SLIDE 29 Gospel: John 1.43-51
SLIDE 30 SERMON “Listen, God is calling!”
‘I wait on You, God
For Your Spirit to descend
For Your voice to speak. ‘
One of the first formative human interaction in our earliest life unfolds, when our mother see us for the first time and calls us by name.
There is something uniquely profound and formative within this call into life and being: your parents see you and call you their child, their blessing, their beloved, and eventually they call you by your given name. They give you your name, a name that you will carry for the rest of your life when others call upon you.
When we become just a little bit older and start taking our first steps into life, we still rely on our parents call of our name to make us walk to them or make us find our way back again, when we are going too far.
I still vividly remember the feeling of feeling lost until my mom called my name. You were seen, you were found, and you were safe and home. You were not just anybody, you were you. The one called upon.
Later in life we grow, and we are nurtured when others call us by our name, - and even more when they call us the most beautiful names in the world: daughter, son, sister, brother, girlfriend, boyfriend, lover, best friend, husband, wife, - and mother and father. And these names of very distinct honor continue to be added in our most fine and fundamental relations: grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, great-grand mother and great-grand father.
It is good to be called, it is good to bee seen and it is good to be known. It is a profound thing for us as humans, it is indeed what calls us into life that we are called, seen and known and loved.
As Christians we too are called. We are called into a Christian life founded on faith, and we are called walk humbly with God, love tenderly, show mercy and act with justice.
“Samuel. Samuel.” The Lord called.
“Philip and Nathanael.” Follow me Jesus called.
We are called. But we need to listen.
“Speak, Lord, for you servant is listening.” We read in 1. Samuel this morning. Speak for I am listening.
What more appropriate verse could there be for any worship service? What more appropriate verse could there be for any Christian to be an attentive listener, here in church, in our prayers, in our solitude or whenever we encounter God.
In the story in OT Eli teaches Samuel that God is calling him. He teaches Samuel to listen, expecting God to speak.
How often might God be trying to speak to us, but we are just not listening? Is it possible that we don’t even recognize the sound of God’s voice amidst the rumble and noise of the world – amidst all the different voices? If so, how can we be taught to listen?
Is it possible as a fine truth of the OT story about young Samuel and old Eli, that the very young among us and the very old among us, those most often dismissed, are in fact the ones with the insight, the wisdom, and the openness to be alert and listen?
The attentiveness young at heart and the experienced wise at heart.
With each passage and reading today from Samuel to Colossians to John, it is all about listening to the calling of God. It is all about a God who calls upon us and seeks us out. A god who draws close to us and even inhabits us. Again, and again the word calling appears as it presses upon us how serious God is about wanting us to listen and wanting us to encounter him and his calling.
God, who calls us, who creates, wills and fashions us, who inhabits our breath and body, who sees us during our daily lives; God is present whether we hear him or not, whether we listen to him or not. God continues day by day to call upon us, to ask us to see, the listen, and to follow.
Today, this week and this day, how are you listening, how am I listening?
Where are you and I looking?
What holy space are we making for God so we truly may listen? How are we opening ourselves to God who wants us to know and wants us to be known?
Where do we listen best? church, prayer, forest, hills, beach….
This week I stumbled over a pastor who shared his HAIKU prayers online. I have been sharing these HAIKU prayers through this sermon.
‘Reform my heart, God
I need to see as You do
See the world with Grace.
In the fine world of Poetry there is something call a HAIKU poem.
A haiku is an unrhymed Japanese poetic form that consists of 17 syllables arranged in three lines containing five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. A haiku expresses much and suggests more in the fewest possible words. The form gained distinction in the 17th century, when Basho, a Japanese poet considered the greatest practitioner of the form, elevated it to a highly refined art.
‘God says: “I love you.'“
This love helps me love others.
Help me remember!
To follow we need to remember what we have heard. We need to open our heart, mind and soul to listen. God might be speaking at unexpected times to us. Gods call might be simple and yet hard. But we need to listen and remember before we can follow the call.
The Gospel today from John is from the beginning, when Jesus called his disciples to follow him. To leave what they knew behind and follow.
We also hear that Nathaniel ask the question of doubt and disbelief: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
In a profound way, that very question is reflected in this HAIKU prayer:
I ask this question:
“Can any good come from me ?”
Jesus answers: “Yes!”
Yes, good can come from you and me. If we listen to the good call, good can come from us. It matters which words we listen to and remember. It matters which words we act upon.
Yes, we are called. And yes something good can come from us when we listen to God and his calling out the best in us, the most humble attitude, the servants heart, the justice fighter and the loving heart.
As we will sing:
Refrain: We are called to act with justice.
We are called to love tenderly.
We are called to serve one another, to walk humbly with God.
We need to listen. We need to listen to God’s calling and we need to remember what we heard. In these days of division, let us make a solemn vow to listen to God’s call and to let everything good come from us as we remember that call.
There are so many loud voices that try to silence the calling of God and the voice of humanity, humility and dignity.
St. Paul gave us instruction in how to listen and to live in his letter to the congregation. As a congregation of 2021 we need to listen and to remember. Listen and follow. Listen and act. Let these words of wisdom and calling call on everything good in us:
SLIDE 40 As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Amen.