“I know how God talks to you Mommy.” Erin was all of 4 years old when she decided to explain this to me. “Really? Tell me about how God talks to you.” “Well, God talks to your heart. It’s like when you are talking to your friend on the phone and your friend says something in your ear, and then your ear takes that to your brain and your brain takes it to your heart and your heart takes it to God.” So far, so good. “And then, God talks to your heart and your heart takes that to your brain and then your brain takes it to your mouth so you can say something to your friend.” At that point, I was wondering why I was in seminary and not her!
In truth, I think she had it right, but I’ve found as I get older, things get more complicated. Hearing God’s voice can be hard in the midst of competing and conflicting messages. As I’ve aged, I’ve found that God also talks to us through other people – especially through our faith community.
Two of our readings, the Hebrew text and the New Testament, are about ways God calls us. In the first reading, the boy Samuel gets a direct call from God – God is speaking to his heart and his heart took it to his brain and his brain thought that the voice came from Eli the Temple priest. Samuel didn’t know God’s voice and didn’t realize God would call him directly. Samuel needed the assistance of the older priest to help him understand what was happening. This is true for us too – it takes the input of others to help you make sense out of God’s call.
In the reading from John, Jesus calls Philip directly; however, it is Philip who calls Nathaniel. Philip tells him we’ve found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. Nathaniel’s response was less than enthusiastic in fact it was downright snarky: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But Philip doesn’t try to argue or get snarky in return … he merely says, “Come and see.” Jesus greets Nathaniel as “the Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” What he means is, Nathaniel is honest and transparent. He may be wrong, but he’s going to call it like it is. Once Nathaniel hears this from Jesus, he realizes he is fully known by the Lord and this leads to his proclamation that Jesus is the “Son of God, the King of Israel.”
We all have a call from God to a particular vocation. Theologian Frederich Buechner calls vocation that place where your deepest desire meets the world’s greatest needs. But our calls come both from God directly and through the voices of the community and our friends. When we are living fully into our calls - our vocations - we are more fully the people God created us to be. We become more real. And as we become more real, we are more able to reach out to others who do not know God.
This weekend we commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King was a powerful pastor, teacher and preacher. He was a scholar who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the works of theologian Paul Tillich. Dr. King could have stayed at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and had a successful career. He could have taught theology as a professor with his doctorate. But we all know that his deepest desire was to work for social justice. His work for social justice began with fighting segregation and working for civil rights. But many forget that he also was a peace activist who vociferously protested the Vietnam War and fought the issue of poverty. The former action put him at odds with the leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who felt he was taking his eyes off the prize. But Dr. King saw the issues of poverty, war, violence and segregation as all interrelated social evils which could not be fought piecemeal. He heard God’s call, not just from God through the Scriptures, but also through his friends like Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy, and Jesse Jackson.
On Tuesday, we will witness an historic event when Barack Obama is inaugurated as president. Barack went to Harvard law school. He was the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review. He could have taken his degree and credentials and gone to work for a prestigious law firm or corporation. But his call – his vocation – was to return to Chicago and fight for the rights of those who had been oppressed through community organizing. He listened to God’s call which came both directly through his faith community and through the voices of those who needed the help he could give them.
God’s call comes through our faith, our community and our friends. That call can come at any time – as Samuel showed us, God’s call isn’t just for grown ups! Where is God calling you? Where does your greatest desire connect with the world’s deepest needs?
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