ANSWERING THE CALL
June 11th
Gary Harder
Texts:
Isaiah 6:1-8
Romans 8:14-17
Introduction
It’s good to be back in this pulpit after five months sitting in the pew. I want to express my deep appreciation to you, my congregation, for giving me this five-month partial sabbatical. What this time has meant for me was, in the first place, no evening meetings – a rich gift all on its own. But a more important piece to me has been the opportunity to sit with you in the congregation and be nurtured spiritually as I entered worship more on the receiving end. Sunday mornings has been a time for me to be fed by worship that I had no responsibilities for. And that has been a wonderful gift for me.
A huge vocational reality for us pastors is that we are mostly responsible for some part of worship – we are the givers, the channels through whom grace from God is supposed to flow. But if we are mostly givers, and not receivers of this worship grace, then we dry up spiritually. The huge temptation for pastors is to find ourselves mostly on the giving end and not paying nearly enough attention to the receiving end, and then we wither on the vine. We / I desperately need places where we can worship publically simply as receivers of God’s love and grace – to be led and to be fed by others of God’s children. A part of this being led and fed has been to be able to sit with Lydia for worship.
And all of this has happened in these five months, and for that I am particularly grateful. And, quite apart from my own needs for this kind of worshiping, I was impressed again with how rich and full the worship was these five months without my input. You are an amazingly gifted and Spirit-led congregation.
This sabbatical time has been very refreshing for me. I have also tried to work hard during this time. I have been trying to write my book. That was, after all, the project for these five months, and the primary purpose of the sabbatical.. Writing is a hard, treacherous task, filled with some moments of inspiration – and many moments that aren’t.
When I started this writing I thought – and you the congregation probably thought – that my book would be a book of sermons. The plan was that I would collect what I thought were some of my better sermons over the 18 years I have preached here, edit them, and then publish them. That’s the plan I started out with. All through January I read that whole pile of old sermons – 25-30 sermons per day. By the end of January I named that month my month of doing penance.
And I realized as I was doing so that I didn’t have full enthusiasm for just publishing my old sermons. I guess the sermons felt old. And I felt old with them.
What was energizing me far more was the opportunity to reflect on my more than 40 years of being a pastor, and to write down some of these reflections. And what has emerged are some of the stories and issues, and joys and pains and conflicts and fulfillment of the life of a pastor – and a renewed sense of awe at the mysterious callings of God and of the mysterious working of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church.
This has been a very worthwhile and important thing for me to do, whether or not it ever gets published in book form. I did manage to get a very rough draft finished. There is a huge distance yet between a rough draft and a finished manuscript.
To help me bridge this distance I have asked four people to be a kind of a conversation or reading or editorial group giving me feed back. Michele, Richard, Marieke and Lydia have been reading my stuff, are meeting with we periodically, and are just generally complicating my life with their insight and knowledge.
As people very skilled in the writing and editing business they are on the one hand telling me I have to write much more yet because I have been way to skimpy in explaining and describing some things, but on the other hand they are also telling me I have to cut whole big gobs of what I have written – either because its poorly written or because it is simply padding.
So, being a good frugal Mennonite, my thought is that I will collect all these gobs they are culling from my book, and then I will use them as sermons for the next months. Shouldn’t really waste them, should I?
Isaiah 6
When I got back to my office this week one of the first things I did was look for the Lectionary readings for today. It was time to think sermon instead of think book. The Scripture reading that jumped out at me was Isaiah 6, the call of Isaiah. On this Sunday, of all Sundays, we have commissioned and blessed Ginnie and Sarita for their ministry in Burkina Faso. They are responding to and following God’s calling in their lives. And this week I have been in conversation with another young couple from our congregation because they are sensing a call from God to apply for MCC service. And I have just spent five months reflecting on the call of God for my life. And the first Scripture waiting for me this week is the story of the call of Isaiah. I am in awe again at the mysterious working of God’s Spirit.
Isaiah was a priest in Jerusalem. And one day the world opened for him in a new way. The
lot fell on him. The lot. He was the one chosen to enter that most holy of all places – the Holy of Hollies in the temple, the innermost sanctuary of the temple. Awesome privilege it was, but also fearful, entering that most holy space where humans were forbidden to enter except one person on very rare occasions – and then only after very careful preparations and cleansings. In that space the presence of God is palpable.
I don’t know if holiness is as big today as it was then, the awesome transcendence of God that makes us quake just a bit. Is there a spot on this earth that is a particularly holy place for you, where you can go and feel the presence of God – either the intimate loving presence of God or the Holy Other awesome, almost fearsome presence of God? A particular cathedral or church? A place by a lake or in the mountains? A campfire? A prayer room somewhere? A special place in your house or yard?
Isaiah is in the inner sanctuary of the temple, chosen by special lot to be there. And there the symbols of holiness take on life and power for him – is it actually happening? Is it only in his imagination? Is he having a vision there? The seraphs – the angels made of olive wood, wings stretching from wall to wall, begin to fly. And the pivots in the thresholds begin shaking. And the room fills with smoke. And then the seraphs begin singing – powerful room shaking vibrations “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory”.
Whatever it was that Isaiah experienced there in the inner sanctuary – whether just entering that room put his imagination on full, trembling alert and opened him to hearing God’s call, or whether olive wood angels really did start flying and singing, Isaiah saw and heard a vision and knew it was God calling him. And his first response is to be overwhelmed with his own humanness and sinfulness. In the presence of such awesome holiness the only response possible is confession.
When we meet the Holy God we know ourselves to be unholy.
When we meet the majestic God we know ourselves to be very human.
When we meet the power of God we know ourselves to be very weak.
When we meet the purity of God we know ourselves to be very sinful.
Isaiah responds;
“Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Unclean lips. A symbol of sinfulness. The lips express what the heart is. They give expression to the darker thoughts and impulses and temptations and evil that is deep within us. “I am a man of unclean lips. I am not pure. I am not holy. And yet I have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
There are many call stories in the Bible. And this they seem to have in common. In the first place there is an experience of God’s holiness – God’s transcendence. In the second place whoever is called at first resists the call and thinks God has made a mistake.
I think of Moses. He sees a burning bush that keeps on burning.. He knows immediately it is a holy place specially visited by God. It is so holy he takes off his shoes, and hides his face in fear. But when he hears God calling him to lead the people of Israel out of slavery Moses protests and resists – many times in fact. “I don’t even know your name, oh holy one.” “I am a lousy speaker”. “They won’t believe me”.
I think of Jeremiah. His first reaction is that he is far too young to be called by God. “Ah Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy”.
I was overwhelmingly conscious of my young 23 years when I became pastor of the Waters Mennonite Church. And overwhelmingly conscious of my inadequacies and inexperience and my unresolved faith questions. And of my ongoing sinfulness. But I was also aware that God was present – not really in a burning bush or through flying and singing angels, but in the way I saw peoples lives being transformed.
In Isaiah’s story, with confession comes healing, cleansing, forgiveness. “Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a life coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”
In Moses’ story, he is given signs to perform and a brother to speak for him. Jeremiah is promised this: “Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, ‘Now I have put my words in your mouth'”.
In much less dramatic ways, I think I have experienced that.
Isaiah is now ready to hear God’s call in his life. “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us”?
And Isaiah is able to say, “Here am I; send me!”
Simple – profound offering. “Here am I; send me!”
Romans 8:14-17
Isaiah hears his call in the context of an almost terrifyingly holy place – Flying, singing angels, shaking foundations, a room filled with smoke. He is aware of an awesome, transcendent God.
Paul, in R
omans 8, paints a very different picture of God – the loving, immanent, daddy God.
“For all who are led by the Spirit are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry “Abba! Father!”, it is that very spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ . . . .”
This is the intimate God, the Father loving his children, inviting them to let go of any fear they carry, inviting them to know that they are deeply loved. We have been adopted. We are beloved children of God.
A littler later in this chapter Paul says that “The Spirit (of God) helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints . . .”
And yet later Paul says, “Nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.”
I like the balance of these two texts which the lectionary offers us. On the one hand the Holy, transcendent vision Isaiah challenges us with, and on the other hand the gentle, immanent, loving parent God Paul comforts us with. Both pictures of God are shown us throughout the Bible. Both are important to me when I reflect on God’s callings in my life.
God calls me – and each one of us – into a relationship with God. God knows each of us intimately, from the womb, and invites us to commit our lives to God and to God’s way. This immanent God given to intimate relationships, calls gently and lovingly, inviting us into that tender embrace.
But God is also transcendent and holy and dangerous and powerful – creator and Lord of the universe, and when we catch a glimpse of that holiness, our sinfulness too will become transparent and we will need to be cleansed, perhaps by a fire touching our lips.
The point I want to make is that each of us are called – each of us. Not only the prophets. Certainly not only the ministers. Each of us is called by a God who is both transcendent and immanent, both far and close, both holy and loving.
The first call of Jesus to the disciples was simply, “come, follow me”. This came long before any assignments, long before any sending out, long before any specific call to ministry. “Come, follow me. Come into my circle of love and forgiveness.”
For Mennonites, a symbol of our saying yes to this invitation to follow Jesus is baptism. When you say yes to God with an adult maturity, we invite you to be baptized. And that baptism, we say, is our call to ministry. Not to pastoral Ministry. Not to a specific ministry. But to ministry in the sense that we are not committed to God and to God’s way, and we live out that commitment by living for God.
Every Christian, every baptized Christian, is called to ministry. That is, we are all called to participate in God’s work – in a hundred different ways. Living lives of integrity and honesty. Being committed to living compassionately, caringly, lovingly, engaging all people we meet as if we recognize something of the image of God in them. Being committed to a life of service – serving in the name of Christ. As much as possible living a Jesus kind of life. Sometimes being very practical – offering a cup of cold water, visiting someone in prison, shoveling a neighbor’s driveway. Sometimes offering to walk with someone in pain – listening to their story, touching them with compassion. Sometimes offering a word of witness to our faith – sharing something of our love for God with them.
Baptism, we say, is our call to ministry. Then sometimes God calls some of us to a specific kind of ministry – say to a term with Mennonite Central Committee in Burkina Faso, or to a volunteer assignment, or to a particular task in the church, or to a vocation in a particular profession – perhaps even to pastoral ministry.
Does God call each of us to a specific profession, a specific job? I don’t know. Sometimes surely. But in each case? I suppose there are many professions, many vocations, in which we can use our God-given gifts and in which we can serve God. Many of us will have a number of jobs through the course of our lives. I don’t know if there is a specific call to each one of these, though I do believe in God’s guidance in our lives.
But perhaps the bigger question is whether our work, our job, our vocation, is a place where we can be true to our baptism, where we can serve God in some way, where we can live out our general call to ministry. I’m sure that God can be immensely creative in all kinds of places, even vary unlikely places, to use us and tour gifts. I’m sure we can all be immensely creative in using our gifts and our sense of calling to live for Christ wherever we are located.
But this won’t happen automatically. It will happen only when we hold our baptism vows before us. It will happen when we remember that in baptism we committed ourselves to following Jesus – that is, to live for him and to serve the world in his name.
Being baptized means that there is a bigger framework to our lives, a bigger picture, a bigger meaning, a bigger purpose, a bigger vision to life. Something more than the biggest paycheck, or the most power or the most prestige, or absolute financial security. Something more than an easy, safe, pleasant life where all suffering and all paini is always held at bay. Something more than being born, going to school, getting married, having a job, accumulating assets and connections and trophies, living for yourself, and dying wondering whether it was al
l vanity.
Conclusion
During this sabbatical time, during my reflections and my writing these last five months, I have often given thanks to God for my called to pastoral ministry, a calling which I was slow to hear and which caused me some agony. I had other visions in my head. But looking back I can’t imagine any other vocation making me more fulfilled.
But now, as I look toward retirement a year from now, I am powerfully aware that my call to be a pastor wasn’t and isn’t the primary call of God in my life. The bigger calling was the invitation to follow Jesus. The bigger calling was to name myself a beloved child of God. The bigger calling was to baptism.
These callings are life long, while my vocation is only a part of that life long.
This transcendent-immanent God continues to call – in my life and in yours. How will we answer?