Called Beyond Our Fear

Isaiah 6: 1-8 & Luke 5: 1-11

Roger Lynn

January 22, 2017

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

At the church I served in Moscow, Idaho, there was a place in the bulletin each week where we listed the names of those who were serving in various capacities. At the bottom of that list there was a small but important notation which read, “Ministers: Every Member.” We don’t print that message in our bulletins, but the attitude is certainly present here in this congregation. It is an understanding that speaks volumes about how we understand our relationship with God, with each other and with the world at large. Ministry is the task of reaching out to touch the world with God’s healing grace. And it is a task to which each of us is called. I may be the pastor, but all of us are ministers. And as such, today’s texts offer profound insights in terms of our self-perceptions and God’s relationship with us.

It’s a tricky thing, this business of being in relationship with God. Being the finite creatures that we are, we sometimes get overwhelmed when we have an experience of connection with the Holy. Our doubts and fears get the better of us. We lose sight of who we really are and what, with God’s help, we are capable of accomplishing. We hang our heads and entertain thoughts like “I’m not worthy.”

But there is a different truth which is revealed in both of our scripture texts for this morning. We might not think we are worthy to be called by God. We might get overwhelmed and frightened at the mere thought of it. We might prefer that God call someone else, thank you very much. But God doesn’t see it that way. God would very much prefer that we get over being overwhelmed so we can get on with the business at hand. There’s important work to be done and God thinks we are just the people to do it. We can say “I’m not worthy.” We can say “I’m scared.” We can say “I don’t know enough.” Or we can join the ranks of folks like Isaiah and Jeremiah, Abraham and Sarah, Peter and Mary, and every other person who ever heard the call of God in their life and stepped beyond their fear into a life of ministry in partnership with the Sacred. Marianne Williamson had this to say, “You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. . . .We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.”

We begin this journey by recognizing that God calls us in a variety of ways. The problem with growing up on Bible stories is that we start believing the only way people hear the voice of God is in some big, dramatic form like Isaiah’s vision or Peter’s encounter with Jesus. If the clouds don’t part and we don’t hear a booming voice from heaven, then we think we haven’t been called. But the truth is that it’s really easy to know if you’ve been called by God. Author Richard Bach had a handle on it when he wrote in his novel “Illusions,” “Here’s a test to see if your mission on earth is finished. If you’re alive, it isn’t.” If you have breath in your body then you have been called by God. It is a part of what it means to be human. It is what God does with human beings. The challenge is not figuring out whether you’ve been called. The challenge is figuring out what you have been called to do. And while that is certainly a more challenging task, it need not be completely daunting. Theologian and author Frederick Buechner offers this bit of insight on the matter. “Vocation . . . means the work a person is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all kinds of different work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, or the Superego, or Self-Interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you most need to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are that you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either.” Buechner then concludes with this piece of wisdom, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (from Wishful Thinking)

There is certainly no shortage of “deep hunger” in the world – great needs which are crying out to be met. And it’s easy to become overwhelmed and afraid if we think God is calling us to meet them all or to meet them alone. But the truth is that we have only been called to be ourselves – fully, completely, truly ourselves. Because when we start down that road we will discover the piece of the world’s deep hunger which we are uniquely suited to address. And that is the call of God! Will we allow God to lead us beyond our fear? The world is waiting for us to respond.