Kerra's Last 5 Sermons - Called to Follow
Called – to Follow
Isaiah 9:1-4, Matthew 4:12-25
January 23, 2023
Kerra Becker English
When I started the course at Richmond Hill for becoming a spiritual director, the first lecture that Ben Campbell ever gave forever changed how I understand the spiritual process known as “call.” Up until that point, my Presbyterian background had accidentally taught me that a call equals a job, and given my background and education, it was also supposed to mean a PAID job in the church. For Presbyterians with a slightly broader understanding, it might also mean that you are called to serve on Session, but the definition, as I understood it, had become quite narrow. The question, “Are you looking for a call?” had come to mean, “Are you actively searching for a job?” And if you still listen to Presbyterians talk about that word, most likely that’s what you will hear them describing. Call was never meant to be just a yes or no question. Do you want this job, or this role, or not? Watch out for that when you are seeking your next pastor!
Even back in the day when my theology mentor Doug Ottati taught about calling in a broader sense in seminary it was to harken back to a book he loved – Richard Baxter’s “The Reformed Pastor” that has a section in it about how a variety of jobs can have a Christian calling to them. You can be a Christian lawyer, or banker, or business-person. That’s a slightly broader definition if you talk about call as how you live your life according to Christ’s purposes – but it still involved primarily questions about how you do your work. It is the productivity curse of American culture. Like it or not, we tend to believe that you are what you do.
Spiritually, I think we deserve a better definition, or at least a far more complex definition of what a calling is. The scripture readings for the weeks following Epiphany in the lectionary have a pattern to them that is helpful to know. Once we skip in Jesus’ life from infancy to adulthood in the Christian year, the next steps are to get him baptized, hear about his temptation, and send him out to call the disciples and get to work. It moves the plot along quite nicely and is exactly how the story goes in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Jesus experiences this ritual at the river that brings him into a direct experience of God’s love, he is tested and sent on a quest, and in that quest he both confronts his demons and finds his friends. This is the pattern of a call story.
First you experience both connection to God and distance from God. Then find your place and your people. And maybe after all that – THEN you will know what work there is for you to do in the world. Of course, it isn’t so neat as all that in messy human lives, but there is a sense in which call comes in 2 parts expressed through 4 inner spiritual processes. That’s where my Ben Campbell notes from the RUAH Spiritual Direction course come in handy. Those two parts, as Ben taught them, are ingrained in my brain forever. The two parts of a calling are “location” and “vocation.” We miss something significant when we neglect that our location has everything to do with how God will call us before we ever decide how God might be using us. The good news is that Matthew’s gospel especially takes good care to describe it for us.
Jesus “made his home” in Capernaum by the sea. Did you catch that? Given that my upcoming move will draw me closer to Virginia’s bay and coastal shorelines, I did not gloss by that detail at all. This text is meant to echo the one we also read from Isaiah. Prophets and messiahs, and even ordinary saints like you and me are called to live out our lives of faith wherever we make our home. He heard the echo of the same calling that Isaiah heard to shine light, and bring joy, and break the chains that bind humankind. Therefore, in his home by the sea Jesus begins to hear and tell his truth, “Repent, for the kingdom of God has come near.” He is filled with the compelling nature of this message, and takes his walks by the water until he meets the fishermen whom he will draw on this journey with him. If he had plopped himself down in Jerusalem first, his disciples would have been a whole different cast of characters. Location is the context where we find ourselves, whether we’ve been plopped into it by circumstances or whether it feels deliberately chosen. Interacting with our location, the surroundings, the people, the culture – that is how we are meant to discover our authentic selves.
Now, living in a global society with such ease of transportation, more than ever before we have come to believe that we choose our own adventure, that we could go anywhere we wanted to go, live anywhere we wanted to live, and maybe even be anything we want to be. I guess in some ways that’s possible, but in other ways that isn’t fully true. We are born – in a particular time and place. That place and its people will shape who we are, and who we might become, whether in adulthood we adopt and remain in the familiarity of our hometown, or bolt from it in a desire to be free. Our location is truly about where and how we find ourselves in time and space. The Bible makes significant points to talk about land almost as much as it talks about people. We would do well to remember that.
Though Christmas is the time for catching up on Jesus’ genealogy and backstory, Matthew describes his call as beginning at the moment of his baptism. Which brings me to 3 of Ben Campbell’s 4 inner spiritual processes that signify the transformation that can be explained as a calling. One is the process of prayer. Opening oneself to the spiritual dialogue. Allowing the kind of trust that says that prayers are not just the mutterings of the human mind, but true conversation. We pray. God listens. We listen. God reveals compassion and love for us. Two is having knowledge of God. Notice I didn’t say believing in God. We can assent to things we don’t truly know. Knowing God is being able to say that God is involved in my life- in the nudge, the voice, the intuition. God isn’t a thought in my head. God is a character in my story. And then the third inner spiritual process is the quest for and process of inner healing. It’s being sent out or called close. It’s in the searching just as certainly as it is in the discovery. It’s recognizing the demons who mock us and befriending the companions who will journey with us. Jesus already knew the message he was to carry – but to carry out his quest, he needed help. We’ll get to the fourth inner process in a moment.
When we get to this text in the Christian calendar, we think of this story as the “call of the disciples” and it is, but it is also the affirmation of the call of Jesus himself. He has to experience his own moment of calling – before he can invite anyone else to join him. But when he does, an intimate relationship develops between Jesus and with those he asks to follow him. Choosing whom we will follow in and of itself a calling. They had to trust in what Jesus was doing. Jesus put his trust in God alone.
In hearing our own callings, Christian discipleship asks us to do both. We listen for God’s call as individuals AND together, we follow Jesus. Hearing God’s call may be felt as a disruption to our normal routine and it will always have elements of a quest, or at least will open us up to a lot of questions. 2022 was a year of such questions for me. The heavens didn’t open up with exact clarity of purpose, but I knew I was feeling a strong desire to seek broader conversations about the church and what my purpose might be in serving in it. That’s where the fourth inner process, and the idea of discerning our vocation comes in. For Christians, it’s asking, how are we to follow? What nets do we leave behind? What energy do we bring to the next task? How can we be on the journey with Christ to shine light, bring joy, and break the cords that bind us? What is the message of repentance telling us about the nearness of the Kingdom of God?
In all the conversations I had – all the seeking – all that asking – all the prayer - and in all the Zooming, traveling, and interviewing - rather than that ending up with a yes or no decision to make about a particular job, I’m finding myself called instead to make a home by the sea. Odd. I could say that I didn’t think that’s how our call system was supposed to work. It isn’t what the Presbyterian job search in all its bureaucratic splendor is designed to do, that’s for sure. But in God’s plan, it makes perfect sense. The quest part is still ongoing, and I don’t know quite what that will mean for me, even now. And yet I discovered so, so much in the asking, especially about myself. I know the gifts I bring and the intent God has for using them, even though I don’t know what I will be doing “professionally.” I gained a great deal of hope for the church as I met with some amazing people who love Jesus and care about the church as much as I do. I also felt alarming fear for those times when I encountered the corruption that reminded me that the church is a human institution as mired in sin as any other aspect of the world. But what I am feeling now is that I’m being guided home - again. I’m being found by Jesus along the shoreline. Jesus is beckoning “Come, and follow me.”
Take a moment, if you would, to look not at me – but up above me. Of all the stained-glass windows I’ve seen in my day, the one in this sanctuary speaks to me over and over again. As it shows Jesus’ hand extended to us, I always see in it a “come and follow me” message. Here in Ashland, back in 2012 when you offered me the opportunity to be your pastor, I didn’t just find a job, I found a home. Location matters. Vocation follows. That’s when the healing begins. Matthew takes us one step further in Jesus’ journey after he finds his group of disciples. He says that then Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. He found his mission. He found his purpose. AFTER he made his home.
This congregation is special in that many of you have stories, not just of living here forever, but of discovering home in this place. Hold on to that. When you find the place and the people that you can call home – then you will have the support in place you need to let God’s light shine through you. Just like the light shines through this window to bid us to walk with Christ in all our daily tasks. May your spiritual home continue to bring you joy and free you for service in the nearby Kingdom of God. Amen.
Isaiah 9:1-4, Matthew 4:12-25
January 23, 2023
Kerra Becker English
When I started the course at Richmond Hill for becoming a spiritual director, the first lecture that Ben Campbell ever gave forever changed how I understand the spiritual process known as “call.” Up until that point, my Presbyterian background had accidentally taught me that a call equals a job, and given my background and education, it was also supposed to mean a PAID job in the church. For Presbyterians with a slightly broader understanding, it might also mean that you are called to serve on Session, but the definition, as I understood it, had become quite narrow. The question, “Are you looking for a call?” had come to mean, “Are you actively searching for a job?” And if you still listen to Presbyterians talk about that word, most likely that’s what you will hear them describing. Call was never meant to be just a yes or no question. Do you want this job, or this role, or not? Watch out for that when you are seeking your next pastor!
Even back in the day when my theology mentor Doug Ottati taught about calling in a broader sense in seminary it was to harken back to a book he loved – Richard Baxter’s “The Reformed Pastor” that has a section in it about how a variety of jobs can have a Christian calling to them. You can be a Christian lawyer, or banker, or business-person. That’s a slightly broader definition if you talk about call as how you live your life according to Christ’s purposes – but it still involved primarily questions about how you do your work. It is the productivity curse of American culture. Like it or not, we tend to believe that you are what you do.
Spiritually, I think we deserve a better definition, or at least a far more complex definition of what a calling is. The scripture readings for the weeks following Epiphany in the lectionary have a pattern to them that is helpful to know. Once we skip in Jesus’ life from infancy to adulthood in the Christian year, the next steps are to get him baptized, hear about his temptation, and send him out to call the disciples and get to work. It moves the plot along quite nicely and is exactly how the story goes in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Jesus experiences this ritual at the river that brings him into a direct experience of God’s love, he is tested and sent on a quest, and in that quest he both confronts his demons and finds his friends. This is the pattern of a call story.
First you experience both connection to God and distance from God. Then find your place and your people. And maybe after all that – THEN you will know what work there is for you to do in the world. Of course, it isn’t so neat as all that in messy human lives, but there is a sense in which call comes in 2 parts expressed through 4 inner spiritual processes. That’s where my Ben Campbell notes from the RUAH Spiritual Direction course come in handy. Those two parts, as Ben taught them, are ingrained in my brain forever. The two parts of a calling are “location” and “vocation.” We miss something significant when we neglect that our location has everything to do with how God will call us before we ever decide how God might be using us. The good news is that Matthew’s gospel especially takes good care to describe it for us.
Jesus “made his home” in Capernaum by the sea. Did you catch that? Given that my upcoming move will draw me closer to Virginia’s bay and coastal shorelines, I did not gloss by that detail at all. This text is meant to echo the one we also read from Isaiah. Prophets and messiahs, and even ordinary saints like you and me are called to live out our lives of faith wherever we make our home. He heard the echo of the same calling that Isaiah heard to shine light, and bring joy, and break the chains that bind humankind. Therefore, in his home by the sea Jesus begins to hear and tell his truth, “Repent, for the kingdom of God has come near.” He is filled with the compelling nature of this message, and takes his walks by the water until he meets the fishermen whom he will draw on this journey with him. If he had plopped himself down in Jerusalem first, his disciples would have been a whole different cast of characters. Location is the context where we find ourselves, whether we’ve been plopped into it by circumstances or whether it feels deliberately chosen. Interacting with our location, the surroundings, the people, the culture – that is how we are meant to discover our authentic selves.
Now, living in a global society with such ease of transportation, more than ever before we have come to believe that we choose our own adventure, that we could go anywhere we wanted to go, live anywhere we wanted to live, and maybe even be anything we want to be. I guess in some ways that’s possible, but in other ways that isn’t fully true. We are born – in a particular time and place. That place and its people will shape who we are, and who we might become, whether in adulthood we adopt and remain in the familiarity of our hometown, or bolt from it in a desire to be free. Our location is truly about where and how we find ourselves in time and space. The Bible makes significant points to talk about land almost as much as it talks about people. We would do well to remember that.
Though Christmas is the time for catching up on Jesus’ genealogy and backstory, Matthew describes his call as beginning at the moment of his baptism. Which brings me to 3 of Ben Campbell’s 4 inner spiritual processes that signify the transformation that can be explained as a calling. One is the process of prayer. Opening oneself to the spiritual dialogue. Allowing the kind of trust that says that prayers are not just the mutterings of the human mind, but true conversation. We pray. God listens. We listen. God reveals compassion and love for us. Two is having knowledge of God. Notice I didn’t say believing in God. We can assent to things we don’t truly know. Knowing God is being able to say that God is involved in my life- in the nudge, the voice, the intuition. God isn’t a thought in my head. God is a character in my story. And then the third inner spiritual process is the quest for and process of inner healing. It’s being sent out or called close. It’s in the searching just as certainly as it is in the discovery. It’s recognizing the demons who mock us and befriending the companions who will journey with us. Jesus already knew the message he was to carry – but to carry out his quest, he needed help. We’ll get to the fourth inner process in a moment.
When we get to this text in the Christian calendar, we think of this story as the “call of the disciples” and it is, but it is also the affirmation of the call of Jesus himself. He has to experience his own moment of calling – before he can invite anyone else to join him. But when he does, an intimate relationship develops between Jesus and with those he asks to follow him. Choosing whom we will follow in and of itself a calling. They had to trust in what Jesus was doing. Jesus put his trust in God alone.
In hearing our own callings, Christian discipleship asks us to do both. We listen for God’s call as individuals AND together, we follow Jesus. Hearing God’s call may be felt as a disruption to our normal routine and it will always have elements of a quest, or at least will open us up to a lot of questions. 2022 was a year of such questions for me. The heavens didn’t open up with exact clarity of purpose, but I knew I was feeling a strong desire to seek broader conversations about the church and what my purpose might be in serving in it. That’s where the fourth inner process, and the idea of discerning our vocation comes in. For Christians, it’s asking, how are we to follow? What nets do we leave behind? What energy do we bring to the next task? How can we be on the journey with Christ to shine light, bring joy, and break the cords that bind us? What is the message of repentance telling us about the nearness of the Kingdom of God?
In all the conversations I had – all the seeking – all that asking – all the prayer - and in all the Zooming, traveling, and interviewing - rather than that ending up with a yes or no decision to make about a particular job, I’m finding myself called instead to make a home by the sea. Odd. I could say that I didn’t think that’s how our call system was supposed to work. It isn’t what the Presbyterian job search in all its bureaucratic splendor is designed to do, that’s for sure. But in God’s plan, it makes perfect sense. The quest part is still ongoing, and I don’t know quite what that will mean for me, even now. And yet I discovered so, so much in the asking, especially about myself. I know the gifts I bring and the intent God has for using them, even though I don’t know what I will be doing “professionally.” I gained a great deal of hope for the church as I met with some amazing people who love Jesus and care about the church as much as I do. I also felt alarming fear for those times when I encountered the corruption that reminded me that the church is a human institution as mired in sin as any other aspect of the world. But what I am feeling now is that I’m being guided home - again. I’m being found by Jesus along the shoreline. Jesus is beckoning “Come, and follow me.”
Take a moment, if you would, to look not at me – but up above me. Of all the stained-glass windows I’ve seen in my day, the one in this sanctuary speaks to me over and over again. As it shows Jesus’ hand extended to us, I always see in it a “come and follow me” message. Here in Ashland, back in 2012 when you offered me the opportunity to be your pastor, I didn’t just find a job, I found a home. Location matters. Vocation follows. That’s when the healing begins. Matthew takes us one step further in Jesus’ journey after he finds his group of disciples. He says that then Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. He found his mission. He found his purpose. AFTER he made his home.
This congregation is special in that many of you have stories, not just of living here forever, but of discovering home in this place. Hold on to that. When you find the place and the people that you can call home – then you will have the support in place you need to let God’s light shine through you. Just like the light shines through this window to bid us to walk with Christ in all our daily tasks. May your spiritual home continue to bring you joy and free you for service in the nearby Kingdom of God. Amen.
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