Loading...Last week, Mary had you draw a capital “E” on your foreheads.
The point of the exercise was to help you understand your perspective and point of view. But, it may have also confused you,
especially if, like me, you either overthink things or
you’ve done this little exercise before.
Today, I’m giving you a vocabulary test!
When I say “call” what do you think of?
Those brought up in the Victorian Era (or, similar) may think of “visiting others”;
Or, maybe you thought of a “telephone call”;
Some of you, thinking aha! we’re in church! might have thought about something church-like.
How about “vocation”?
Job. Lots of you probably thought of your job.
Or, you misunderstood and thought I said “vacation”,
so you thought of a trip to Disneyland or to some tropical island away from this dreary cold.
Or, maybe, if you were raised Roman Catholic, you thought of monks and nuns.
Or, priests and deacons.
Lots of us tend to think that “call” and “vocation” are the purview of church workers. And for so many years, “the Church” has made a stark distinction between “clergy” and “lay”; between those who have a “vocation” or “call” and others.
The church has professionalized the clergy set. And given titles, and special clothing, and imbued clergy with authority. It’s a little like the clergy know some secret code to understand God.
But, both “call” and “vocation” are so much more!
They AREN’T limited to the professional clergy!
Yet, the world at large doesn’t really help either. We live in the Culture of the Expert.
You’re in trouble, turn to the experts.
Want to learn something new, ask the expert.
(Now, if you’ve got a plumbing or electrical problem,
that’s probably not a bad idea!)
Our language even leads us this way: we talk about the “lay historian” who is interested in history, but isn’t a professor about history; we have “lay musicians” who enjoy making music, but are the professionals.
And, we talk about “clergy” and “lay” people in the church;
which tends to make us think that
unless we have special specific training,
we cannot think, or say, or do valuable faith or church things;
that folks of faith cannot have a “call” or a “vocation”!
Pish Posh!
(and if I or Mary or Finn ever start to sound like we are the experts and you cannot have good and valuable thoughts, words, or actions of faith, then just say “Pish posh” to us!)
It’s true that there is some specific training that clergy folk have gone through (it is a double edge sword to be “professional clergy”). All y’all have not had classes in Old Testament, or the history of Christianity, or hermeneutics, or pastoral care, or whatever.
But, you can think, you can do, you can feel, you can love, you can reconcile with one who has been hurt or who has hurt you.
God is in relationship with you! Every one of you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Matthew wrote his Gospel and he was introducing the adult Jesus as he was beginning his “public ministry”, Matthew mentioned two little areas that everyone had forgotten about – Zebulun and Naphtali.
No one remembered those two places because no one had used those names for hundreds of years. They were forgotten because they’d been re-named, subsumed, and – in memory, at least – wiped out by the current EMPIRE, the Roman Empire. These two places were lost in the history of generations long gone.
But Matthew remembered and Matthew named these places.
He reminded the people of their story
and of their history as the people of the covenant,
the people of God’s promise.
Matthew reminded them that from these forgotten places,
amongst people who might feel forgotten, overlooked and unimportant – light has shone.
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in the land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.” (Isaiah 9:2)
When Isaiah originally wrote those words,
he was speaking to communities of God’s beloved people
who felt like they were in the darkness of
violence, loss, grief, corruption, and EMPIRE
(at that time, the Assyrian Empire, which was particularly violent).
Isaiah was writing to people who needed a vision,
light,
hope,
and a reminder of imagination that what they were living through
wasn’t “it”; not the end of the story.
But, Isaiah doesn’t just write to the Israelites who were being overrun by the Assyrians thousands of years ago.
He wrote to all kinds of people who feel the darkness of oppression
in whatever time or place they may be:
Jews in Jesus’ time under Roman oppression
Early Christians also under Roman oppression
Jews experiencing expulsion from Europe in the Middle Ages,
as well as the Holocaust in the 1930s and 40s.
South Africans in Apartheid
Africans and their many descendants enslaved in the American South, followed by generations of Jim Crow laws.
Eastern Europeans under Communism
The Ottoman Empire
Chileans under the Pinochet dictatorship when people were “disappeared”.
EMPIRE marches its way through history and is still around today.
It is found anywhere and everywhere when there is fear and darkness that pervades.
Isaiah’s words remind us of God’s vision and of God’s actions for life for all of creation. Isaiah’s words give us the space to “imagine a time of freedom, joy, light, love, friendship, and compassion in a time of darkness, in which everyone and everything shouts hatred, violence, war, and greed.” (Juliana Claassens in Working Preacher)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jesus is singing the same tune as Isaiah:
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who lived in the land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.
It doesn’t matter if they feel insignificant or lost.
It doesn’t matter if they don’t think that they can change anything.
It doesn’t matter because Jesus goes to the lost and forgotten and pays attention to them.
He loves them. He heals them.
He loves you. He heals you.
He is the light in the darkness.
And he calls – invites – commissions – inaugurates –
anybody and everybody (but especially the folks
who think they don’t have anything to offer,
or who think they have no power,
or that they’re not smart enough or trained enough).
Jesus calls us, he calls you,
to be the light in the world
in words, in action
in love, in kindness
in advocacy, in reconciliation
in courage.
Jesus calls you to be in the world in whatever your situation may be:
in work, play, volunteer time, or school,
to be the love of God for the world.
Because you know and have experienced this love,
you know what to share:
a welcome, a hand extended,
forgiveness offered, vulnerability lived.
The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light,
and you are called, as your baptismal vocation,
to let this light shine, and
to be the love of God for the sake of the world. Amen
