Feel life as it is and know that God is there: A Homily for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Isaiah 49:1-7
Psalm 40:1-12
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42

St. Thomas's Anglican Church
Toronto, ON

+In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Pepperdine University, a private Christian university affiliated
with the Churches of Christ. Photo taken from usnews.com. 

When I was a younger man, I attended a conservative evangelical university in Southern California. [1] The school had a culture of Bible studies, student-led praise services, missionary-minded outreach, and testimonies. Though the evangelical practice of testimonials is meant to show and discuss how God is moving in a person’s life, people at this school often give their testimony to tell how God personally called them to salvation. Some people were quite good at telling a story, and their testimony resembled the hero’s journey of setting out, hitting a challenge, and in the abyss, they encounter God who personally calls them out of darkness into light and into a new life. I do not mean to discount people’s experience, often people find God and rely on God in the abyss. But these fantastic testimonies where they work hard and struggle to hear God’s call can put pressure on people who did not have such a fantastic journey to conform their life-story to this model. It was written on their face, and you could tell when people were uncomfortable doing this because they heard these stories and might ask themselves “am I truly called?”.

Our readings today are filled with language of God calling people to his service. Isaiah says, “The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother's womb he named me.” Psalm 40 says “He lifted me out of the desolate pit, out of the mire and clay; he set my feet upon a high cliff and made my footing sure.” Paul tells the Corinthians “God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Simon is brought to Jesus, and Jesus says to him “‘You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter or Stone).” Isaiah, the Psalmist, and Paul say that God calls people. Jesus as God himself calls people to him. We believe that God calls each and every one of us to something, but how do we know God is calling us? What do we do when we encounter God’s absence?

The North American experience of Christianity is deeply tied to the question of God’s call. We inherited this from the various Reformed leaders and writers of early-modern Europe. Martin Luther constantly questioned whether or not he was good enough to merit salvation, but he reasoned that God’s call to us is independent of our own action. But it still begs the question, how do we know if we are called? John Calvin answers this question and said that God called those whom he will save to him before the beginning of time, and that our call is predestined. But how do you know if you were predestined? Later generations of Anglicans and Puritans in England said it would manifest in our diligence and dedication in our personal labour and personal morality. As a kind of reaction to this, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism said that he knew he was saved because he felt his heart being strangely warmed following his encounter with the Moravians after experiencing much failure in his early ministry in Georgia. Our society merged these all these contradictory things together and our culture tells people they have to work hard to hear God’s call and have any meaning in their lives. We have to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps to hear God’s call.

But what if we don’t hear God’s call. What if we do all the right things, pray, read scripture, go to church, be diligent in work, and strived and suffered greatly to no avail? Some may find God in these things, but not everyone does. How many long nights of the soul have lead to no great revelation? How often have you laid awake in the dark, worried about how you are going to pay rent, worried about your sick child who cannot go to sleep, worried about what your purpose in life is, worried if this project is going to work, only to be met not by the heavens opening up before you, but by the silent indifference of your bedroom walls. As Isaiah says, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.”

Iao Needle on Maui

We may work hard to hear God’s call, and may hear it in isolation, but when God’s call does not come it can feel as if you are “standing atop the summit of a great mountain, the winds tearing about you, then finding yourself buried alive…trapped, helpless, and alone.” [2]

And yet, God does indeed calls to us, even if we cannot discern God’s voice. What is sometimes lost in trying to hear God’s call in isolation is the reality that God’s voice is not a reward at the end of a long journey to the top of that mountain, but the thing that drives us to the base of that mountain; to climb that mountain with one another, with our friends, family, and community; and to help others climb to the top of that mountain. God’s voice is often best discerned in relationship, community, and in service with others. Many people often do this even if they cannot discern the voice of God or are actively seeking it in their lives because it is simply the right thing to do. There is no great secret to God’s call because it has been revealed in Jesus Christ. Paul says that “in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind—just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you—so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” God’s call is therefore present, and we work to discern that call together with our community as we proclaim God’s “love and faithfulness from the great congregation” to the world. The voice of God is often best discerned in community and understood in the service of others. Wherever two or three are gathered, God himself is there.

When we discern God’s call, the heavens may not open up before us. We may not see the choirs of angels. But when you act in love and charity towards someone, when you show mercy and love to another person, particularly the most marginalized in our world, know that you are in the right place, at the right time, responding to God’s call to you, even if it does not seem readily apparent or be heard.

Easter Vigil, St. Thomas's Anglican Church

Life around us echoes with the voice of God, it is a melody that merges into a chorus of God’s song and we can hear it together with one another. We can hear God calling to us in the person on the street asking for spare change, the child who says come play with me, the joy of seeing a loved one, the cry of a victim begging for us to listen to them, the estranged friend who says I am sorry, the pull on your heart to forgive a great wrong, the noises of a child in baptism, the calm at the end of life, the words of Jesus in the Gospel heard in the midst of the congregation that calls you to have mercy on others. Feel life as it is and know that God is there.

Amen.

[1] Pepperdine University is a private Christian university affiliated with the Churches of Christ. Some may object to calling the Churches of Christ and Pepperdine evangelical and identify the Churches of Christ as a mainline denomination. Evangelical in this sense is not meant as a descriptor for a particular denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America calls itself evangelical but many ELCA churches do not conform or function like a typical evangelical church in the US. Evangelical is meant to describe a particular cultural and theological expression of Christianity, and that particular culture was the dominant one at Pepperdine.

[2] Quote taken from Kreia in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II.