Call and Blessing

One thing that stayed in my mind from reading about this passage this week, is this: “God doesn’t accept resumes, instead God calls people”[i]

Can you imagine running a business or organisation that way?

Well we aim to in the Church.

In the UCA, and many other denominations, our processes are about responding to God’s call, and often, having that call affirmed [or not] by those around us. This is not only for people in ordained ministry. This is also how it is planned for our committees and councils to operate. Disciples who are aware of the prompting of God in their lives, who acknowledge that prompting, test it out, and say yes to God.

Sometimes the call of God will be in line with our gifts and skills, but not always.

About 20 years ago, I felt God calling me to work with young families, I was in a congregation with lots of Baptisms. I had no experience, other than talking with families about baptism. I thought the best way to engage with these families was to offer some kind of worship aimed at families with little children. Worship I knew about, children I did not.

When I spoke with the Ministers in the congregation, they were encouraging, but suggested I ask some of the families what would interest them. And that is how I started a playgroup, even though I had never been to one.

All through the Bible we hear stories of people being called by God, of people responding to God’s call in their lives.
we see it here with Abram,
with Moses and the burning bush,
Elijah and the still small voice.
We see it in the disciples obeying the words of Jesus to follow.

And there are other examples of people being obedient to God’s call.

What is God’s call like?

That isn’t an easy question to answer, it is different for each person and each situation.

This morning we look at the call of Abram.

We know very little about the first 75 years of Abram’s life. After his father died, God told him to up and move.

On Friday evening we talked about moving and how you have to take everything with you. I am guessing Abram and Sarai did not have a lot of furniture, but there was at least a tent, and animals and slaves; and as one child told me, they didn’t have cars and trucks in those days. We imagine Abram with a herd of camels, but camels aren’t mentioned until Abram is given camels by the king of Egypt.

If God said to you, pack up and move, would you?
Pack up and move to a place without knowing where that will be?

Abram obeyed. While Abraham is remembered as a person of strong faith, there are times when he tried to take matters into his own hands. Remember Hagar and Ishmael. Ad following God’s call does not give you a perfect family, remember Jacob and Esau.

But also notice, that in the small section we heard this morning, Abram twice builds an altar and worships the Lord. Maybe that is one of the keys of being able to hear and follow God’s call, being people who worship wherever we are.

Where does this call lead?

A modern paraphrase:

Genesis 12:1-3 The Message (MSG)

God told Abram: “Leave your country, your family, and your father’s home for a land that I will show you.

I’ll make you a great nation
        and bless you.
    I’ll make you famous;
        you’ll be a blessing.
    I’ll bless those who bless you;
        those who curse you I’ll curse.
    All the families of the Earth
        will be blessed through you.”[ii]

Where does this call lead?

Not only a new place to live and a new name, and a family; but blessing.

God will bless Abram,
and those who bless Abram
and all the families of the earth.

The word and idea of ‘Blessing is pervasive in Genesis. It is a gift of God, usually mediated through creaturely agents, which empowers recipients, both elect and non-elect, to experience and bring forth life, goodness, and well-being.’[iii]

So, in plain English…

A blessing is a gift of God.

When we think of our blessings, I suspect we think of friends, family, food and shelter.

But I think that blessing goes further than that.
We are blessed because we are in relationship with God through the life and death of Jesus.

We are blessed because we are offered forgiveness and grace

We are blessed because God asks us to be partners in bringing blessings into the world.

“Blessings were never meant to be kept for ourselves. God blesses us so that we can be a blessing to others. Sharing and a generous lifestyle are marks of God’s people. It started with Abram and has been that way ever since.”[iv]

 “Along with Abram, we are also “blessed to be a blessing.” God has given us good gifts (including a loving relationship with God) so that we can share these gifts with others. God blesses us (through others), and God blesses others (through us).” [v]

Abraham was blessed to be a blessing.

He and Sarai travelled to unknown places, doubted God’s promise, saw God’s promise fulfilled and God changed their names.

Following God’s call is not always easy, but we are called to be faithful.

Where has obeying God’s call taken you?
.. a new place, a new name, a new ministry area?
Has following the prompting of the spirit in your life always been easy?

How might we be faithful in our lives?
How might we be blessings to the world God loves?

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[i] http://www.integrity-authenticity-love.com/call-abraham/

[ii] The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

[iii] http://www.enterthebible.org/oldtestament.aspx?rid=20

[iv] http://www.integrity-authenticity-love.com/call-abraham/

[v] https://spiritandtruthpublishing.com/blog/the-blessing-of-abram-september-16-2018/

Abram, Moses, Samuel, David and you

This week it is a smaller step along our timeline.  Last week we met Samuel as a child, hearing the voice of the Lord for the first time.

This week he is anointing David to be king.

David isn’t the first king of Israel. The people of Israel asked for King, so they would be like the other nations. Samuel’s sons had not followed the ways of his father, just as Eli’s sons had not followed in his ways, there was again no one to lead the people, so again they ask for a king:

One day the nation’s leaders came to Samuel at Ramah ⁵ and said, “You are an old man. You set a good example for your sons, but they haven’t followed it. Now we want a king to be our leader, just like all the other nations. Choose one for us!” [1 Samuel 8:4-5 CEV]

Then Samuel tells the people the problems they will get with a King:

He will force your sons to join his army

Your daughters will have to make perfume or do his cooking and baking.

The king will take your best fields, and vineyards, and olive orchards

You will become the king’s slaves

The people would not listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want to be like other nations. We want a king to rule us and lead us in battle.”

[1 Samuel 8: 19-20]

Saul is chosen to be King, he wins some battles, but he is also disobedient to God, and God regrets making Saul the King.  

Then we get to the passage we heard read this morning, Samuel anoints David to be king. However, it is not until after the death of Saul that David is made King.  

I told you last Sunday, I would be talking about Call this week.  With the Synod report, there wasn’t much time to think about the call of Samuel, then this morning we have the anointing of David.

But right back in Genesis 12, there is the call of Abram, who is later renamed Abraham.

[Genesis 12: 1-5] The Lord said to Abram:

Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you…...

Abram was seventy-five years old when the Lord told him to leave the city of Haran. He obeyed and left with his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions and slaves they had gotten while in Haran.

Then we come to Moses, out looking after his father-in-law’s sheep and goats, when he sees a bush that was burning, but not consumed by the fire.

[Exodus3:4] When the Lord saw Moses coming near the bush, he called him by name, and Moses answered, “Here I am.”

And God said:  I have seen how my people are suffering as slaves in Egypt, and I have heard them beg for my help because of the way they are being mistreated. I feel sorry for them, and I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians.

… Now go to the king! I am sending you to lead my people out of his country.

But Moses said, “Who am I to go to the king and lead your people out of Egypt?”

God replied, “I will be with you. And you will know that I am the one who sent you, when you worship me on this mountain after you have led my people out of Egypt.”

And last week we heard a passage from 1 Samuel 3, the boy Samuel being given a message for Eli.

God spoke to each of these people, Abraham, Moses, Samuel and David, in different ways; and the tasks they were given to do were also quite different.

There are different ways of hearing a call from God: sometimes like Abraham and Moses, there will be a clear voice and a clear task.

Sometimes like Samuel, it will be a series of conversations with God that lead to a variety of tasks.

Sometimes like David, another person will bring God’s message to you.

Where is God calling you to be active? Are you willing to stop and listen for the voice of God?

Some quotes:

“Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.”  ― Frederick Buechner[i]

"Work is not primarily a thing one does to live but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God."—Dorothy Sayers[ii]

Work is not primarily a thing one does to live

but the thing one lives to do.

My dad worked at the steelworks to earn money, that is what he did to live; but what he lived to do was music and poetry and people who liked music and poetry.

What do you live to do?

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[i] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/496215-vocation-is-the-place-where-our-deep-gladness-meets-the

[ii] http://www.rjgrune.com/blog/18-quotes-on-vocation

We are Called to Follow

When I first became a Christian, I was told all I had to do was believe in Jesus as Lord and I would be saved. Then, the only extra thing to do was tell other people to believe in Jesus and be saved.

But as I have read more of the Bible I am aware that Jesus asked people to follow him, just as he asked Simon and Andrew and James and John.

Jesus didn’t ask people to like him,

or to be his best friend

or to be his bodyguard.

In the calling of the disciples,

they are asked,

in the midst of family and work,

to follow.

These were not the spiritual elite or people at worship every day. They were not an intellectual elite or the wealthy.

These were ordinary people, doing ordinary every day things,
and Jesus said to them: Come with me!

One thing I find difficult to understand is how these 4 fishermen, stopped what they were doing, and left to follow Jesus. According to Matthew’s gospel, all Jesus did was ask them to follow, and they immediately left their nets and followed.

These four men, and later other men and women, answered the call to follow Jesus, to be with Jesus as he saved and healed and taught. They were present with Jesus for meals and travelling and stories.

Their lives were disrupted and then transformed, they were called to a different way of living, to create a new community; a community that would be like a light shining in the darkness of Roman ruled Galilee. [i]

The reading from Matthew started with the news of the imprisonment of John the Baptist. Preaching a message of repentance was not going to win Jesus friends in high places.

He knows there will be consequences, real and scary. In spite of this awareness he begins his ministry.[ii]

We are not asked to only believe; “belief alone is not enough, we need action. That’s incarnational, God using us to advance God’s desire for the world….” [iii]

What would it mean for each of us to choose to follow Jesus?
to follow Jesus in speaking with the outcasts
to follow Jesus in offering forgiveness
to follow Jesus in offering inclusion to the disabled

to offer comfort to the ill

What would it mean for us to follow Jesus
in speaking out against injustice,
refusing to repay violence with violence.

What would it mean for us?

The lives of the four fishermen, Andrew, Simon, James and John were disrupted and transformed, when they responded to the call of Jesus: Come with me!

If we decide to follow Jesus, in bringing light to the hidden places of oppression and poverty and injustice, we too will find our lives disrupted and transformed, and possibly uncomfortable and even at risk.

Last week, someone spoke to me of seeing people from the Jehovah Witnesses doorknocking on one of those very hot days.  I am not advocating we go door to door, as some churches do, but this person was wondering out loud, when the last time they had done something for God that was uncomfortable.  

We are called to follow, not to simply bask in the love and grace of God.[iv]

Following Jesus will mean giving something up, we may be uncomfortable, we may lose friends, relationship with family may be strained. Andrew, Simon, James and John gave up fishing and left their families to join Jesus.

I wonder how willing we are to have our lives turned upside down, how willing are we to experience the kind of repentance that turns away from materialism and self-interest. [v]

What has been transformed in your life?

What are you willing to have transformed in your life for Jesus?  

-1 minute silence -

(written from the view of a disciple)

Reflection

Will you follow me

he asked—and we never hesitated

because it was an adventure,

and we never tired of those,

the risk, the randomness, the gamble.

...........

..........

[Spill the Beans]

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[i] Warren Carter, Working Preacher

[ii] Dani Veenstra, RevGalBlogPals

[iii] Rev Terri C. Pilarski, RevGalsBlogPals 11^th hour Preacher Party

[iv] Kathryn Matthews, UCC SAMUEL

[v] Kathryn Matthews, UCC SAMUEL