"YOUR CALL"

Today is, in the yearly cycle of the church calendar, Pentecost Sunday - the day when we remember, recognize and celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. But today, obviously, is also the day we have been witness to the Ordination of our brother, Mark. Reflecting on what it means for each of us to be gifted and invited to be ministers for Christ - the "priesthood of all believers" - perhaps this is a good day to think not only of the coming of the Holy Spirit but of the CALLING of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, I'd like to share a different passage of Scripture with you than the one referenced in the bulletin.

[read 1 Cor. 1:18-30]

There're always a few folks around who knew from first grade on just what they wanted to be when they grew up. Like a kid who wanted to be a doctor? She got junior chemistry sets, dissected earthworms, hung out at the science museum, took all the right classes, got summer jobs at labs and hospitals, and eventually happily trotted off to medical school. Most of us spend quite a bit of time shopping around before we finally find, or perhaps just sort of fall into, the jobs we end up with. The most popular childhood careers of firefighter, football player, ballerina and astronaut are not reflected in the numbers of adults actually involved in those pursuits. Instead we "settle" for jobs that need to be done or are the most available. When's the last time you heard a kid dreaming about growing up to be a file clerk or a bank teller or a septic tank installer? Remember that one commercial with all the different kids saying things like, "When I grow up, I want to claw my way up to middle management." But all those jobs must be done and done well by someone, if we're to keep our businesses, our banks, our communities and our homes running smoothly. One career choice that, for good or bad, has always put a lot of emphasis on hearing an early and persistent "calling" is the ministry - specifically those who seek formal ordination and see their identity as a recognized member of a profession.

There are some who always knew they were "called" to ministry - the kids who conducted all the pet funerals, organized fake weddings, and held slightly spooky prayer vigils throughout their childhood. Then there are those who experience a much more dramatic "calling" as the result of some transforming moment in their lives. These are the men and women who may have been well-settled in either perfectly "normal," or sometimes -- more impressively -- perfectly wicked lives. The last career in the world these men and women ever envisioned for themselves was to be a professional minister. Then, suddenly, they are brought up short by the command of Christ in their lives. For these individuals a "calling" is an identifiable moment. I think that for most people, though, recognizing their "calling" is an unfolding work-in-progress.

In that letter, from which I read, to the Corinthian church, Paul -- the writer -- affirms the miracle of living life under the power of a distinctive and discernable "call," while at the same time he makes this "call" the common experience and unfolding work-in-progress that it is for every believer.

Paul urges the Corinthians, after taking a long, hard look at the wisdom of the world, to "consider [their] call". Paul refuses to allow this community to get away with pigeonholing a "call" into tidy, tiny boxes. Paul's "call" to be an apostle was not to spend his life crafting eloquent theological discourses on the truths of Christ. Paul did not receive his "call" so that he could spend his active ministry re-enacting and extending the work of John the Baptist. In another passage, Paul boasts that he has done only a minimal amount of baptizing, some of which seems to have almost entirely escaped his memory. Even more dramatic is Paul's insistence that, instead of speaking with great wisdom, he is proud to offer a message most of the world will deem "foolishness." It's your call, Paul says. You have a choice here. Follow the wisdom of the world, or the foolishness of the cross. To bring this into focus, Paul gently urges his Corinthian readers to "consider [their] call". He says, "Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth...." He doesn't say they were all so apparently foolish, weak and ignoble. But most of them were. Yet they were chosen of God nonetheless -- chosen, not to cluster around a pastoral personality, or philosophical guru, but to proclaim the "message of the cross."

Paul refuses to see his own "calling" as cloning Christians under his personal methods and tastes. Paul's call is not to promote his "style"; Paul's call is to proclaim Christ. Paul's call is not to separate believers out from the larger body of Christ. Paul's call is to build up the body of Christ. By rejecting any "guru" status for himself, Paul whittles down "call" to its most elementary but elemental bare bones. Anyone, including the Corinthians, can experience and enact Paul's version of this "call." The work of Paul's "call" is not found in eloquent theologizing or performing mystical rites for which one must be specially ordained. Paul insists that his only "call," and the true essence of any calling, is simply to "proclaim the gospel." This call, Paul maintains, is for those whose life is "in Christ Jesus". The special call to ministry the first-century Corinthians received, not to speak of millions of other men and women over the past two millennia and every one of us here now, is the call of the Holy Spirit to be gathered together "in Christ." And then, in Christ, we are empowered by the that same Holy Spirit calling out to us even today.

Your call. You are chosen material, though you might not know it. Walter Earl Fluker puts it this way: "God often calls us when we're running errands, doing the mundane, thankless chores of life. When we least expect it, we're elected. Moses, hiding out on the back side of the Midian desert, was running an errand when a bush started burning that would not be consumed until he faced Pharaoh. Isaiah was somewhere in the temple, performing his regular priestly duties, when the heavens came down and the Holy commissioned him. Andrew and Peter were fishing out on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus called them to start fishing for souls."

Fluker writes, "Martin King never thought he would take on Goliath when he returned to the South - but the Spirit was calling. The little brown barrister from India, Mahatma Gandhi, would never have guessed that he would challenge the rule of the great British Empire - but the Spirit was calling. When Mary McLeod Bethune took up residence in Daytona Beach, Florida, she had no idea that she would become the savior of a generation of young black girls and boys by starting what is now Bethune-Cookman college- but the Spirit was calling. Way down in the Mississippi Delta, Fannie Lou Hamer never dreamed that she would rise from picking cotton to being a civil rights activist with the power to influence the picking of presidents - but the Spirit was calling. A regular little girl named Agnes was born to an Albanian grocer and his wife. Who knew that little girl would be Mother Teresa? They were all just running errands, doing the mundane things, when the Spirit called."

In Paul's definition of his own call to service, the work of the ordained clergy is not the dramatic, lifesaving, soul-scintillating work of firefighting, space-walking, ballet dancing or touchdown scoring. In reality, ordained clergy are the file clerks or bank tellers or septic tank installers in God's realm: those who perform labors crucial to keeping things running smoothly. The glamorous, front-line work of "the call," the show-stopping, high-profile, hot-stuff calling of ministry is simply "to proclaim the gospel," to live the truth of the "foolishness" of the cross which is in reality the "power of God." That's true for everyone here this morning. You may not be called to something big and exciting and history-making....but you are called!

Fleming Rutledge, in a sermon delivered at historic Trinity Church in the City of Boston, tells of an incident in his life that happened, he says, "as I was crossing the street near my parish in New York City. A taxi came roaring around the corner and knocked me to the pavement. A crowd gathered and the ambulance was called, but it took an unusually long time to arrive. It was 40 minutes before I was actually put on the stretcher. In the meantime, I lay on the asphalt. I was aware of a lot of people standing around looking down at me. What I remember most about that long wait was the great distance between me on the concrete and the faces high above. In those minutes I very much needed someone to get down on the ground with me, to put a coat under my head, to hold my hand and stay down with me until help arrived .... I needed love to come down to me."

"Calls" are not answered high and lifted up. True "calls" are answered low and bent down. A young man once wondered if God could really hear him, so he prayed, "Hey God! What should I do with my life?" A voice came from heaven saying, "Feed the hungry, right injustice, work for peace." "Just testing!", the startled young man replied. God spoke back: "Same here."

Mark...Church...how will you respond to the calling of the Spirit in your life?

It's your call.

Amen.

(This sermon was adapted from material presented at Homiletics online)

Amen and God Bless.

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