Matthew 4:12-23
January 20, 23
Americans are on the move. It is said that we are a mobile society, and Mayflower (the moving company) reports that 43 million people will move this year. Although the reasons are many, most deal with two categories. The first deals with employment: a new job, a loss of job, a job transfer, promotion, downsizing, or retirement. These all cause people to move to larger or smaller or simply different houses. Changes in family structure account for many other moves: a child moving into a first apartment, a change in marital status, a child moving back home, the addition of a parent to the housing arrangements. It is unusual for a person to die having lived in the same vicinity where they were raised. It is uncommon for a couple to spend their entire marriage living in the residence where they first “took up housekeeping.”
I’d like to conduct a very informal poll.
Raise your hand if you are a
native-Ohioan and have never lived outside the state of
Raise your hand if you are living within 15 miles of where you spent your childhood. Raise your hand if you have parents, siblings, or children who live out-of-state for all or part of the year. I’m not a statistics analyst but it might (or it doesn’t) appear that the people of Grace reflect the national characteristic of being a mobile society.
However,
In
today’s gospel we read a lot about leaving. Jesus leaves
Seminarians are frequently asked to share their call stories, and as Pastor Powell indicated in last week’s sermon, people tend to limit their view of “being called” to those who go into the ordained ministry. But we are all called, and people have been called through the ages. The Scriptures contain many stories of call.
God called Abraham, and there is nothing in the passage to indicate any reluctance or hesitation on Abraham’s part. He packed up his family and left for a destination known only to God. Moses, on the other hand, is a biblical figure with whom we might more easily identify. When God called Moses, the first thing Moses did was try to convince God that he was the wrong man for the job by offering excuses. First, he tried the excuse that no one would believe him. After all, who was he? He had no credentials. When God didn’t buy that excuse, Moses tried the one I have used on occasion and the one I have heard on numerous occasions. “What? Me get up in front of people and talk! Why, I’m no public speaker. What would I possibly say?”
Likewise, Gideon was reluctant when God called him. Gideon, too, tried to convince God he was not the person for the job. His excuse was that he was the most unimportant person in his whole tribe. How many of us feel that what we do or say or even think is of little significance at our workplace or in our families? God also called Samuel, and it took a while for Eli and Samuel to realize what was happening. One cause for this was that Samuel was just a young boy. What is so wonderful about God’s call is that there is no single set of criterion, no predictable mold. God calls the person needed for the task. God spoke to those people of old, and there is no reason to believe that he doesn’t speak to us still. Unfortunately, given many of our hectic schedules and the demands on our lives, our distractions and preoccupations, it is difficult to even hear that call.
I
remember the first time I saw The Ten Commandments. It was during the
days when the public school system was not afraid to include God in its
planning. I was in the fifth grade and all the
This summer as I participated in a very basic training course in hospital chaplaincy, I had several patients confide that they’d pray and pray, but would come away feeling God hadn’t heard them, and wasn’t listening to them. It made me wonder about the manner in which we pray. Do we keep up such a steady stream of prayer that we do all the talking and none of the listening? Do we offer our requests to God, but then also provide him with suggestions for the desired outcome? One of my dear seminary professors wrote that “Christian prayer does not mean bringing your concerns to God. It means finding yourself in the heart of God, and then discovering what is in God’s heart for you and others.” We can’t make those discovering, can’t hear the answers if we don’t give God a chance to speak to us, to call us.
Our expectations for hearing God needn’t be limited to our prayers, however. In preparing his lectures on Paul’s letter to the Romans, Martin Luther wrote: “ . . . faith in Christ means faith in him wherever and through whomever he may speak. . . . he speaks through someone at a certain time and in a way contrary to what we think should be the person, time, and manner of his speaking to us.” I don’t know what God’s voice might sound like to you, but I offer this possibility. It may just sound like the voice of someone you know and come from someone you least expect.
Today the examples I’ve used made radical changes in their lives. Hearing and heeding God’s call may not change our location or our vocation, but there will be a transformation in how we live our lives.
Going back to those fishermen of
I’d like you to turn to the book of Isaiah in your Bibles, the 43rd chapter. I’m going to have you do something that the third- and fourth-graders did at their Scripture Slumber party this fall. I’m using the NRSV and your translation may have different wording. Chapter 43: 1 reads: “But now, O Israel, the Lord who created you says: “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.” Now here is what I’d like you to do. Following the word “name,” simply insert your first name, and read through the new version. Let’s read through that in unison, in order to make the passage yours. Remember to insert your name. (Unison reading) So, you didn’t think God ever called you? Think again. Amen.
Copyright © January, 2005 Cheryl Siegenthaler,