Called Into One Body

This month, we have been on something of an exploration of calling. What does it mean to be called? Called to be what? Called to do what? We often think of calling as being about what we do in the world. “I am called to be a farmer.” “I am called to be a teacher.” “I am called to be a doctor.” As we think about Biblical stories about calling, we see those who are called to be leaders, called to be prophets, called to be healers, called to be “fishers of men.” 

When we look at it this way, calling is about what we do. Maybe it is something we are particularly gifted at doing that is recognized as a calling. Maybe it is something we are hesitant about doing but that we feel compelled to do. Maybe it is something we are inspired by others to do.

But our readings for today give us a slightly different nuance on calling (see Ephesians 2:11-22 and Mark 6:30-34, 53-56). Our readings today are not so much about what we do with this call but rather about what the call does to us.

Called To Be A Blessing

 As we continue to explore the idea of calling, of who we are called to be and what we are called to do, we find two very different readings before us today (see 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 and Ephesians 1:3-14). Paul is writing a letter to the church in Ephesus while King David has gone to retrieve the ark and bring it to Jerusalem. David’s story is full of action, while Paul leaves us his words. But both of these stories will help us think about what it means to be called by God.

Called Into Power

This month our focus switches to the topic of calling. What does it mean to be called? Called to do what? Called to be what? 

Today, we begin our conversation with a look at two different stories about calling in the New Testament. Paul talks a bit about what his calling looks like, and Jesus calls the Twelve and sends them out to continue the ministry he has been doing (see 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 and Mark 6:1-13). What do these stories mean for us still today?

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During the month of June, we focused on the notion of faith. In particular, I tried to walk a line between our faith and God’s faithfulness. When we think about faith or talk about faith, whose faith do we mean? I hope that it helped you think more about faith and faithfulness and all that means for us as children of God.

This month, the readings in the lectionary continue primarily through the gospel of Mark and Paul’s letters, but they begin to turn us in the direction of a different topic common in the church -- the question of calling. Calling is the idea that we are meant to do or be something, that we are being called by some other power to accomplish something in our world. Maybe you think of mythology or fantasy stories, particularly those that follow the more or less traditional hero motif -- the chosen one who is called into a quest or a fight for which they were initially unprepared. Maybe you think of religious stories about calling -- Moses, who was literally called by a burning bush; Samuel, who was literally called by the voice of God; Isaiah, who heard God calling in the night; Paul, formerly Saul, who was blinded by the power of God and called into a new role. We talk about preachers, pastors, other clergy, evangelists, and teachers in the church as those who are called. The idea of calling even finds its way into the world outside of the church, as some look on their jobs as a kind of calling.

What does it mean to be called? Called to what? Called for what?

Sometimes the idea of calling takes on a mystical cast, becoming something almost other. Calling may be something that you think someone else has, something that is special, something that you think doesn’t apply to you. When we read the Bible stories I mentioned before, we see that those people had a profound experience of God. Most of us look at our lives and don’t have anything nearly as exciting as a burning bush or a live coal being touched to our lips by angels to point to as a source of calling. 

Or maybe we think that only church leaders have a calling. And to be fair, those who follow the path toward becoming a pastor or other clergy person in the church are constantly being asked about their call stories. From local church approval to seminary to conference interviews, calling is something we are pressed to think about every step of the way.

But I am here to tell you that all of us in this room today have a calling. And that calling is every bit as important and every bit as compelling as anything we might read in scripture or anything we might hear from someone we might consider holy.

Each of us is called by God. We are called into relationship, with God and with each other. We are called to live in those relationships for the betterment of the world around us. We are called to love the world around us so that God’s grace may be visible to all who would see it.

It is God’s grace that calls us, that reaches out to us; God’s ongoing faithfulness that continues to call us and lead us into something better. For those who are part of the book study right now, we might think about God’s prevenient grace here, the grace that is always reaching for us, even before we believe or understand who God is.

For each of us here today, God’s grace has called us into relationships that have led us to where we are now. There are people in our lives, perhaps family or maybe friends or others, who modeled a life devoted to God and God’s will for a better world. These relationships led us to be a part of the church, a part of something larger than ourselves. Through Baptism, we were dedicated to that calling to something more, perhaps as a child or maybe later in life. At the Table, we are continually strengthened and renewed by God’s presence and grace to continue that work to which we are called, working toward the world symbolized by the meal that we share, a meal open to all people who would come.

All of this is calling. All of this is God’s grace. As Paul reminds us, God’s grace is enough, or, as some translations have it, God’s grace is sufficient. Paul went through many trials and dangers as he spread the good news of Jesus in the world. He was constantly on the move, he was imprisoned, he was temporarily struck blind. Through it all, he could say that God’s grace was sufficient to see him through.

Perhaps some of you have had experiences like this, times in your lives when you had to rely solely on God’s grace to see you through. I know that I once went through a trying time when I was not sure how to keep moving forward. “God’s grace is sufficient” became my mantra through that time in my life.

God’s grace, the source of my calling, also became the strength to keep me going when I felt like all else was lost. Unlike Paul, I don’t look back and think that God put me through a difficult time just so the grace and power of Jesus could shine through. However, I do think that I went through a time when only that grace and power could save me. 

Through our calling, we are given the power that we need to fulfill that calling. We enter into relationships; we are washed and anointed; we are nourished and strengthened. All of this that whatever corner of the world we find ourselves in, we can work to make the kingdom of God visible to others. For some of us, that may be through standing up here on a Sunday morning and helping others wrestle with the scriptures and what these texts mean for us today. For some of us, that may be through loving the people around us wherever we may find ourselves on a daily basis. For some of us, it may be through being kind to the strangers we meet along the way. For some of us, it may be through nurturing and encouraging others to see the light in a world perceived as shadowy and chaotic.

For Jesus, his calling was in speaking truth and wisdom about God’s desire for relationship. It was about healing those in need, loving them into the kingdom of God in the present, not in some far off distant future. And it was about empowering others.

But our story in Mark today offers us some caution as well. Jesus returns to his hometown. On the Sabbath, he is found teaching in the synagogue as he often does. But unlike in other places he has been, the crowd in his hometown is less receptive. These people have preconceived notions of who Jesus is. He’s a carpenter, Mary’s son. The people watched him grow up along with his brothers and sisters. To them, that is all he will ever be. They are unable to hear the good news in the words he speaks. They recognize the power and the wisdom, but they can’t accept it from him.

I think about the world we live in today. Selfishness and self-centered ambition are often seen as the norm, and so many people may not be able to recognize or understand purely altruistic acts. They may look at someone and say, “we know that guy. He’s just looking out for himself,” or “we watched her grow up. I can’t believe she wants us to believe she has changed.” We have a hard time believing in someone working for good for no other reason than for the world to be a better place. Think about all of the “feel good” stories we hear in the news or see on social media. We celebrate and laud situations when others lend a helping hand or try to support someone in need because the act is seen as rare enough to be newsworthy.

Jesus is unable to get around the disbelief and scoffing of the people who knew him before he began this particular calling. He can’t get people to accept that what he says is true and genuine. They simply cannot believe that Jesus has anything to offer them. How could he?

So Jesus moves on. He continues teaching and healing in the surrounding villages. And then he sends the Twelve out to do the same things. He calls them, granting them authority to do the work that he has been doing. And he prepares them for the possibility that they may be ignored in some places, just as he was in his hometown. Still, he calls them.

The Twelve had seen all that Jesus had done so far. They knew in a way that the people in Jesus’ hometown could not. They had heard the teaching. They had seen the healings. Jesus gave them the authority and power to do the same. And so they went.

The Twelve went out and proclaimed the things they had heard, the things they had experienced. They talked about how their lives and the lives of others had been changed for the better. They talked about the kingdom of God coming into the world and what that kingdom looked like. They cast out demons and healed the sick. The kingdom of God grew in the world because of them.

How has your life been changed by God’s call on you?

Where have you seen God’s power at work?

Where have you experienced God’s grace?

How has God’s call made a difference in the world around you, no matter how big or how small that difference may seem?

As we talked about a few weeks ago, we don’t always know how God’s grace at work in us can change the world for the better. Sometimes we only get to plant the seed without knowing all that will grow from it.

But still we work toward that better world. Still we live into God’s kingdom, a kingdom that calls us to live in loving relationship with God and others. We live as if that kingdom is already here, even when it may be hard to see the evidence of it in others.

We live in that kingdom because we have been called into it, and we have seen the power of that kingdom to change the world for the better.

In a moment, we will share in a foretaste of that kingdom. When we gather at the Table that Jesus has called us to, we catch a glimpse, at least for a moment, of what that kingdom may look like. Regardless of who we are, no matter what gender, what background, what we have done, what we have left undone; regardless of social status; regardless of all the ways in which we tend to divide ourselves -- Jesus invites us all to the Table.

At this Table, we share in Christ’s power.

At this Table, we share in God’s grace.

At this Table, we are made anew.

At this Table, we are nourished and sent forth.

At this Table, we are called to live in the kingdom of God.

A Faith That Heals

As we have explored the interplay between our faith and God’s faithfulness this month, I have tried my best to turn away from some of the more common messages we sometimes hear about faith to focus instead on how it is ultimately God’s faithfulness that does the heavy lifting. Our faith is the tiniest seed. Our faith can feel lonely and cause conflict with loved ones. Our faith can falter when we think we are the ones doing the work. And yet, God creates great things, calling us into new families, and never leaving us alone.

Our last topic this month is the one that leaves me feeling the most cautious and uncertain. I touched on this briefly last week as I spoke of my discomfort with so much of the talk we hear about what our faith is supposed to do. As Jesus says so many times, our faith makes us whole; we are healed because of our faith (see Mark 5:21-43). Sometimes we read or hear these words, and we imagine that if we just had enough faith, if we just believe hard enough, God will have mercy. It is difficult not to think this when we read stories like the ones we have today. It is especially hard if we have ever heard church leaders or family members express exactly that sentiment. Somehow we are failing in our faith if we are not made into the image of wholeness that the rest of the world has for us, an image that we often carry within ourselves, an idea of what our lives should be or should look like. These ideas can make any chronic illness doubly debilitating. We have not only the disease to deal with, but the guilt that our faith isn’t stronger. 

A Faith That Protects

Faith is a funny thing. There are so many different things we can mean when we talk about faith. We can mean a religious tradition, our personal beliefs, our trust in God. And many times, our the notion of faith gets misused, as if all the bad things that happen in someone's life are somehow due to lack of faith. But I think that frequently the way the Bible talks about faith is not entirely (if at all) about an individual person's faith. 

Today, we look at what it means for God to be faithful in times of peril. What does it mean for God to protect us? To help us explore what this looks like, we look at readings from both the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the Gospel (see 1 Samuel 17:32-49 and Mark 4:35-41). Our music as well contributes to our understanding of faith and faithfulness as we consider the poem/hymn "Lift Every Voice and Sing."

Today also marks a further shift in my local congregation towards a new normal -- bulletins, hymns, and multiple scripture readings. How do all of these pieces come together to give us a more complete understanding of God's ongoing relationship to humanity?

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This month, we have been talking about faith, but not really in the usual sense. We haven’t so much focused on our faith and what we can do with it as we have explored God’s faithfulness and what that does for us.

For me, I sometimes get a little uncomfortable when we start talking about faith. There is a history of misunderstanding or outright misuse of the idea of faith. On the one hand, we talk about the faith of those who have come before, the trust that they had that God would provide. For some of us here, we can look at these walls around us and see a living example of the faith of those who came before, who acquired this land and built this space with their own hands to provide a house of faith not only for themselves but also for those who would come after. That is a faith to look up to and to seek to emulate.

On the other hand, we know stories of faith healers and those like them, who turn our everyday circumstances into a matter of faith. If we just had a little more faith, our job would be okay, our relationships would be okay, the cancer would go away. We could take up our mat and walk. And for the most part, those who say such things are well meaning people.

It is a tricky balancing act between being faithful and trusting in God and worrying that we don’t have enough faith because life doesn’t always work exactly how we think it should. This is one reason I find it is helpful to look at God’s faithfulness when we talk about faith. I find that our faith is mostly about trusting in God’s faithfulness. Not that such faith is necessarily any easier.

Over the last two weeks, I have tried to help us explore some of the ways in which God remains faithful in ways that we can see and recognize around us. We talked about how God draws us together and makes us one family united in Jesus. We can look around ourselves on any Sunday and see familiar faces. But we also recognize that we all come from different places and different experiences. Even so, God calls us together into one body, one family, united in Christ to continue his ministry of love in the world, united with all the other Christians meeting in their places of faith both near and far.

Last week, we talked about the ways in which God provides far more than expected. The tiniest seeds can provide shelter and shade and sustenance. Jesus reminds us that it is the same with the kingdom of God. Just the tiniest seed of hope and faith can lead to big changes in the world, changes that can’t always be predicted judging by what we are able to see. But every act of hope and love we live in the world plants a seed for God’s kingdom to take root.

This week, we are beginning to expand our worship a little more, moving in the direction of a new normal as the health conditions continue to slowly improve in our area.  I find that reading more than one scripture in worship each week helps us get a better picture of humanity’s relationship with God through generations. We can see both how the ancient Hebrew people understood their relationship with God as well as how those who followed Jesus understood some of those same stories through new eyes.

Our first reading today is from a story that is familiar. The story of David and Goliath is one that many of us likely learned as children, though there may be those who didn’t hear it until much later. The figure of David in the Bible is a complicated one. From humble origins as a shepherd to terrible acts as king, he is often lifted up as a Christ-like icon from the Hebrew scriptures. In fact, Jesus is spoken of as the son of David. 

While some of the stories later in David’s life turn him almost into a villain, here we get a sense of why he is lifted up as a model of faith. The Hebrews and the Philistines have been at war. One of the Philistine’s, Goliath, is a giant of a man, most likely just under 7 feet tall. Twice a day for forty days (there’s that number again), he would come out between the two armies and call out for the Israelites to send a challenger so that the battle could be decided in single combat. Now the king at the time, Saul, was the largest man in his army, and therefore the obvious challenger, but he was afraid of the Philistine and would not fight him.

As described, David is still quite young. He has been a shepherd and is in the army as something of a squire perhaps rather than as a soldier. But he ultimately steps forward and volunteers to face Goliath. The king offers him armor and weapons, but David shrugs them off, feeling overwhelmed and weighed down by the heavy equipment. Instead, he faces Goliath as a shepherd carrying only his staff and his sling and a handful of stones.

While the story itself is meant to show that Saul is unfit to lead Israel and that David is the obvious choice to be the new king, I want to draw your attention just to the first few verses of our reading today. I do this cautiously, because the story is not really about faith, so I don’t want to turn this into a lecture about how we should all have faith like David. At the same time, this is one of those examples of people in the past displaying their trust in God’s faithfulness. Perhaps that is a fine line, but one I think we owe it to the story and to ourselves to walk.

You see, Saul is nervous about letting David face the giant. Goliath has been fighting for years, and David is still only a boy. But David argues that he has tended his father’s sheep for years. In doing so, he has had to defend the flock from lions and bears, chasing the animals off when he can and fighting and killing them when necessary.

Then he says, “The Lord, who rescued me from the power of both lions and bears, will rescue me from the power of this Philistine” (1 Samuel 17:37, CEB).

David knew that God is faithful. He knew that he could trust in God to continue to be faithful. God would protect him now just as God had protected him before. God was with him when he protected the flocks. God will be with him as he faces Goliath.

Of course, we know that things are rarely this easy. This is why I remind us that this particular story is about highlighting that David should be king rather than Saul and not really about having faith. It is too easy to take these words and decide we should blindly enter any situation simply because we trust that God will get us out of it. We know that God is always at work for good in the world, but that good does not always come when and how we expect it.

Turning to our Gospel story today, just look at the disciples. Again, here is a group of people of faith, those closest to Jesus. They have seen something in Jesus, something about him that makes them believe in him and follow him. Jesus has just been talking to them about the nature of the kingdom of God, and now they are traveling across the lake. A great wind comes up, blowing the little boat around and creating waves that threaten to capsize the boat, filling the boat with water, and Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat. Finally the disciples wake Jesus up. “Don’t you care that we’re drowning?” (Mark 4:38, CEB). Some of these men are fishermen. They no doubt understand the predicament they are in. They are certainly aware of the dangers of being out on the lake in weather like this. This is not an irrational fear. This is not like king Saul, leading his army into war but unwilling to engage in single combat himself. These are men who know the water and what will happen if things don’t change. 

As soon as he awakens, Jesus commands, “Silence! Be still!” The gospel writer makes it clear that Jesus is speaking to the wind and the water, but given his next words, it is not hard to imagine that he is speaking to the disciples as well. He turns to them next and asks, “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?” (Mark 4:39, CEB). This seems an odd thing to ask the men who are traveling the countryside with him, men who have seen the miracles he has performed, men who have heard his teaching, men who think that he is leading them on the correct path to live a life of faith in relationship with God. “Don’t you have faith yet?”

Taken at face value, the faith of David in the face of the Philistine and Jesus’ rebuke in the face of the storm, it reminds me of folks who live in places frequented by hurricanes who figure they’ll just wait it out. Folks who see the flooded bridge and figure they’ll trust that it is okay. Maybe things will work out, and maybe they won’t. But is that really the same thing as faith? Is that really what Jesus means in this instance? Is that really what David means in his monologue? Just trust in God and blindly go into every dangerous situation?

I think each of them meant something a little different. Like I said before, David’s story isn’t really a story about faith. His story is about setting up the next king of Israel. It makes more sense to think of him as the main character on your favorite TV show. No matter how dangerous the situation seems, he is going to escape to fight another day. At the same time, it is a story of faith, of God’s faithfulness. David knows that God has been with him other times he has faced dangerous foes. He knows that God will be with him no matter the outcome. He figures it will be in his favor, but even if it isn’t, God remains faithful.

I think this is the nuance that Jesus is talking about when he questions the disciples' faith. It is less a question of, “don’t you trust that you will survive” and more a question of “don’t you trust that I am with you.” God’s protection isn’t always about protecting individuals from harm. Sometimes God’s protection is simply the promise that God will be with us, even if we do come to harm. God's protection is a promise that his kingdom is coming into the world. It isn't always about the individual; sometimes it's about the people.

This is the message I get from our first hymn today. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” started as a poem written by a black man to celebrate the centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. It was a poem about recognizing God’s faithfulness, God who released him and his people from captivity. A God who was with them through all of the horrors of enslavement. A God who brought them forth into a new world. I feel like the poem acknowledges that trusting in God was about having faith as a people, not necessarily about individual faith. And it also acknowledges that having faith does not mean that all pain and sorrow will cease. It is a faith based in reality, a faith that understands that God doesn’t always directly stop the pain, but God always sits in that pain with us, working toward a better tomorrow.

It is also a faith that points to the promised land that is still yet to come. Even as it was written to celebrate release from enslavement in honor of the President who worked to make that happen, it was also written during the same time period that memorials and statues honoring the Confederacy were popping up all over the South. It is a song of faith for all that God has done, and a song of hope for all that God continues to do.

What does it mean to have faith through the horrors of enslavement as it existed in our country? 

What does it mean to continue to have faith when there are signs all around that some people don’t want that way of life to be over?

What does it mean to continue to have faith when your personal safety isn’t guaranteed?

This is the type of faith that Jesus was talking about. He never promised the disciples safety, but he did promise to be with them. He promised to guide them and give them strength. He promised that the kingdom of God was coming into the world.

As the kingdom of God spreads, as more people are called to participate in this family, as more seeds are planted, the world will grow into a better place. Jesus promises that he will be with us every step of the way. God is faithful. Let us trust in that.