Psalm 138; Isaiah 6:1-13; 1 Cor. 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11
I am what I am and I ain’t what I ain’t.Many will recognize these words are being from Popeye the Sailor Man.They also apply to God’s call upon all of our lives.In Isaiah, Luke, and in Corinthians we have stories of God calling people to spread the Word of God.In these calls that God issues to Isaiah, Peter, and to Paul God calls them just as they are.They are sinners and each is shocked that God would choose them.
Isaiah professes that he is a man with unclean lips, Peter proclaims that he is a sinner, and Paul, well, Paul persecuted the Christians.Paul was going around ordering that Christians be tortured and killed. God calls Paul in spite of all of this.Maybe God calls Paul because of this.Maybe God calls all of us, because we are who we are and we ain’t what we ain’t.
God has a call on all of our lives.From the littlest among us through even, I believe after our earthly life.In our illness and in our health, in our weakness and in our strength, in our acceptance of others and in our judging of others, in our sinfulness and in or forgiveness.God calls us as witnesses to the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Friday night I watched the 1980’s movie “The Blues Brothers”.It showed Jake, played by John Belushi having the kind of spiritual awakening that Paul in the Bible had.He went into church and had a spiritual experience.A bright blue light beam shown on him from heaven and he became electrified and did flying summersaults all the way down the church aisle and danced across the front!He had a call on his life!He and his brother were sent on a mission from God to save the Catholic orphanage they grew up in by raising $5,000 by starting up their Blues Brothers Band once again. In the process of committing many crimes, they told everyone that they wouldn’t get caught because they were on a mission from God.
Well, that is Hollywood for you!It may happen like that, maybe.God does work through our worship services. Maybe it is because we are Minnesota Lutherans that God prevails upon us in a more quiet way.
We come to worship a God who is not needy waiting for us to tell God how wonderful God is.But we come to worship in full honesty a God who speaks to you through the Holy Spirit and empowers us to say “I am who I am and God sees something wonderful in me.”Yes, it is true you come to worship: vulnerable, broken, in need of healing, yes, failing and sinful.
And God says to you, you are precious, you are honored, you are forgiven, you are beloved; and having heard this spoken within your hearts; then you are sent out.
Worship is the place where God calls you worthy and precious and holy and calls you into tasks and into community.
We are sent out to serve, to vote, pay taxes, see that our taxes are used wisely, to parent, grandparent, care for one another. We are called.
Isn't that the call upon all of our lives?I think of our role as pointing out God in our midst. Speaking a word of peace to a frightened soul.To walk with someone though difficult times, to point out the beauty of a cold winter morning.
Neither Isaiah, Peter, Paul, nor the Psalmist believed themselves worthy of the call that God has placed before them.Yet the Lord put forth the call upon their lives.It wasn’t until God assures them that it is GOD who makes them worthy that they are able to say “here I am, send me.”
Many times I hear ordinary people tell of the call God has placed upon their lives.They don’t believe they are up to it.They don’t feel worthy.They don’t feel appropriately equipped.Yet, in their faithfulness to God, they take that step forward into ministry.Jesus calls the ordinary to do the extraordinary.
Two call stories
Example One
God calls a dad to finish his teaching degree he started right after high school.His children are still I high school.He feels not up to the rigor of the college classroom with the younger students sitting next to him as he listens to the professor.As he graduates he finds himself interviewing for a position to work with a classroom of 2nd graders.
He calls out to God, “Lord, how can I handle this?”Yet, in his prayer time he realizes that it is not he who is wanting a job to fill her time, but God who is calling him to ministry with the children.Each night when he comes home there are the joys and laughter that he recalls, and then there are the children that he knows he can never do enough to help.These children he brings in prayer to God as he falls asleep each night.Then, years later, he reads in the paper that it is one of his students that is charged with a heavy crime.Tears roll down his face as he remembers the sparkle in that little child’s eyes, the want to learn, the pain he was aware of in the child’s life at home.Could he have done more?A peace washes over as he remembers that, once again, as years before, he is called to lay the cares of these students of his at the foot of the cross.They are God’s children, and once again,she gives them to God in prayer.
Example Two
A young man goes to his parents with the news that he is going to join the military.Through much conversation and tears the parents are called to release this young man they bounced on their knee, played catch with, put ice on the black eye when he was hit with a ball, the boy they tucked into bed night after night.The son explains to them that he has prayed night after night that he would find the words to tell them, that he initially tried to ignore the thoughts that yes, he needed to defend his country.He knows it will break his parents hearts.And yet, as he looks his parents in the eyes, they see before them the transformation of their little boy into the soldier that God is calling him to be.
God calls us as we are, vulnerable, broken, in need of healing, yes, failing and sinful.
And God says to you, you are precious, you are honored, you are forgiven, you are beloved; and having heard this spoken within your heart; then you are sent out.
Let us sing “Here I am Lord” as a response to God's call.
