16 PENTECOST, PROPER 17, YEAR A

SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE

THE REV. ANNE G. STANLEY

31 AUGUST 2008

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Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26; 45c; romans 12: 9-21; Matthew 16: 21-28

“Search for the Lord and his strength; continually seek his face.”

                                                            (Psalm 105:4)

Moses had his call from God, Jesus had his call, the disciples had theirs. And the Apostle Paul made a list of specific ways to live out God’s call.

Today’s readings are all about the call of God.  And the bottom line, the very bottom line, is that no matter how confusing or complicated or difficult it is to answer and live God’s call to us, God is always there with us to the end, and beyond.

Moses’ call came suddenly and dramatically and unequivocally one day when he was tending to his father-in-law’s flocks.  It all happened suddenly and dramatically: an angel, a blazing bush that wasn’t burnt up, God’s voice calling Moses’ name and giving him instructions.

Some calls are like that. Others are less obvious. For most calls, we really need to discern what we think we’ve heard in company with other people; that’s why people called to ordained ministry, for example, are actually required to meet in discernment groups for years, testing the call. Who are we listening to? is the question. Are we hearing God or are we simply hearing our own voice?

A call from God can be unsettling and lead to a period of turmoil. Not an easy time of celebration for having been “picked.” Unlike political campaigns, I think, when you get the call to serve on a ticket and right away the balloons start popping, the cameras are clicking and you hear wonderful things about yourself and you repeat those accolades to the crowds to underscore your suitability for the job. Whee!

God’s calls are not like that. “Who am I?” said Moses, incredulous that God was asking him to serve. “I am only a boy,” stammered Jeremiah. “Woe is me!” cried Isaiah.  Abrahams’s wife, Sarah, laughed; she was much too old to become pregnant and give birth. Jonah heard God’s call and he turned tail and ran away. Mary was terrified so the angel had to say, “Wait! Don’t be afraid.”

Genuine calls from God create times of uncertainty and doubt. And for good reasons.  God doesn’t always call the cream of the crop. Moses was a murderer. He had a speech defect and needed his brother, Aaron, do much of his speaking for him. Sarah’s body was too old. Mary was unmarried and too young; to get pregnant for her was dangerous. The disciples were ordinary blokes with no special skills that we know of.  And what about us? God’s call often makes us acutely aware of our deficiencies and weaknesses, and so we doubt.

Uncertainty and doubt.  And to follow God is hard. How can we do this, God? Moses had to gather his people and lead them out from Egypt and the terrible grip of the Pharaoh and into the dangerous desert. The disciples were called to follow their Lord and to carry their crosses and to watch him suffer and die. “God forbid it, Lord!” And Jesus had his own Cross; his whole life was a journey towards it. Being the Messiah was not to be a glitzy enthronement after all, but a walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

The call of God is a complex matter in so many ways!

Here’s  another thing.  The very fact that God calls us is a clue that God counts on our help to do God’s work. Unlikely and strange as the call may be, hard as the job may be for us, unsuitable as we may think we are, it is clear that God calls us because God wants our help, God needs us, God craves our partnership, God yearns for our companionship along the way. 

And here is yet another thing. I believe that our relationship with God is based on, among other things, our freedom to resist and to say no. During my own long process of discernment of what I and others perceived as a call to ordained ministry, I always knew that I could say thank you but no thank you. God wasn’t trapping me. I’m glad I didn’t say no----but I could have. Our lives, like those of all the characters in the biblical stories, are packed with huge calls and smaller, daily ones, opportunities to serve God in abundant ways. Most of the time we don’t even hear the call.  We go our own merry way, and we never know what we’ve missed.  Sometimes God drops it and that’s the end of it; at other times God persists until we hear and follow.  We may doubt or resist or even run away, like Jonah, but God does not run away from us.

There was nothing safe for Moses about living God’s call. He had a miserable time of it. Hardships and struggle in the desert, rebellious people all the way to the edge of the Promised Land. And in the end, Moses never made it to that land. He died in the heights there, overlooking his destination. And we can stand there to this day, gazing at what he never got to see up close.

There was nothing safe for the disciples, who tagged along with Jesus until after he was killed, when they finally became brave and lived their call with distinction although they suffered as well, and many were martyred.

Following for us is no guarantee of easy going, either. Don’t we know! And not easy for us as church. We so often want our church, our churches, to be a smashing success, more and more people, great programs, stunning stewardship results, “happy Christians.”  So we play it safe, turning aside from gospel risk-taking because of what it might do to our treasury or to our reputation.

But no matter how hard or confusing it is to live God’s call, but let us not forget the bottom line: God’s continuing presence.

The disciples protested the horror that Jesus laid out for them, that he must suffer and die. But Jesus also said, “and on the third day be raised.”  The disciples didn’t pay attention to that part, the being raised part. The Good News, of course, is precisely that, that Jesus WAS raised. And that his new life becomes our new life, not merely at the end of our mortal lives, but right now. New life offered. To sustain us when we say yes” to God.

By continually seeking the face of God, who continually seeks us, we can know that we are never alone: whether we resist the God’s call, or answer yes and follow. Which is another way of saying Good News! Why don’t we see God? Hear God? Why do we so often feel alone? Someone has suggested that perhaps it is because God is so real, so obvious, that we miss all the evidence.

Today’s readings remind us of the evidence. Of God’s abiding availability and invitation to follow, now, and to the end, and beyond.