Our Call: Come and See 01/15/06
1 Sam. 3:1-10 and John 1:43-51
Regardless of your political inclinations, if you watched or heard any of the Senate hearings this week you had to be amazed at Samuel Alito's perseverance. And you have to wonder: why?!
Why would anyone, with his education and money-making-potential, jump through such a fiery hoops? Why would anyone walk into that den of senatorial lions set on attaching every word, determined to chew and chew on every decision--judicial or otherwise--that you've ever made. Why would you put your family through that? When a successful lawyer could be making triple or quadruple what even a Supreme Court justice makes--you wonder: who would want to be a judge?
I'm in no position to judge the judge--certainly not his inner motivations. But for many the answer to that question is simple: those who feel called to public service. A call: a sense of responsibility towards a vocation. A Vocation: the root of the word is voice, or vocal. Someone has called, someone has spoken, and because of that speaking you have something to do. You have a vocation.
I know that we are used to thinking of a "calling" in relation to ministers. But I think all too often we forget what our protestant forbearers taught. This teaching came not from their imaginations, but from scripture. To whit: we all have a vocation--cobbler, baker, candlestick maker--we all have a calling. That calling may be your job, or it may overlap with your job, or it might be distinct from your job. I don't want to confuse what you do for a living with what you do for life. For your life, for your real vocation, for your calling as a child of God, is not the same thing as a job.
You may fulfill your calling within you job, but your calling is never just a job. It is a commitment that arises out of a passion, not a paycheck. It is an activity of the heart, not just the head. You might write it on your resume, but a true calling people will read on your face.
A friend of mine was a speaker at a host church for Bill Hybel's leadership conference. Hybels, the well known pastor of Willow Creek, used Popeye, the sailor man, as an example of passionate vocation. Do you remember the cartoon of a few decades back? For the unacquainted, let me introduce you to Popeye. Popeye was a sailorman, and generally a very nice guy. He was even tempered, and liked people. But he had a girl friend named Olive Oil. He loved Olive Oil. And villains were always giving her a hard time.
Popeye would be patient with this, but only up to a point. When they threatened to do Olive Oil some harm, when his internal compass said enough was enough, when something inside him tripped, he would say: "That's all I can stands... I can't stands no more." At that moment, he would open up a can of that famous spinach and then get busy setting the world right—which, in the way of cartoons, meant beating people to a pulp without killing anyone.
Hybel's askes: "What can't you stand"? He calls this our area of "holy discontent". Many times our vision and then our vocation comes after finding our area of "holy discontent" and doing something about it.
MLK, whose vocation we celebrate tomorrow, was a Baptist preacher, who had a calling, but it was a minor vocation until we had this kind of Popeye moment. For Martin Luther King, Jr., it happened at his kitchen table, when in a moment of fear and trepidation, he heard the voice of God saying Martin stand up for justice. MLK says that after moment sitting at that kitchen table, crying into a cup of coffee, his life was never the same. He knew he couldn’t stand it any more.
The Bible is filled with example of holy discontent, when individuals come to hate what God hates, and to love what God loves, and God takes those passions and turns them into actions of transformative work.
Nehemiah, couldn’t stand that the wall of Jerusalem was destroyed. His holy discomfort turned into a life committed towards the rebuilding of that wall.
Samuel, whose call as a child is recorded in our OT text, had a holy discomfort towards the worship of idols. He purged the nation of idolatry.
Amos discomforted at the plight of the widow and orphan, takes out a can of spinach on the rich who exploited the poor, and calls for true religion: the lifting up of the downcast.
If it weren't for the holy discomfort of many activists in the '60s we might still have Jim Crow laws on the books.
If it weren't for the holy discomfort of political leaders we might not have medical care and social security for the elderly.
If it weren't for the holy discomfort of our Baptist forbearers at religious persecution, we might not have the freedom of religion in this country.
But all that's historical. What breaks your heart? Do you let God lead you through holy discomfort--through to a calling, through to where you hear the voice of God calling?
Are you listening? God is calling!
The call to change the world, by using whatever gifts and skills God has given you, only happens if you think the world needs changing. And for us who are pretty comfortable in this world--sometimes we have a hard time seeing that the world needs changing. We've got decent jobs, incomes, homes, a good nation, reasonable health-care.
One of the reasons that we struggle with a calling, is because we don’t see God's vision for the world. This is why Bible study is so necessary.
MLK, knew that God intended something else for God's African-American children.
Nehemiah knew that God wanted his children to have a wall.
Early Baptists knew that coerced faith, was no faith.
Notice what Philip said to Nathaniel in today's Gospel lesson: "Come and see." "Nathaniel, I know that Nazareth has a bad reputation as the cosmopolitan Hellenistic city, but this guy's different. You need to come and see--evaluate, sit and listen, open up your heart to the way things ought to be. Nathaniel, when you listen to this man, you'll develop a holy discomfort, and you'll want to follow him in setting the world right-side up."
Let me close with this encouragement. Many Popeye epiphanies come with three elements:
1) Biblical wisdom enables us to "come and see" what ought to be.
2) Spiritual vision enables us to see what is.
3) God calls us and equips us to help change what is, to what ought be.
My invitation today, is to ask you to commit yourself to come and see--that is to step one. Commit yourself to a study of biblical wisdom, which has the power to transform your vision of what is--so that you reach a point where you can't stands it no more, and where you'll spend your life doing what matters: making the is into what ought be.
Regardless of your political inclinations, if you watched or heard any of the Senate hearings this week you had to be amazed at Samuel Alito's perseverance. And you have to wonder: why?!
Why would anyone, with his education and money-making-potential, jump through such a fiery hoops? Why would anyone walk into that den of senatorial lions set on attaching every word, determined to chew and chew on every decision--judicial or otherwise--that you've ever made. Why would you put your family through that? When a successful lawyer could be making triple or quadruple what even a Supreme Court justice makes--you wonder: who would want to be a judge?
I'm in no position to judge the judge--certainly not his inner motivations. But for many the answer to that question is simple: those who feel called to public service. A call: a sense of responsibility towards a vocation. A Vocation: the root of the word is voice, or vocal. Someone has called, someone has spoken, and because of that speaking you have something to do. You have a vocation.
I know that we are used to thinking of a "calling" in relation to ministers. But I think all too often we forget what our protestant forbearers taught. This teaching came not from their imaginations, but from scripture. To whit: we all have a vocation--cobbler, baker, candlestick maker--we all have a calling. That calling may be your job, or it may overlap with your job, or it might be distinct from your job. I don't want to confuse what you do for a living with what you do for life. For your life, for your real vocation, for your calling as a child of God, is not the same thing as a job.
You may fulfill your calling within you job, but your calling is never just a job. It is a commitment that arises out of a passion, not a paycheck. It is an activity of the heart, not just the head. You might write it on your resume, but a true calling people will read on your face.
A friend of mine was a speaker at a host church for Bill Hybel's leadership conference. Hybels, the well known pastor of Willow Creek, used Popeye, the sailor man, as an example of passionate vocation. Do you remember the cartoon of a few decades back? For the unacquainted, let me introduce you to Popeye. Popeye was a sailorman, and generally a very nice guy. He was even tempered, and liked people. But he had a girl friend named Olive Oil. He loved Olive Oil. And villains were always giving her a hard time.
Popeye would be patient with this, but only up to a point. When they threatened to do Olive Oil some harm, when his internal compass said enough was enough, when something inside him tripped, he would say: "That's all I can stands... I can't stands no more." At that moment, he would open up a can of that famous spinach and then get busy setting the world right—which, in the way of cartoons, meant beating people to a pulp without killing anyone.
Hybel's askes: "What can't you stand"? He calls this our area of "holy discontent". Many times our vision and then our vocation comes after finding our area of "holy discontent" and doing something about it.
MLK, whose vocation we celebrate tomorrow, was a Baptist preacher, who had a calling, but it was a minor vocation until we had this kind of Popeye moment. For Martin Luther King, Jr., it happened at his kitchen table, when in a moment of fear and trepidation, he heard the voice of God saying Martin stand up for justice. MLK says that after moment sitting at that kitchen table, crying into a cup of coffee, his life was never the same. He knew he couldn’t stand it any more.
The Bible is filled with example of holy discontent, when individuals come to hate what God hates, and to love what God loves, and God takes those passions and turns them into actions of transformative work.
Nehemiah, couldn’t stand that the wall of Jerusalem was destroyed. His holy discomfort turned into a life committed towards the rebuilding of that wall.
Samuel, whose call as a child is recorded in our OT text, had a holy discomfort towards the worship of idols. He purged the nation of idolatry.
Amos discomforted at the plight of the widow and orphan, takes out a can of spinach on the rich who exploited the poor, and calls for true religion: the lifting up of the downcast.
If it weren't for the holy discomfort of many activists in the '60s we might still have Jim Crow laws on the books.
If it weren't for the holy discomfort of political leaders we might not have medical care and social security for the elderly.
If it weren't for the holy discomfort of our Baptist forbearers at religious persecution, we might not have the freedom of religion in this country.
But all that's historical. What breaks your heart? Do you let God lead you through holy discomfort--through to a calling, through to where you hear the voice of God calling?
Are you listening? God is calling!
The call to change the world, by using whatever gifts and skills God has given you, only happens if you think the world needs changing. And for us who are pretty comfortable in this world--sometimes we have a hard time seeing that the world needs changing. We've got decent jobs, incomes, homes, a good nation, reasonable health-care.
One of the reasons that we struggle with a calling, is because we don’t see God's vision for the world. This is why Bible study is so necessary.
MLK, knew that God intended something else for God's African-American children.
Nehemiah knew that God wanted his children to have a wall.
Early Baptists knew that coerced faith, was no faith.
Notice what Philip said to Nathaniel in today's Gospel lesson: "Come and see." "Nathaniel, I know that Nazareth has a bad reputation as the cosmopolitan Hellenistic city, but this guy's different. You need to come and see--evaluate, sit and listen, open up your heart to the way things ought to be. Nathaniel, when you listen to this man, you'll develop a holy discomfort, and you'll want to follow him in setting the world right-side up."
Let me close with this encouragement. Many Popeye epiphanies come with three elements:
1) Biblical wisdom enables us to "come and see" what ought to be.
2) Spiritual vision enables us to see what is.
3) God calls us and equips us to help change what is, to what ought be.
My invitation today, is to ask you to commit yourself to come and see--that is to step one. Commit yourself to a study of biblical wisdom, which has the power to transform your vision of what is--so that you reach a point where you can't stands it no more, and where you'll spend your life doing what matters: making the is into what ought be.
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