The Simple Thing One Cannot Not Do

Second Sunday after the Epiphany * Year B
D. Ross-Jones
January 18, 2009 * Mukwonago UCC, Mukwonago, Wis.
I Sam. 3:1-10

What are these calls, these voices?  What is our reason for doing our work?  Samuel’s call story demonstrates the way that God’s still, quiet voice compels our response, enables our work to God’s glory and Christ’s mission among the earth.

Please pray with me.

Calling God, we thank you for the opportunity to gather together in community and approach you through your word.  I pray now that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts here in this place be acceptable in your sight, O God, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

I just returned on Friday from a week at the New Melleray Abbey outside of Dubuque, Iowa.  McCormick observes what is called “J-Term,” the month of January, serving as an intensive term with a wider variety of experiential and experimental courses than exists in the regular curriculum.  I’m enrolled in Christian Daily Prayer, providing us an opportunity to unlock the power of this simple act as we participated for a week in the life of the monks.

Both at New Melleray and at the seminary, there’s lots of strange talk.  “What’s your call story?” people will ask.  Everyone knows what that question means.  Like Samuel, how did God call you to ordained ministry?

The ordered ministry is a vocation, which is altogether an entirely different animal than a job or even a career.  One’s vocation glorifies God, responds to the Spirit’s still-speaking movement in their soul.  Vocation often is that simple thing one cannot *not* do.  Dietrich Buechner describes vocation as the place where your deepest gladness and the world’s deepest hunger intersect.

In the church, we’ve done a great disservice to the meaning of vocation.  Call means ordered ministry; it even permeates into our congregational vocabulary.  We “call” the minister, but we simply hire or bring on the administrative assistant, musician, youth director, janitor.  In a life before this, when I worked for Target Corporation and was considered for an executive store management position, I never thanked the District Team Leader for his calling me.

“Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!”

Here I am – what a simple response.  On the Sunday after Christmas our Scripture readings called us to ponder the simple reality of the Christ-child as a child, an infant.  Jesus entered this world in the same fashion as we all did, without any self benefit.  As I said to my community at Plymouth Church in Milwaukee that week, we ended a season of waiting with more waiting – this time anticipating what Jesus would be and do “when he grew up.”

What do you want to be when you grow up?  How young were you when you heard those words pointed in your direction?  In my own life, starting in seventh grade we took an intentional period of time in school for career exploration.  I was the same age as Samuel, but I wasn’t hearing God’s call, I was hearing the direction of the teacher.  I was hearing the dreams of my classmates.  I was hearing the “right way” to be successful in a 1990s world.  We weren’t discerning our vocation, we were planning on jobs as bankers, lawyers, doctors.  We weren’t being authentic to God’s call, we were measuring up to the world’s definition of career path.

Samuel is hearing God’s voice at the tender age of 12; “grown up” is relative to God.  We see this theme throughout scripture – God working through the youngest to bring about great things.  Samuel running back to Eli, asking him, why did you call me, demonstrates Samuel’s reliance on others.  He is not yet independent.  He is not yet in care of a house of his own.  He wields no power or authority.  Yet after this passage, the story becomes about Samuel’s submission to God, his obedience to the Most High.  As Samuel is called, he responds, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Its more than a little scary for our individualistic society to think about following a call.  It implies we are not in control of our own destiny.  We step back from lead role to supporting in the drama that is our very own life.  The world tells us we’re crazy to think that way, and so I think in a way that’s the reason we’ve relegated vocation to meaning church work.  After all, the church is the craziest of them all…

Right now, at this moment, consider that mistake ended.

Marching through my mid-20s, the last few years of my life have been full of the hopes and dreams of a generation coming-of-age.  I think back to those late-night chats on dorm floors in college, people talking about why they chose their major and the eventual work that they look forward to.  These are call stories.  These are the stories of people responding to their deepest gladness, depending on the world’s deepest hunger to sustain them.

A close friend of mine’s passion is science, particularly animals and nature.  His equal passion is children.  When he began his studies, he was on an educational track, preparing for classroom teaching.  But that wasn’t going to cut it.  He didn’t like going to class himself, so subjecting others to the same system that he experienced as life-draining wasn’t fair or honorable – and wasn’t authentic to his deepest gladness.  Nearing his graduation, he began to question his academic path.  “Maybe I should have kept the education minor,” he told me, after asking, “Do people eventually stop saying ‘no?’”

Not long thereafter, the world’s deepest hunger opened up to him, in the form of a connection with an outdoor experiential learning center, partnering with schools and organizations to provide a connection with theoretical, didactic learning and practical, engaged application.  He had found his vocation – his calling – in the truest sense of the word.

One commentary on today’s passage says, “The sign of spiritual maturity is discerning God’s voice from others.”  Those other voices are powerful – the voice of society, the voice of fear, the voice of our closest confidants and relatives, the voice of our family, the voice of our financial needs.  But God will continue to call; God is persistent.  Forcing oneself into a mold outside of God’s creation is rarely entirely successful.

How do you hear God calling to you this day?  How do you hear God calling you to live out your life?  God calls people to all the vocations of the day – science educator, banker, lawyer, doctor, professor, retail worker, mail courier, garbage hauler, janitor, computer technician, engineer, carpenter, miller, lumberer, rancher… and yes, even the traditional church vocations.  The list is endless.

Listen to God’s call.  Ask your friends, your family about their calls.  Encourage each other in responding, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Soli Deo Gloria; To God alone be glory.  Amen.