[Propertalk] 2 Epiphany b - part 1

[Robert P Morrison]

Here's the first draft.
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY   2 EPIPHANY b

	1 SAMUEL 3:1-20     7th JANUARY, 2018

	1 CORINTHIANS 6:12-20    PSALM 139:1-5, 12-17

	JOHN 1:53-51

	 Life is full of surprises! Who’d have imagined who the first
followers of Jesus were? Or how and when they’d be called? Or where
they were when they were called?

	 How did you end up doing what you’re doing, or what you’ve done
through your lives?

	 I’m glad I’m as old as I am! I’ve heard over and over and over
again that people of my children’s ages will not only have changed
jobs four or five times. The jobs themselves, the areas in which they
give their time and their energy, will be in totally different
emphases.

	 To me that smacks of horrendous instability. I suppose I could try
to black out of my mind any thought that I’d be likely to change
vocations, and simply apply myself to what I’m doing at any given
time. But, still, I wonder how it feels to live in a world and a
generation when everything WE know as providing us with a sense of
security may be absent.

	 I don’t know what this means for those in High School or
University, but I’d imagine it might make this life-preparatory
season sort of unsettling.

	 No one HAS to have a career goal etched firmly in her or his mind at
that stage, of course. But it couldn’t hurt. What do you study?
Languages? Scientific Theory? Philosophy? Art History? Plumbing?
Electrical Maintenance? Welding? I could see myself enjoying any and
all of these. In fact, it’s the sort of education which could
benefit a lot of people, giving them some of the basic information of
who we are as human beings. But what if you invest a lot of time, not
to say money, in any one of those academic or technical vocations,
only to find out five years, ten years or more out of school that
there isn’t much in the way of employment opportunities or emotional
satisfaction for you any more?

	 Life isn’t straight-forward or easy. No one ever said that it
would be, of course. Very few people get to work in that proverbial
rose garden. So how do we prepare, how do we function in life?

	 Here’s where we may try to rely on becoming aware of whether or
not something gives u a sense of vocation, a sense that we are being
called into one or other means of engaging with life. And here’s
where we may start to see some sort of a connection between the whole
concept of vocation and the first and third readings this morning.
Everyone in the stories was engaged in something already, and may have
planned to live out the rest of their lives in that profession,
whether or not it gave them pleasure, satisfaction, or security.
Everyone may have been quite happy dong what he or she was doing. So
when God spoke, either out of the ether or of a dream, as happened to
Samuel, or in the person of Jesus, as happened to Philp and Nathaniel,
none of them was looking for another job. They were taken by surprise
and, quite possibly, challenged.

	 More often than not, this is how things happen to us. If you or I
are engaged in a particular pursuit; if you or I, whether or not
we’re content or troubled with regard to what we’re doing; you ad
I may hear aa voice, get a phone or a text message, bump into someone
on the street or in some other place, and, out of nowhere, we may be
invited to consider something. It may never be clear what all’s
involved; what things may entail change in the way of our relocating,
or taking on a certain role that may make us uncomfortable, we simply
may not know. Many times, though, there can be a certain amount of
excitement in addition to risk, even in thinking about this.

	 Samuel, Philip, Nathaniel, even Jesus Himself, reacted almost
instantly, apparently. At least they listened, though, without
dismissing the possibility of changing their vocations out of hand.
This was pretty strange when you consider that they’d no idea about
who was talking to them, except for Jesus, but the Spirit didn’t
affirm Him until AFTER He’d made the decision.

	 Granted, folk back in their times were more ready to hear God
communicate in all sorts of ways, and were willing to accept that that
MAY have been God making the contact. We’re too sophisticated for
that most of the time, though. We can explain that the internet
happens, even if we can’t say how. We’re used to how people talk
– or not when we see them around, so often we don’t think twice
about what they say.

	 But if God speaks today, as I believe absolutely does happen, how
are we supposed to hear? How are we supposed to respond?

	 I think one of the first things we need to work on is our sense of
faith, not only that God DOES talk, but also that God wants to talk to
US. We may tend to feel that this sort of thing is for more important
people, for those who’re academics, or ordained, or well-known in
their communities – not to say that you and I couldn’t fit into
one of these categories, but this is simply not true. We’re ALL
important, and we’re ALL loved. And we’re ALL called. It’s
simply a matter of discerning what our call is.

	 I remember hearing a horrible story about thirty years ago. It was
about the leader at a church sponsored high school campy. Towards the
end of the week, which had been spent talking about God calling people
to serve, the leader asked that young people who felt that God had
called them to a specific Christian vocation come up to the stage to
tell him.

	 One boy went up and whispered what he said he’d heard. The man
beamed and said that the youth felt God was calling him to be a
pastor. A young woman went up and the leader, with a great smile,
announced that she felt God was calling her to be a nurse with a
missionary group. Two others were treated with similar praise. Then a
shy young man went up and quietly talked with the leader whose face
took on a very severe expression.

	 “Oh, no!” he said. “John says that he feels that God is
calling him to be a teacher. But that’s not a Christian vocation.”

	
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