Calling Waiting? or Have You Already Answered?

Do you ever wonder if you are doing what you ought to do? Or, is there something lurking in the back of your mind that haunts you or tantalizes you?

You are a teacher, is teaching what you ought to be dong?

You are a doctor, is medicine what you ought to be practicing?

You are a lawyer, is jurisprudence your thing?

Or

You may be a stewardess, a bricklayer, a truck driver, or a retired person,

Are you doing what you think you ought to be doing? Have you answered a call or do you have a call waiting?

I cast these questions in the form of an “ought” because the “ought” suggests that there is someone out there that has a purpose for you, a course marked out for you, a path that leads to your fulfillment. Immanuel Kant understood this when he said, “Two things convince me of God – “the starry heavens above and the moral law within.” The sense of ought-ness springs from “moral law within us.”

The One who has a purpose for us, the One who calls us, and the One who leaves us with a sense of “ought” is God. Listen to what Paul says about this God who calls us:

Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies.

Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. (Romans 8:26-34)

This is a rich and highly suggestive piece of Paul’s theology. He places God at the center of human being and human living. The Spirit of God is at work in us. The Spirit searches our hearts, prays in us with groans too deep for words, and makes intercession according to God’s will. In this manner God is able to make everything work together for our good.

Paul marks off this activity of God in our lives from the eternity behind us to the eternity before us. He says,

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Standing between this foreknowing and predestinating and justifying and glorifying is God’s “calling.” If there were no calling, what would be the force of predestinating? And, if there were no calling how could there be justification? The Call of God stands at the center of God’s redemptive work in all our lives. There is much more to explore in this text, but today I choose to focus on God’s call to you and me. (How can you do more in 20 minutes? To explore the meaning of foreknowledge and predestination would put us in contention with the rector in England who set the Guinness Book of World Records with a sermon 27 hours and 45 minutes long.) Are you ready?

This morning I am asserting with Paul that the God of Abraham, the God of Jesus Christ, and the Creator of the Universe calls us. I hope you can feel the honor of God calling you to be engaged in the Kingdom. This God finds a way through the inner workings of the Spirit within, the Word of God without, or the circumstances of our lives or the voice of a friend to call us into a relationship with godself.

Sometimes it is a little difficult to get God’s people to focus clearly on their call. I remember talking with a 35-year-old man seeking admission to seminary who had that trouble. He graduated from Tide Water College and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond. He was working in a church and considering seminary. God had given him a vision about going into the ministry, he said. I was trying to find out his physical location when he had this vision. Where were you (meaning where was he living?)? He said, “In the shower." I mean what state were you in. He said, “I was high, real high -- I had been on coke and alcohol for three days.” Not to be put off, I asked, “Where were you living?” “In sin, in real sin, brother!”

I want to be clearer with you. Where are you in your life? Where are you in the unfolding of the meaning of your life? Have you answered God? Or, do you have a call waiting? Perhaps two or three questions will make my query clearer.

1. Have you been called to Christ? I mean have you been called into a relationship with Jesus Christ? In a Q and A session a man once asked me, “What is the difference between being related to Jesus Christ and Michelangelo? I said, “Michelangelo is dead. Jesus Christ is alive and present today.” To be related to him is fundamental to the Christian life. Christ provides the strength and direction required for fulfilling our task in life.

The call need not be like a mighty wind, nor an earthquake, nor like fire falling from heaven. It may be the “still small voice” that beckons you. For most of us the call will not be like St. Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road or Luther’s conversion in a monk’s cell or John. Wesley’s warm heart.

What matters most is not the form but the substance.

2. Have you been called into a vocation? By this question I mean, do you have a sense that God has placed you in a work or ministry or place of service that honors God, helps people, and fulfills your own life?

In the Reformed Tradition (The Presbyterian Church) we believe that God calls every baptized person into a ministry. I do not mean an ordained ministry of Word and Sacrament, but each is called into a place in life that is for the common good and to the glory of God. What you do with your 24/07/52 is an expression of your calling. In seeking to be godpeople 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 52 weeks of the year, I believe we face two major problems.

First, I believe that we have difficulty sensing God’s call in all of life because we compartmentalize faith and life. What we do here on Sunday morning is reserved for Sunday and we see very little relationship between the worship of God and what happens on Monday.

The prevailing culture in North America today pushes us in this direction. The media, the culture, and the government view religion as a private matter. “Go ahead,” they say, “sing your hymns, pray your prayers, listen to your sermons, but don’t bring your religion out here in the real world. Keep it confined in the walls of the sanctuary or temple or deep in your heart!” And, like innocent children we listen to this nonsense.

This week a friend of mine pointed out that the leading member of his church who gives $50,000 a year visits the sick and shut-ins but hates black people and speaks disparagingly about them. Compartmentalization! Faith for Sunday. Culture for Monday.

I have one thing to say: “If what we do here is not true for all of life, it is make believe, fantasy, or an outright lie.” Faith is for all of life or none of life! (I’m trying hard. Have I made my point clear?)

Second, I believe that we struggle with sensing God in our vocation because we are blind to the big picture. This week I asked a couple of fellows if they saw God in their daily work and without hesitation they said, “No.” They said, “If we were teachers, preachers, doctors, or lawyers, we might see how God used us to help people, but we work in the infrastructure and it’s had to see that we are glorifying God in what we do.”

I do believe that those in the infrastructure (politicians, technicians, engineers, maintenance men, road workers, brick layer, or garbage collectors) must work harder to see God in their day and meaning in their work than those who are in the helping professions or service industry. Let me see if I can help those who work behind the scenes discern the call of God in their work.

I once heard a story that I think will help us get at this issue. Once upon a time (when you hear those words you know that the story was made for preaching), a stranger was walking down the street in a small town. He saw stonemasons at work and stopped to inquire about their work. He said to the first, “What are you doing?” “I’m laying stones,” he said. He went a bit further and spoke to another mason. He asked, “And what are you doing?” “I’m making a living for my family.” But when he asked the third mason the same question, he responded, “I’m building a cathedral.” Three persons doing the same task with three perspectives! Doing a job. Making a living. Glorifying God!

The farther removed your work is from helping people or relating to people, the more difficult it is to imagine God in your day and your work for God’s glory. But a road worker can imagine that filling a pothole saves a tire or prevents a wreck that injures a passenger. A telephone linesman can imagine that a call will be made to save a heart attack victim. A garbage collector can imagine that the people in the homes he serves live better and their children are less exposed to disease.

And, to tell the truth, some of us in the “helping professions” get so caught up in the doing of our work, we also forget why we do it!

Ronnie was a 35 year old, black man. He was my caddie at Pinehurst. He knew the distance of every hole, the club to use, and the break of the green from anywhere you putted. He saw me hit a dozen balls and subsequently pulled the right club from the bag. He knew how to caddie as well or better than I know the bible. And when I did not play a hole well he said, "Forget it, the next hole is a new day." I could begin again. That day Ronnie not only helped my round of golf but he taught me about life, “Forget it, the next hole is a new day,” and that applies to more than golf. He saw the big picture.

Do you have the imagination to conceive that what you do everyday is more than doing a job, making a living, but is actually glorifying God because it is for the common good? Can you imagine the Cathedral you are building daily?

3. We are called to Christ; we are called into a vocation; and, we are called beyond our ordinary work. My passion today lies in this call beyond the ordinary. In the last two years as I have traveled across the church, I have noticed that God is calling laypersons into very significant ministries. A wealthy real estate man is called to build a ranch to reach burned out CEO’s for Christ. A lawyer feels called to work on the environment and develops selective cutting for a million acres of trees off the coast of Chile. A woman felt called to minister to sexually abused children out of her own pain. Another woman felt a call of God to be with the dying. These are representative of dozens of persons who have spoken with me about their call.

Such people as these are not far away. I was talking with a member of our church who said, “I’ve been seriously thinking about a call in my life.” She explained that she has been feeling a restless, senses a desire to serve others, and her circumstances will soon permit a change. As I thought about this I wondered if the Spirit was praying in her, if he was making intercession through her, and even if “all things were working together” for her good. Her experience sounds like the prelude to a call.

When I think about a call beyond the ordinary, I think of Bob Simpson who has taken retirement as an opportunity to run the Habitat Taskforce. I wrote about Bob’s work in my last book now at the publisher.

I want to conclude with the stories of two persons I deeply respect. The first is Celeste. She has the typical in church and out of church and back in church story. Reared in the church, sang in the choir, dropped out during college, and then came back as a cultural member. Then came a real problem in her life. This was followed by an auto accident that nearly took her life. While in the hospital she felt the nearness of God and her life was filled with love. In this new power of the Spirit her singing was transformed and everyone knew it. When I asked if she felt God calling her, she said, “O yes, he is calling me to minister with my music to people in nursing and convalescent homes.” Doors have opened and she is at this task.

My second story is about a man in California. He has an MBA from Harvard, a small, successful business. But one day while running, he stopped and had one of those moments of profound awareness. God spoke to him. He began his quest for God which included getting into a church and going to a local seminary for classes. He feels called by God to run skeptics’ groups. He knows that side of the fence and believes that God has placed in him in this ministry.

Both Celeste and Rob have in common the sense of being overwhelmed with God’s call to them. I wonder if Paul’s words do not apply.

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies.

Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

With that kind of love, with that kind of power, how can we fail?

Do you have a call waiting? Or, have you already answered?