We are told that this arrest is what prompted Jesus to go to Galilee, to leave his hometown of Nazareth and to start preaching and healing and building community. He heard God calling to him, not in spite of the news, not in spite of the terror that he had heard about or that he had surely witnessed. He heard God calling to him through the news, through the news of a prophet who had been arrested, and who would later be executed. Jesus’ call to ministry was a response not only to his gifts, not only to the things that might be done through him. It was a response to the times in which he was living. His call to the work of justice, the work of gathering and organizing his community so that they might be more resilient, so that they might care for one another through the wars and the killings and the oppression that raged on then, as it does now. He listened to the news of what had happened to his cousin, to the one who had baptized him and recognized the Spirit at work within him—and rather than retreating, Jesus embraced the work to which he was called. He embraced the work that, as the Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Canon would say, his soul must have.
So, listen for where you are being called. Whether your call lies within the church or outside of it, whether you hear the voice of God ringing in your ears or simply the cries of those whose neighbors are being shot in the streets—listen. And listen not only for where you are being called, but see in one another the ways in which God is calling out to each of us. Ask, invite one another to do things that you wouldn’t normally do, that you’ve never done before, or that you haven’t done in a long time. Feed the hungry. Heal the sick. Build strong communities that truly care for one another. Raise your voice for the marginalized, the oppressed, the weak. Do not be deterred by what you see on the news, in the world, in your communities. Allow yourself to be moved by it. Allow your heart to be broken. Because the voice of the one who calls to us speaks through the crack in our breaking hearts. Hear that call. Say yes. And call others. The Kingdom of heaven has come near. In this place, in this time, we are called to reveal the kingdom in our midst. How will you say yes? How will we say yes together? It’s not a question of whether we will. We must. May it be so. Amen.