A New Old Calling

August 26, 2007
Jer. 1:4-10
“I’m too young. I don’t want to do it. You’ve got the wrong guy, Lord.”
Or, “Not me, man. I’ve got unclean lips.”
Or, “Uh, no thanks, God, really, you want my brother.”
Or, “Me? I’m just a teenage girl. You must mean someone else.”
God calls, and the heroes of the faith tend to say, “wrong number, buddy.”
It’s as if God’s got the wrong number, or worse, God is a telemarketer calling at dinner time or an e-mail spammer whose messages go immediately into the delete bin.
I got an unsolicited e-mail the other day thanking me for joining something called resumes.com. I can only guess it’s some head-hunting outfit – unless it was resume.com, and it’s for people starting up again. In either case, it seemed to be about call, in some sense, but not at all about me. I think Jeremiah felt the same way when God called him. OK, God, this seems to be about call, in some sense, but it can’t be about me. I am too young for this.
On one hand, Jeremiah was correct – the call was not, after all, about him; it was about God. On the other hand, Jeremiah was all wrong – the call was for him.
That’s the way it is with God’s calling – it is not about us, but it is for us.
It is also, always, about sharing this fundamental story of God that is, likewise, for us but not necessarily about us. In other words, God calls us to tell God’s story to the world, and that story is about grace that is, in fact, for us and for the world.
This is nothing new under the sun, nor is it particularly complicated. God has always called people to share the good news of God’s grace. And people have always misunderstood the call and resisted it. From Abram and Sarai, who could not believe that the grace of a child was truly for them, to Moses, who could not fathom that he might be the great liberator, to Isaiah, a man of unclean lips living amongst a people of unclean lips, to Mary, the unmarried girl called to bear God into the world in a new way, to the disciples, fishermen and tax collectors called to speak truth to power from the margins and out of lowliness, God’s people have misunderstood the call and resisted it.
But, remarkably enough, these same folks – representing a strange mix of faith and doubt, of holiness and brokenness, of strength and weakness – these same folks have found a capacity for trust that was enough to respond.
The question facing us – the church in the 21st century – is simple and straightforward: do we have that same capacity for trust enough to respond again to God’s call?
And make no mistake about it: God is calling us, here and now – today, in this very room. God is calling us into the world to share good news.
It is not enough merely to hear the news of God’s grace and then hoard it as some private possession that somehow gives us enough strength to make it through tomorrow and the next day. We are called to share it. We are called to share it.
Why? Why pass it on? Why take it out into the world?
First, because the story itself compels us to do so. From the great commission in Matthew, we hear Jesus tell his followers – and that would be us – “to go therefore into all the world … and teach them all that I have commanded you.” In other words, go into the world and pass the story along.
What did Jesus command? Remember the story from John’s account? “I give you a new commandment,” Jesus says, “love one another just as I have loved you.”
That’s the heart and soul of what we are commanded to do as followers of Jesus. But the great commission – as well as every story of prophetic calling – insists that we share that teaching with the world.
“Why?” we might ask again.
Because that way lies wholeness. That way lies shalom. That way lies abundant life. That way lies salvation.
None of this is complicated. In fact, it’s so simple that the youngest among us can get it quite clearly. That’s why I asked the children this morning, “what do you know about what Jesus taught us?” They know how Jesus wants us to treat one another. They also know that the world would be a better place if we all did so.
Now, that simple understanding should be more than enough to show us all why the good news of God’s grace cannot be a private possession of a few that gives the chosen the strength to make it through tomorrow and the next day. Indeed, that simple grace is to be shared precisely in order to transform tomorrow and the next day into something not merely to be endured but, instead, to be embraced as the next chance to receive God’s love and to share it.
I know that a lot of us – indeed, I suspect, most of us good, mainline Protestant Christians feel that showing such love in the way that we live is enough. After all, the first Christians were known, as Acts tells us, simply by the way they loved one another.
Nevertheless, in a fearful and broken world, simply loving those who are part of the community of faith is not enough. Nor is it enough to be decent and caring for others we meet in the world.
We are called to share good news. Yes, we are absolutely called to share it in the way that we live, but we are also called to name it as such for the world and pass it along.
Why? Because it makes a difference to know that you are loved. It makes a difference to know that at the center of all that is there beats a heart of love for you. It makes a difference to know that love is there for you regardless of your race, your gender, your sexuality, you economic status, your nationality, or your particular path to God. It makes a difference when you connect your life to that reality. It makes a difference when you begin to envision a social order guided by love and generosity and compassion. It makes a difference when we worship and connect to something larger than ourselves. And it makes a difference to understand that we proclaim this because of the claim that Jesus makes on us here, not in spite of that claim. Because, as I believe Paul would say were he preaching today, in Christ there is no east or west, no male or female, no straight or gay, no black or white, no American or Iranian, no Jew or Gentile, not even Christian or non-Christian, because what matters is the love that unites us before any distinctions divide us.
And if none of that makes a difference, why bother with any of the rest of this? Why maintain this old building? Why pay me a dime of your hard-earned money? Why get out of bed on Sunday morning? If none of the truth that we proclaim here matters, why bother?
But, if it does matter, then we cannot help but share it with the world.
Now I’m not talking about going out and telling folks that their salvation depends upon embracing the exact same convictions we circle our lives around here, but I am talking about naming salvation accurately in the world. And I’m not talking about going around telling folks that if they don’t believe the same things that we confess together in this place that they’re going to hell, but I am talking about naming hell accurately in the world. And I’m not talking about going around telling folks that if they don’t know God through Jesus then they cannot know God at all, but I am talking about naming God accurately in the world and following Jesus into that world as well.
We are called to this mission as clearly as Jeremiah was called to his, and our time yearns for this proclamation of good news just as desperately as Jeremiah’s time did.
This calling is as old as the good news itself, and it renews itself with each generation. Now it is our time to take up this old calling and make it our own.
There are lots of ways to take it up – reaching out through new technology, meeting folks where they are in the coffee shops and nightspots of Clarendon, going into the world in mission.
But we’re going to begin with the simplest, oldest technology available: our hands and feet. This morning, following worship, we’re going to walk the neighborhoods in our ZIP code and distribute these flyers. The information on them says a bit about who we are, and invites folks to visit us. This neighborhood canvas will be low-key – we’re not knocking on doors, just dropping post cards off on front porches. But if we believe that Clarendon Presbyterian Church is worth continuing, then we must believe it is worth sharing, because if we do not share it, it will die.
That’s not any surprising declaration, simply the demographic truth, as Ricky Bobby put it in the movies, “98 percent of us will die … the darkness is closing in.” Well, Ricky was an optimist to be sure, because last time I checked the death rate was one per person. If we do not pass the stories along, they will die out with us. If we do not renew the community, it will die with us. If we do not share the good news, it will die.
If you’re OK with that, well, then, I reckon it’s time for us all to give up right now on the future that God has called us to embrace. But make no mistake about it: God is calling us just a clearly as God called Jeremiah. We can try on all the old excuses: I’m too old; I’m too young; I’m too uncertain; I’m afraid. Or, we can add our names to the rolls of the faithful.
As for me and my household, we will serve that God and that calling and that vision of a future otherwise with as much energy, imagination and love as we can muster. I’d invite you this morning to join us.
Amen.

Lessons from the Wood

August 19, 2007
Luke 13:10-17
While this text from Luke is often seen as difficult and challenging, in at least one small way, it might also be seen as a foundational statement of the Jesus movement. Someday I might expand on that little provocation, although this morning I’m mostly going to reflect on my two weeks down at Camp Hanover. Let me simply say, almost in passing, that in this text, Jesus reminds us that the traditional definitions of kin and family are secondary, at best, to the new bonds of community he invites us to engage.
I am often reminded of those new bonds more powerfully when I spend time in the woods.
However, 10 days ago when it hit 104 degrees – the highest temperature recorded in Richmond in more than 30 years – it did occur to me to wonder why it is that I am drawn to a place with no air conditioning, few creature comforts, the certainty of being chewed on by many bugs and the absolute guarantee of being besieged at least a few times by hot, whiney children.
So, by way of explaining to you why your pastor disappears into the woods for a couple of weeks each summer to serve as pastor in residence at the camp and conference center of our neighboring Presbytery, let me offer this morning a few brief lessons from the wood.
1. I go back, in part, because family ties are strong and Ensign roots run deep in the sandy soil of Camp Hanover. I go back, then, to be reminded of who I am, where I come from and to whom I belong. Of course, in a place grounded in a philosophy of small-group, decentralized camping, a powerful communitarian ethic prevails that never fails to draw me – and everyone open to the experience – beyond the familiar, the kin, the tribe. The Jesus movement, of course, begins in redefining those fundamental notions and in insisting that God is not a tribal god of one people but is, instead, sovereign Lord of all history.
As usual, at camp, we learn these lessons best through songs, so we’re going to sing together now The Family of God, a song written by a fine Presbyterian youth leader, Beth Watson.
2. Of course, a strong sense of community and 600 wooded acres do not guarantee that everything will be hunky dory. As we welcomed campers the first day, I met a social worker who was on hand to greet one particular client, a 12-year-old boy who suffers bi-polar disorder and a whole string of other difficult challenges added to the already steep slope of early adolescence. As they say, “wherever you go, there you are.”
All of the problems, brokenness and sinfulness of the world are right there at camp, too. Perhaps it’s just that in a place apart it’s easier to set realistic goals because there are fewer pressures to succeed and consume and distinguish one’s self. So for this one child the goal was simple: could he make it through the week and overcome his deep shyness and home-sickness. The first few days of camp, when I looked in one him when kids were playing on the main field, he tended to be by himself – a sure recipe for homesickness to kick in. But whenever I looked in on his group, I noticed that they were reaching out to include him in every activity, to welcome him and make him feel part of the group.
I never witnessed any great salvation drama with him or any miracle healing – but I did see him meet his parents on the last day of his session. He’d made it through. One small step along the road to wholeness for a child whose life has had too much of brokenness. At the end of the week, if he’d learned or felt or experienced nothing else, he had lived this one true thing: God holds him in the folds of divine heart and hands.
Again, such lessons are best reinforced in song, like the old favorite, He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.
3. As the bumper sticker reminds us, “grace happens.” Grace happens everywhere. God is no more present in the woods than in the hustle and bustle of the city. But we do slow down more at camp to pay attention to grace and to name it as such. Ending every day with time for reflection, kids learn to pay attention to the highs and lows of each day and to give thanks for it all. The lows reflect life in the woods: bee stings, heat, tiredness; and life in community: arguments, folks not doing their share, chores that had to be done. Sometimes highs are literally high: kids giving thanks for the experience of walking across a plank 65 feet up in the trees. Sometimes the highs are closer to the earth: giving thanks for the mudslide. Sometimes the high of the day is a good shower!
In all the years I’ve been going to Presbyterian camps, I’ve never witnessed any dramatic conversion experiences. Even at camp, we’re decent and orderly, and don’t tend to put too much emphasis on “born again” experiences. Still, I’m sure I worked with future pastors and church leaders during the past two weeks, because every season at camp produces them. In the 50 years of camping at Hanover, more than 150 campers and staff have gone on to become ministers of word and sacrament.
The rhythm of life in the woods is such that the long arc of relationship is encouraged: both the arc of human relationships in friendships forged for a lifetime and the longer arc or relationships with God nurtured in the day by day growth of small groups of kids and adults seeking to grow closer to one another and to God in the midst of God’s good creation. The rhythm rolls alongs Day by Day.
3. Along with the blazing heat of the past two weeks came, naturally enough, a few spectacular thunder storms. We had lightning and 40 mile per hour winds several times. At such times, the grown ups herd kids to safety – get ‘em off the field and to the tree line, out of the water and into shelter as quickly as possible. Then stand in awe of the power of nature and of nature’s God.
Of course, one doesn’t stand in awe too long, because storms bring out fearfulness and homesickness, so stories get passed along, guitars come out. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the stories of the Bible developed under precisely such circumstances. The children get scared; the elders tell them stories and sing them songs to reassure them.
We have lost so much of our capacity for passing the stories along. Instead of making our own music and telling our own stories, we let TV do it for us, and we are so much impoverished for it. Perhaps, for me, what draws me back to the wood over and over again is to dip my own feet in the ancient stream of stories that flows so freely there; to witness kids not only learning the stories, but learning how to pass them along to the next generation.
After all, the root meanings of the word “religion” have to do with being bound to and by stories. I go to the woods to witness the rebirth of such religion in the lives of countless children and young adults – and, in myself.
I go when I find that I need a little light.
We’re going to close this morning with one last song, that speaks directly to that need for light. This one was written and recorded by my good friend, Noah Budin, and it’s called Joshua’s Band.