Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Most of us are probably so familiar with this story

about the call of the first disciples,

that we’ve lost any sense of how unbelievable it really is.

Imagine seeing this ad

in the "Help Wanted" section

of the Dallas Morning News:

Or on Monster.com, if that’s your preferred job-search mode:

"Needed immediately: Fishers of people.

No experience necessary.

Long hours, hard work, sometimes dangerous, no pay.

Master wise and kind but demanding.

Customers frequently abusive.

Must be willing to travel and relocate immediately."

Now be honest:

if you had a family to feed –

or for that matter, even if you didn’t –

would you be even the least bit interested

in that job description?

I doubt it …

And yet, as Jesus went walking,

he offered this job to two men,

then two more,

then eventually eight more,

and every one of them

dropped what he was doing and followed Jesus.

But what’s really intriguing

is the way Jesus words his call

and approaches his call-ees.

He sees two brothers who fish for a living,

and he invites them to come with him,

and begin fishing for people instead of fish.

In other words,

he recognizes the skills and gifts they already have,

and he invites them to use those talents

in new and significant ways.

He does not ask them to practice and learn new skills

before they can become his disciples …

He simply takes the potential that is already there,

and helps them to channel it in a new direction.

He affirms their gifts,

and redirects their loyalties.

He does exactly the same for us …

That’s what we mean when we talk about

the concept of "Christian vocation."

It’s common to think of

ministers, priests, monks, nuns, missionaries,

as being the only people with a real "Christian vocation."

But that’s simply not true!

All of us,

every person in this room,

every person who calls him- or herself a Christian,

has a vocation from God, and for God.

It may or may not correspond

with the things we do to earn our day-to-day living.

Ideally, it would …

but we don’t quite live in an ideal world yet!

What all this means is

that we have a two-part responsibility here.

Part one is to discover our gifts;

Part two is to find ways to use them

that are pleasing to God.

Sometimes it’s pretty easy to figure out.

If you’re a good teacher, for example,

you probably should at least occasionally

use your skills to teach in the church,

to bring children and adults to a greater knowledge of God.

Sometimes it’s a little less obvious …

One of the "pillars" of the church I grew up in,

was a man who sold life insurance.

He was one of the most successful life insurance salesmen

that ever walked the earth.

Because he had a gift for being persuasive without being pushy;

he was honest and sincere in everything he did –

and he listened to you carefully, and was interested in your life;

you knew he wasn’t going to sell you insurance you didn’t need.

And when he put those gifts to work in the church,

amazing things happened.

He’d call someone who hadn’t been to church in two years,

and persuade them to usher for a whole month.

He rounded up a 30-piece orchestra for a Bach cantata

that didn’t cost us a cent.

So even though he wasn’t selling insurance to most of us,

he used his natural gifts

in service to the Lord.

.

On the other hand, of course,

we all know of people whose jobs

are basically hard work that requires little skill.

I imagine, for example,

that if I were an assembly-line worker,

tightening the same bolt in the same place

on identical chassis, rolling by day after day,

I might have a hard time seeing any

sense of a "Christian vocation" in that.

But what if that same assembly line worker

also spends all day Saturday

as a Big Brother or Big Sister?

What if that person who picks up your trash twice a week

is the best singer in the church choir?

What if those high school kids

flipping burgers at Burger King

are also some of the most faithful nursery workers

the church ever had?

Sometimes, the job we hold

has nothing to do with our vocation.

But we still need to seek it and find it,

however unusual or surprising it may be!

Another very important thing to notice about the call of Jesus,

is that he not only calls us to something,

he also calls us away from other things.

Now that could sound kind of scary or even threatening …

We might think of someone like Albert Schweitzer,

called away from a brilliant musical career

to be a medical missionary deep in Africa.

Or Mother Teresa,

called away from relative comfort as a nun

to minister to the sick and destitute in Calcutta slums.

But for most of us,

God isn’t going to call us away from the work we already do.

However, God may call us away

from certain aspects of it …

For example, while you may not be asked

to give up assembly-line work,

God might ask you to stop working in a factory

that assembles nuclear weapons.

God probably wouldn’t require you

to give up being an accountant,

but God might ask you to quit working for a company

that cheats on its taxes,

or flagrantly pollutes the environment,

or refuses to provide domestic partner benefits.

And, when Jesus calls us,

he also calls us away from a lot of other things

that have nothing to do with our work.

He calls us away from wasteful spending of our money and other resources,

and toward faithful stewardship of the gifts we have been given.

He calls us away from prejudice

against people of other cultures, or religions, or skin color;

and toward life together in God’s beloved community.

He calls us away from judging others,

and calls us to compassion and empathy.

He may call us away from

certain kinds of books or movies or choices about how we spend our time.

Away from selfishness, into generosity.

Away from aloneness, into community.

Away from meaningless work, to kingdom-of-God work.

I think a lot of us have problems

with this "being-called-away-from."

We’re afraid of being called from

something we really don’t want to give up.

We suspect our faith isn’t strong enough to keep us going,

if we have to leave certain things behind.

Money being the most obvious example.

We are afraid to give as generously as we should

because we’re afraid we may suffer, may lack something important.

We’re afraid that if we let God have a vote

in how we spend even the money we aren’t "giving away,"

that we’ll somehow start making decisions

that make us look really strange to our friends,

out of touch with the ways of the real world.

Well, those are normal fears,

and no amount of talking on my part

will persuade you otherwise.

The only thing that will persuade you is to try it yourself.

Not just the money thing,

although in our culture that may be the biggest one to overcome,

but the whole concept of obedience to Christ’s call.

Of avoiding those things

we know God wants us to stay away from,

and doing those things

we feel God has called us to do.

We think,

"if only I had enough faith, I could be obedient."

Experience suggests the opposite is true:

If we are obedient, even though we are afraid of where it may lead us,

we will find our faith growing.

In the end, obedience leads to faith, not faith to obedience.

Certainly this was the case for those first disciples,

who obeyed even when they had no real clue

who Jesus was, or what they were in for.

It remains so for us.

We don’t have to wait for a grand infusion of faith

in order to follow where Jesus leads us.

Obedience leads us to that greater faith.

Try it.

Follow Jesus.

Be a fisher of people,

or whatever it is your gift to be …

a teacher of people, a persuader of people, a server of people.

Come to him,

away from whatever holds you back.

Be a disciple,

whatever that means for you.

No prior experience required.

Amen.

© 2008 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)