Our gospel text for this Sunday was Luke 1: 57-80. It's too long to reprint here but you can find it in full by clicking that link. It was the story of the birth and naming of John the Baptist, one of the greatest of God's servants, the man who prepared the way for Christ's coming.
The lesson we drew from the story of John was simple: he had a calling and he followed it. But this story wasn't just about John himself. In fact other than being born and circumcised, he didn't have much of a part in it. Surrounding John's call were a host of other people fulfilling their calling: his mother, his father, their neighbors and friends. All of these people were ordinary, acting out familiar roles in familiar ways. But them pursuing their call in a holy and faithful manner paved the way for John to fulfill his call, which in turn paved the way for Christ to fulfill his.
When we thing of a "Calling from God" we tend to think of unusual feats: becoming a monk or nun or priest, missionary trips to far-off lands, world-changing sacrifices. Those are all holy callings, but by definition they are rare and out of the ordinary. There's a sneaky advantage to pointing out all of the unusual callings in the world. It makes us feel like we don't really have a calling. This, in turn, frees us from responsibility for our daily actions.
Neither God nor our own Martin Luther nor your pastor is having any of this! We all have a calling from God. Some look like missionaries or clergy, but parenthood is a holy calling. Your work is a holy vocation no matter what it is. Being part of a family is a sacred trust, as is being part of a church family. God is calling us to do things every day...not calling us to do out-of-the-ordinary feats but calling us to do our very ordinary-seeming tasks in holy fashion.
You have a calling. I have a calling. They look different but they are just as precious and important to God. You may never preach a sermon in front of a church but you preach a sermon every day with your life. Unless you realize that, the power that God gives you to fulfill your calling gets sprayed randomly over the world. You don't know if that power is being used for good or ill until you acknowledge it and pay attention to how you're using it. The first step in that process is admitting that God IS calling you to something today!
In church I used two examples from my childhood. In the first a bunch of kids bullied me on a school bus. They didn't know me. I was a stranger to them. They probably weren't bad kids, nor have they turned into bad adults, I'm sure. It was just "kids being kids". But it was still painful and humiliating and made me frightened to ride that bus ever again. In fact I didn't. I secretly walked more than two miles to school each day instead. Ordinary "kids just being kids" had an extraordinarily bad effect on my life because they didn't pay attention to their calling and misused the power God had given them.
In the other example a friend of mine that I met at this new school stayed with me for years. We slept over at each other's houses, played basketball incessantly, gamed together, ate pizza together, the works. We weren't out of the ordinary either...just two guys trying to get through high school in a strange world. But the simple, small things we did each day brought strength and reassurance and really helped us make it through. One person fulfilling their very ordinary calling in an uplifting way countered the voices of the several who hadn't.
What we do each day makes a difference. The things we do should be holy, not in an "up on a pedestal and separate from the world" sense but in a "whatever I do today I'm going to do with patience and love and try to make a positive difference" sense. That's what God asks of us.
When you wake up each morning greet God with a prayer. Tell him you know that he's there with you, just as he was with John the Baptist and all the people around him. Go ahead and confess that you're not sure what to do today, or how it's going to make a difference. But pray that the limitations of your eyes and understanding won't stop him from making good things come from your life. Ask him to make you his instrument, then go out and do your ordinary things with Spirit and joy. Sooner or later you're going to hear that you made a difference. Then your calling will become more clear. But remember, nobody comes equipped with the realization of their calling fully-formed. It starts with faith that you have one. Take that baby step and the world will open to you in God's name.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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