CALLED BY GOD

(Preached on Sunday, August 26, 2007)

But the Lord said to me, ADo not say, >I am only a boy;= for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.@            

-Jeremiah 1:7

 

This is really an amazing story.  It is a story of God=s claim on one person=s life. But it is also a story of how we all, so often, resist that claim, even rebel against God=s call to us.  Stop and think about it a moment: Here is God pausing from conducting the grand symphony of the universe, the Sustainer of all life, taking a break from maintenance tasks to converse with a boy about his future.  God is showing Jeremiah his birthmark, a designer label that says Amade in the image of holiness.@  Like all humanity, Jeremiah has been created, consecrated and called to be a glimpse of the glory of God in the world where he has influence.  Yet how does he respond?  In typical teenage fashion by mouthing off to God.  Just as Moses did, just as Jacob did, just as Elijah did, Jeremiah resisted his call, protesting AI do not know how to speak, I am only a boy.@  

 

There is no Atypical@ call from God.  Sometimes it comes as a thunderbolt out of the blue.  Sometimes it is a gentler process, a gradual clarifying of one=s life.  Sometimes it involves step-by-step choices, learning from experience, heeding the counsel of mentors and friends, sorting and discerning.  Commitment then becomes a kind of distilling process guided over a period of time by the Holy Spirit. 

At the deepest level, the call frees us.  It enables us to see that really matters in life, to focus our love, and to dedicate ourselves to something and Someone larger than ourselves.  God uses a variety of ways to get through to us.  But no matter how the call comes, whether explosively or gently, the response has to be worked out in daily faithfulness, in ordinary life.  Keeping the focus in the midst of the seductive values of the culture around us and the allure of an easier way in the face of stress, resistance, and difficulties, becomes our life task.

 

For 51+ years I have been working out my response to God=s calling of me.  I never planned on being an ordained minister.  Yes, I was raised in a religious home and my earliest memories are church-related memories.  I grew up with a special sense of God=s hand on my life, which was confirmed for me when I was baptized at the age of 10 on Christmas Eve.  Even though I did not experience anything dramatic inside myself when I came up out of the water, taking place on such a Aholy@ night made the moment very sacred indeed. Still, my high school buddies and my best friend=s mother, were quite astounded when I announced during my second year of college that I had decided to go to seminary. 

 

In school I showed an early aptitude for math and science.  Family discussions focused on a career in the medical field, so I graduated high school planning to attend medical school.  I was accepted to William Jewel College.  That summer I traveled to France with a group of students from all over the country for a month of study and travel.  While in France, two things happened.  I learned that the financial aid package I was receiving included a larger percentage of loans and less grant and scholarship money than I thought I had been promised.  This left a sour taste in my mouth and a bad feeling about William Jewel.  The other thing that affected me deeply was my observation of the lifestyle in France, which I perceived to be less competitive, less driven, more focused on relationships and on enjoying life than what I knew in the United States.  It seemed a much happier, healthier way to live and caused me to reevaluate my reasons for wanting to attend medical school and become a doctor.  I came home with a new sense of what I valued in life, a sense of my life beginning to move in a new direction, though I did not yet know what direction.

 

So I decided not to attend William Jewel, enrolled at the local Community College, and began to sort out what to do with my life.  I thought, maybe chemistry, either as a teacher or a research scientist.  I also began meeting regularly with my Pastor for some spiritual counsel.  One Sunday that first year of college, sitting in worship, listening to the sermon, the thought entered my mind, AWhy don=t you become a minister?@  Like Moses and Jeremiah, I immediately pushed the thought away.  I said to myself, ANo way.  I couldn=t do that.@  But the seed had sprouted.

 

A few weeks later, the Pastor=s wife, my Sunday School teacher, approached me after worship and asked me if I had ever considered going to seminary.  I had told no one about my crazy thought.  She encouraged me to consider it, sharing with me her view that I had talents and gifts for ordained ministry.  She also assured me that seminary taught you many things and trained you in many skills, well-preparing one for serving a church.

 

I thanked her for her kind words and thought how interesting they were, but did not share them with anyone.  Several weeks later, while conferring with my academic advisor, a very non-religious chemistry professor, who was helping me decide which college to transfer to for my sophomore year, the question came up again.  Out of the blue, he looked at me and asked if I had ever considered becoming a minister?  He affirmed how obviously my faith was important to me and maybe I should do something more with it.  It was really getting interesting.

God certainly seemed to be trying to tell me something.  But still, I resisted.  Then a few weeks after that conversation I had a similar conversation with my mother.  It was getting harder to resist.  Still, I realized I had to first finish college, so I transferred to Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, as a declared chemistry major, and figured I would see what happened.

 

What happened was, after a few months in Salt Lake, God closed a door.  I transferred to Westminster with a plan C to take my chemistry classes at the University of Utah, which had a mutual enrollment program between the two schools.  Westminster was not particularly strong in the sciences, but the University of Utah was very strong.  I would do this for a year, establish residency in Utah, and then transfer to the University, now as a state resident and pay in-state tuition, graduating with my chemistry degree from a well-known chemistry department.  But after one quarter of organic chemistry the plan went awry.  For some reason I could into get the second quarter class time I needed to fit with my Westminster schedule.  This would now throw my well-designed plan off by a year. 

 

I saw this as God confronting me like God confronted Jeremiah, telling me to stop fooling around, stop putting God off, and begin to take God=s claim upon my life seriously.  I became convinced God had closed the door to chemistry and was shaking me to get my attention.  I could no longer ignore God=s call.  S, I changed my major to mathematics, completed my degree at Westminster, found a seminary, and here I am today.   That does not mean I have not still had doubts along the way.   Over and over again, I continue to question God, AAm I in the right place?@  And so far, the answer keeps coming back AYes.@

 

I shared my story with you in the hope that it might help you get in touch with your own story.  For we are all called by God.  God has a claim on each of our lives.  Not to serve as prophets, as Jeremiah was called.  Not to serve as an ordained minister of the Church, as I was called.  But we are all called to bear witness with our lives, to be a glimpse of God=s glory.  We are called to recognize, for example, that a medical miracle is a sign of the healing of God.  We are to recognize that the restoration of a person of color or a gay or lesbian person as a full member of society is a preview of a time when all will live together in harmony.  We are to remember that our leadership of nations and corporations is only and always to give the world a glimpse of the just governance and leadership of God.  Instead of affirming a distorted reality, we who have encountered the Word of God made flesh are to counteract the amnesia that undermines contemporary Christian expression.  Like Jeremiah, we have been set apart to accomplish the word of God.