God Calls Us (Camp Sunday)

1 Samuel 3: 1-10 & Mark 1: 16-20

Roger Lynn

May 29, 2016

Camp Sunday

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

God calls us. In fact, God is always calling us. And sometimes we  pay enough attention to hear the call. Sometimes we even pay enough attention to respond.

But what does a call from God sound like? We have lots of stories in the Bible about folks who heard God calling them. And they all seem to be fairly dramatic and unmistakable. Moses hears God calling from a burning bush. Samuel hears God calling in his sleep. Isaiah has a vision of the heavenly throne room and angels with fiery tongs. Most of us, most of the time, don’t seem to experience God calling us in that sort of way. So does that mean it doesn’t happen? Or does it simply mean we need to turn our attention to less obvious forms of call?

What does a call from God sound like? I want to tell you about a time several years ago when God called me. I am now convinced that God’s call sounds a lot like my friend Kerry Grogan calling to ask me if I would serve with her as co-director of high school church camp. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I was prepared to take a year off from being at church camp. Even after I said yes I wasn’t really convinced that it was what I needed to be doing. In fact, right up until the moment campers started arriving to check-in I still wasn’t completely on-board with the whole idea. So why would I think this was a call from God and not just a momentary lack of judgment on my part? Mostly it has to do with what happened after I responded. At the time I said yes, I did my very best to discern if it really was something I wanted to do. Would I be able to make a contribution? Would it be meaningful? Would it bring me joy? And then having committed myself to the task, I followed through. There were moments (lots of them if truth be told) when I wondered. The path to following God’s call is not always well lit. But I sought to be open. And eventually the signs became clear. Community began to form. Connections were made. Insights emerged. Joy bubbled forth. 

I was reminded of the story of Moses at the burning bush. As he was struggling with the challenge of following where he heard God calling him to go, he said, “If I go down to Egypt and tell the children of Israel that God has sent me to bring you out to freedom, they will ask me to prove it. What can I tell them?” To which God replied, “When all is said and done, and you are back here at this mountain worshipping God, then you will know that it was true.” How do we know for sure it is the call of God? Sometimes we don’t know until later. We can only do our best to follow our hearts and then pay attention to what happens next.

So I sought to follow my heart and in the process I heard God’s call confirmed. I heard God’s call confirmed in the positive response of the camp to my keynotes. I heard God’s call confirmed when conflicts and tension were talked about and resolved. I heard God’s call confirmed when at the last campfire one young woman with Asperger’s Syndrome declared that she heard God calling her to not shut herself off from other people. I heard God’s call confirmed when we gathered in the field for our closing worship and symbolized the connection of the community which had bound us together by taking a length of braided yarn (one strand representing each of us, one strand representing all of us, and one strand representing God), cutting it into segments and tying pieces around each of our wrists, reminding us that we take the experience of community with us even as we go our separate ways. There were times when I was reluctant in my response, but I heard God’s call confirmed again and again.

God calls us. In fact, God is always calling us. And sometimes we  pay enough attention to hear the call. Sometimes we even pay enough attention to respond.