God's Call and Our Response

Homily Second Sunday After Epiphany Year B, 2012

When were you called by God?

That’s a question which is raised when we think about today’s reading from Samuel, parts of the 139th psalm, and the passage from John’s Gospel.

We often think in terms of our lives as consumers, customers, making informed choices about education, leisure pursuits, friends, activities, and even what we believe about politics and faith issues.

And yet this idea of call and response is at the centre of today’s scriptural teaching.

That’s not to say we don’t have free will. As Christians we believe God creates us with free will. God also is present with us. God cares for us. God sent his son Jesus to share in our humanity, and the holy spirit to give us strength.

So we don’t believe our lives are all mapped out, and we don’t have any choices. We are not simply marionettes. Like many other Christians we do not believe in what is called pre-destination.

Having said that Samuel, the psalmist and John all remind us of God’s call, and the power of that call in our lives, if we respond.

Think of those powerful words in the psalm: “You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. My frame was not hidden from you, When I was away in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body.”

So our intimacy with God is both inspiring, and frightening. That’s what makes Christianity different from other monotheistic religions, we believe in God who is both omniscient—over all the universe---and personal. To be on intimate terms with the creator of the universe is frightening.

There is nothing we can hide from God. Some people feel threatened by that.

During the past two thousand years since the calling of those first disciples outlined in John’s Gospel, call and response have been at the centre of our lives as Christians.

This is how we have grown from a small Jewish sect in an outlying corner of the Roman Empire to the largest body of religious believers in the world, some 2.3 billion people. While our numbers are somewhat in decline in the affluent west-Europe and North America, they are growing in South America, Africa and Asia.

“Your works are wonderful, O Lord. Lord you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar,” says the psalmist.

That’s a hard concept to grasp. Maybe it is more difficult for us in an age of affluence and technological progress, since we think we can do it all ourselves. Our human pride doesn’t allow us to conceive of God as co-creator of the ongoing life of the world.

God didn’t just create the universe, then sit back and let things happen. We believe in God who created, and is creating, through the Holy Spirit.

God calls us over and over, as he did the young Samuel. God knows us before we know him, as Nathaniel found out.

Philip had been called by Jesus, and Philip in turn witnessed to Nathaniel about Jesus. Nathaniel initially doubted—hence the famous line—can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But Philip persists: “Come and See.”

Nathaniel does meet Jesus, and comes to faith.

The style of evangelism Philip used has always been the most effective. You can tell someone what a difference your faith has made, and how much your faith community, your parish means to you. However in order to evangelize, or share the good news, you have to ask them to “come and see.”

Our scripture readings today stress the importance of making that invitation.

When I think of how I got involved again with a parish after finishing university and moving out west, it was based on an invitation. Some friends who I worked with were members of the Cathedral choir in Edmonton. I had never sung in a choir since grade school—too busy with other things, but I had never been invited.

And when I turned up I found quite a mix of people from choir boys still in elementary school to seniors. The choirmaster was a crusty Australian, Hugh Bancroft who had come to Canada and made his home as musician—playing organ and directing choirs in Anglican Cathedrals in Winnipeg then Edmonton. We use his hymn “There’s a Voice in the Wilderness” during Advent.

So I found a home in All Saints Choir and when I moved to Calgary, was asked again to join the choir at the first parish I joined there.

So call has been important in my life—not only in terms of being a choir member and active in parish life, but in later discerning a call to ordained ministry after 20 years as a journalist.

We can all be called to different ministries in the church, and we can respond to that call in some way no matter what our age, or what the circumstances are.

Our parish is in the midst of a challenging time of discerning its call to ministry, and how that might look, both in the short term, and in the longer term. We are working as a parish council, and as a congregation to look at the future, and what kind of parish we will be, and what that would entail—in terms of change.

Might we become partners with another parish? Could we share priestly ministry?
How would we make best use of buildings and other assets?

How do we move forward with a committed but heavily taxed group of lay volunteers—now combined with a full-time priest and part-time organist, secretary and janitorial staff---but in the fall looking at part-time clergy coverage.

There are no easy solutions, and Archdeacon Millward told the parish council and other interested parishioners yesterday that of the 34 parishes he supervises as archdeacon—thirteen will have vacancies by the fall. So there will be a shortage of clergy, at least for the short term.

But it all comes back to call. This is a major time of change for the church, and we are not alone in facing these difficult challenges. We have to discern our call to ministry and how we can build sustainable parishes.

As the Archdeacon told us, there is no master plan that would close this parish or any other. That decision is up to the parish.

Parishes do face the challenge that if they don’t make positive decisions to change, they will be left in a position where there is simply no other alternative.

Whatever happens we need to remember that none of this is our fault. The parish faces a radically different society, and a radically different mission field than during its heydays in the 1950’s. Sundays are no longer for church for most people—even nominal Christians use Sundays—including Sunday mornings as a day for sports, family time, social activity, and community events.

With two income families, time is in short supply for parents of young children, and even the evangelical churches have a somewhat older demographic than they used to.

So let us accept the things we cannot change, as the old saying goes, and realize that this parish has a rich history, which we give thanks for, and a future which is uncertain. Let us pray for wisdom and patience as move into a wilderness time where we are clearly seeking direction, and God’s blessing.