“Carpe the Call”
1 Samuel 3:1-10; Psalm 139:1-6,
13-18; Acts 9:3-20
A sermon preached by Carla Pratt
Keyes
Ginter Park Presbyterian Church,
Richmond, VA
June 10, 2012
I want to begin by thanking you for remembering and marking the five-year
anniversary of our shared ministry. It meant a lot to me last Sunday and, even
more, as I’ve had a chance to read your letters and to absorb what Randy said
in the midst of our worship. I thank you.
Randy Hallman, a self-proclaimed skeptic, is also one of the most faithful
people I know, and I enjoyed hearing him speak of the way his skepticism about
“God’s Call” (capital “C” in his written remarks) gave way to belief, as Randy took
part in the work of this church’s Pastor Nominating Committee six years ago.
Randy began, he said, aiming just to recruit someone for the job (lower-case
“j”). But his sense of God’s hand in things grew, as the committee became
enthusiastic about a particular candidate (me) . . . as they spoke to my
references (who confirmed that this church and I had key things in common) . .
. as the committee members began to feel a kind of joy around that work of
reference-calling . . . and as we finally spent some time together, talked
together, prayed and worshipped together. It was God’s Call, Randy said; he
came to believe it.
As did I! For me, too, it was a belief that grew over time. I began my own
search – as many people do – just looking at the classifieds. These classifieds
appeared in the Presbyterian Outlook,
but they were not inherently holy, let me tell you. I began with the job
descriptions of pastorates in Virginia, because I wanted to move closer to my
family. Then I learned about this church and the kind of pastor you were
seeking. My sense of God’s hand in
things grew, as I heard your committee members speak about things that mattered
to them – words that resonated in my own heart . . . as I met those committee
members face-to-face and felt a connection with them . . . as I began to feel a
joy and enthusiasm that mirrored their own. The beautiful, mysterious rightness
of which Randy spoke – it was part of my experience, too.
In the Bible stories, so often, God’s Call seems to come in dramatic,
Technicolor ways. A voice from a burning bush. An angel announcing good news. A
light shining from the sky. How could you miss it? And, really, wouldn’t it be
great? – to have that kind of clarity
and direction? For me God’s Call has always been much harder to tease out – a
mixture of things like Randy mentioned: one part hard work, another part holy
providence . . . one part plan-coming-together, another part prayerful
obedience. It’s been both: coincidence and holy rightness. Job and joy. And
always for me other people have
played pivotal roles in helping me to hear God’s Call, which I would not have
heard on my own. I see now that the same was true for Samuel and for Saul.
Samuel did not know it was God’s voice calling him, until Eli realized what
was happening and told Samuel what he had to do. Saul did not understand that Jesus
was God’s son. He didn’t see or know much of anything, really, until Ananias
came to visit him; only after Ananias came to sit with Saul, reach out to Saul,
and acknowledge Saul as his brother in the faith, was Saul able to take up
God’s call. Today I read these stories and remember the validating power of community – the significance of people who
say to us: You may be young, and who’d have thought you’d amount to much (!),
but I believe God is calling you. Or . . . You may have made a mess of things
and have the worst reputation of anyone I know; nonetheless God has important
work for you to do. Most of us cannot believe such things out of the blue. We come
to believe them because someone else
believes them first and helps us to see.
It was humbling to hear Randy speak about the sermon I preached for the
Pastor Nominating Committee when I came to Richmond for my interview. I had
worked so hard on that sermon, wanting to put my best foot forward, of course –
also terrified my best wasn’t good enough. My whole body was shaking as I
preached that morning. There are Sundays still – more often than I’d like to
admit – when I fear that what I offer you is less than you want or deserve. Two
things I remember from that weekend console and steady me for most things I
have to do. Both were gifts from Izzy Rogers. Izzy, as many of you know, served
with Randy and the others on the Pastor Nominating Committee. I had known of Izzy for years, ever since, as a
teenager, I’d attended the Presbyterian General Assembly where she had finished
her term as moderator the Church. I’d heard her speak there and remembered her
vigor and faith. I didn’t know much, but I knew enough to admire her. After I
preached that first sermon, Izzy is the one I asked: Do you think I might be
able to do this? As in: Do you think
I have what it takes to pastor this church? Her answer came in two parts. As we
drove home from worship that day she said to me: Yes, you can do this. You have
what it takes. And later, after I’d accepted “the Call” Izzy sent me a one-word
letter. Alleluia, it said. (Praise
God.) It was a celebratory message, but it gave me direction, too: You can do
this, as you praise God . . . and you can do this, thanks to God. You have what
it takes, because God is calling and equipping you.
My friend Doug King says today’s
story from Acts is a potent image of God’s prevenient grace, which can
transform any one of us (even the least experienced or most misguided of us)
into the right stuff – people who have what it takes to bear God’s love and
power into the world. Folks tend to focus on Saul when they read this story –
Saul who is later called Paul, whose dramatic transformation enables him to do
great things in the church. But the hero of this
text, says my friend, is Ananias. And the community Ananias represents is
critical. Ananias is for Saul what Izzy was for me at the start of my
relationship with you. Ananias does for Saul what many others of you have done
for me since. Ananias helps Saul to make sense of what happened to him on the
road to Damascus. He welcomes Saul into the community of people Saul will one
day help to lead. He encourages Saul to do what he was meant to do – to follow
Christ. Doug King calls Ananias the Patron Saint of Sunday School teachers,
ushers, and every church member who welcomes folk into the community of faith. Ananias
shows us how to help others take up God’s call.[1]
And God’s call isn’t just for some
of us. All of us receive it. One of
my favorite parts of our tradition is the part about the priesthood of all
believers. That’s the doctrine that says everyone
is called – with a capital “C” – to love God and neighbor in the world.
There are a zillion ways to do that, and none of them – no profession or
livelihood – is dearer to the heart of God than any other. It doesn’t so much
matter what we do. What matters is how we do it.[2]
Whether we are preaching the word or plowing the fields, teaching children
or towing cars, bagging groceries or practicing medicine, we have the chance to
serve God’s purpose. We can recognize Christ in other human beings and care for
him as we care for them. We are able to love each other with a love that
reflects God’s love. We can work for the healing of the world. And we can help
each other do this.
Someone who helped me recently is a woman named Glennon
Melton. I don’t know her; she writes a blog called Momastery – often it’s what she’s
learned about God from being a mom to three little kids. Glennon got me to
thinking about God’s call as it comes to us not on the road to Damascus (as for
Saul), but while we’re sitting at home (Ananias-style) or, as in Glennon’s
case, while we’re in line at the store. This blog entry was titled, “Don’t Carpe Diem.” (Don’t Seize the Day.) It’s
a funny essay; I recommend the whole thing. The point Glenna was making is that
some days you are just too tired and cranky, and some moments are simply too
frustrating to seize and appreciate. Some days, Glennon wrote, “I can't even carpe fifteen minutes in a row, so a whole diem is out of the question.”
This, she said, is what does work
for me:
There are two different types of
time. Chronos time is what we live in. It’s regular time, it’s one minute at a
time . . . [for parents, it can be ten excruciating minutes in the Target line
time, or four screaming minutes in time-out time . . . . For others it is five
minutes ‘til quitting-time time, or a minute shaved off your running-time time,
or two months until the cancer’s spread and you’re out-of-time time.]
Then there’s Kairos time. Kairos is
God’s time. [It is, says Glennon,] time outside of time. It’s metaphysical
time. It’s those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a few of
those moments each day [Glennon says]. And I cherish them.[3]
When we stop to notice the beauty of
the world and the people around us – that is a kairos moment, according to Glennon. When we cease feeling annoyed
about the slow lines at the grocery long enough to appreciate the healthy food
available there, food many of us can purchase without too much worry about the
cost, that is kairos time. When breath
enters and leaves our bodies without difficulty, and we treasure the gift of
life: that is kairos time, too.
“Carpe a couple of Kairoses a day,” Glennon says. A worthy effort, it seems to
me.
And what I’m thinking is that for
most of us, responding to God’s call can be a little like that – like seizing
the God-work in the midst of our everyday-work. God’s call is not always
something vast and important-sounding. It may more often be something small and
tedious-sounding. It can come to us anyplace we live and work – at home or in the
grocery or at the office or on the road. It’s a big goal with a lot of little
pieces and the pieces are where we are called to faithfulness, where we’re
challenged, where we most need encouragement. God’s call comes to us in those
magical moments when we remember our purpose – God’s hand between us and each
hand . . . Christ’s love between us and each love. It can give any job a kind
of dignity, any person a kind of joy.
So . . . carpe the call. Seize the opportunity to serve God in whatever big
and small ways you can. Seize the chance to help others do the same. We all
have what it takes to do what God wants us to do. Thanks be to God. Or, as Izzy
said to me: Alleluia.
[1] This is from a paper Doug King wrote on this text for
the Moveable Feast lectionary study group.
[2] Barbara Brown Taylor addresses these things in her
book An Altar in the World
(HarperOne, 2010), in the chapter on
Vocation.
[3]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glennon-melton/dont-carpe-diem_b_1206346.html
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