Sermon: “When God Calls”

Text: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Baptism of the Lord (C)

January 10, 2010

Scripture introduction.  All four gospel writers agree that Jesus’ earthly ministry began with his baptism, and that is the event that we recognize on this Sunday.  We are now in the third year of the lectionary cycle, so our gospel text is taken from Luke. 

Luke’s version of the story is essentially the same as that of the other three Gospels.  All say that the Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove.  However, the church has generally misunderstood the language of the gospel writers, who tell us not that the Spirit looked like a dove, but that the manner of the Spirit’s descent that was like a dove.  Luke writes that the Spirit descended “bodily,” but that probably means simply that it was visible to all persons present, and not only to Jesus.  I like the way one commentator has put it—“The Spirit descended on Jesus with the grace of a dove.”[1]  Although the four accounts have much in common, yet Luke has a few points of emphasis that distinguish the way he tells the event.  For example, putting the baptism in the passive voice, Luke de-emphasizes that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.  At the time Luke wrote, there may still have been some disciples of John the Baptist who had not yet begun to worship Jesus.  In order to bring them fully to the gospel, Luke may have been taking care not to subordinate Jesus in any way to John.[2]  Finally, we are not surprised to see that Luke, who so often emphasizes the importance of prayer, tells us that as he was being baptized, as the voice from heaven was heard, and as the Spirit descended upon him, Jesus was praying.[3]

Listen, then, to Luke’s account of the baptism of Jesus.  I’ll be reading Luke 3, verses 15 to 17 and 21 and 22.

Sermon.  The first Sunday after Christmas our text from Luke was the Bible’s only story[4] about the time between Jesus’ infancy and his baptism.  I suggested to you then that the story illustrated how Jesus experienced normal human childhood.  To be sure, he was precocious, as is illustrated by the very incisive questions he asked the rabbis in the Temple.  Yet unlike the picture painted in writings that the Church has long-rejected, Jesus was not possessed of supernatural powers as a child.  He had the same growing up pains that we all do.  The story of his staying behind in the Temple shows Jesus beginning to understand his special relationship to God.  By early adolescence, Jesus referred to God as “my father.”[5]  But as Luke tells us, Jesus still had some growing to do.[6]  At this early age he probably had no inkling of the mission that God intended for him. 

The Bible does not tell us about Jesus’ own experience of growth—only that he did grow in wisdom and favor with God and humans.  At some point, however, Jesus must have realized that he was God’s anointed one—the Messiah, the Christ—and that God had called him uniquely to this mission.  Since all the Gospel writers begin describing the earthly mission of Jesus right after his baptism, it is reasonable to conclude that this event crystallized and focused his self-awareness of God’s call.

In a few minutes we will baptize Maddison Judge.  While she is too young to understand this as her answer to God’s call and the moment when she begins her ministry among us, it nevertheless marks the beginning of her life in Christ.  (And, in a way, she already has begun her ministry: for she played the part of the baby Jesus in this year’s children’s Christmas pageant.  You will remember that she played her part with enthusiasm!)  Like the child Jesus, she will need to grow in wisdom and in favor with God and her fellow humans.  It will be our honor and duty, as the people of God’s family, to help her each step along the way.  We don’t know yet the specific part of God’s work to which Maddi will be called, but we know that already God has a plan for her.  And we will do our best to help her discover her unique place in the church.  What a joy it is to see another life being added to God’s family and to imagine the ways God might use her in the service of Christ!

We get all warm and fuzzy, don’t we, when we witness the baptism of a child?  There’s the simple joy of new life and all the hope of renewal that this brings.  We rejoice in the sweet innocence of childhood, and perhaps a part of us longs for the same kind of simplicity.  Very practically, we are thankful for young families and for children in our church: it would be a sad church, indeed, whose walls did not echo with the voices of children.  The children of our members are a token and pledge that we and God’s mission have a future in this place.

For a moment, however, I want us to shift our focus away from Maddi and the children—we’ll come back to them in just a few minutes.  I want us to consider our own baptisms as a sign that God has called us, too.  It is too easy to sentimentalize baptism when we are looking at a tiny baby.  When we become adults—when we have grown in wisdom and stature—we, too, have a calling and a responsibility to answer that calling, just as Jesus did when he walked down into the waters of the Jordan and was baptized by John.  I pray that God will give us all the grace to understand that each of us has a calling within the church and that we are to pursue that calling.  Of course we experience renewal when we attend worship.  Even so, church should not be merely the place where we come to get our batteries charged.  Jesus expects us to put some of our energy back into the church so that it becomes a center of power—a dynamo—reaching out into the world.  As we say in the Reformed tradition, the people of God have been chosen not only for salvation, but also for service.[7]

Before you called me to Central Presbyterian Church, all of my prior experience in the Presbyterian Church was in very large congregations.  I am talking now about my home church in Birmingham and my church in Louisville, whose members numbered in the thousands.  Those large congregations lack something that you have.  You see, in a very large church few people feel a total responsibility for the mission of the church.  Much of the work of the church is accomplished through large program staffs.  Maintenance is performed by paid contractors.  If something breaks, the question is, “What company do we call to fix it?”  But here at Central—I’m very happy to say—the size of our congregation does not allow that approach.  When something needs to be done here, one or more of our church members sees to it.  We do not have a custodial staff to decorate the church for Christmas: you all do it at our Hanging of the Greens event.  And the same is true when it all must be taken down and stored for next year.  If there is a meal to be served at the church, we do not have a kitchen staff to prepare it.  You do (and it’s always really good!).  Our church operates on the principle that each member has a calling within the church, and we depend upon our members to keep the church vital and dynamic.

My point is that God calls us to these tasks, and when God calls, we need to answer, just as Jesus did when he began his dangerous ministry with his baptism.  Sometimes God’s call is unmistakable: persons can have a clear vision of God’s will for them.  Often this is described as a feeling of deep attraction to some part of the mission of the church.  When God’s call operates this strongly, we sometimes find that what seemed to be practical barriers to our answering the call begin to fall away.  It is as if the way is being cleared for us to accept the tasks that God has placed before us.  More often, I think—and this was certainly true in my own life and call to ministry—we have to puzzle things out.  God’s call may begin not with an attraction but with a sense of discomfort about the status quo.  There may come a time in our lives when our question, “Why doesn’t somebody do something about it?,” gradually changes into, “Why shouldn’t I do something about it?” 

In the context of the church and its mission, God’s call comes most often when the church as a body asks us to do something.  Our nominating committee, for example, has been putting before us the church’s current needs for volunteers.  If you have not yet seriously considered whether you are called to serve in one of these areas, I invite you to do that this morning.  I have not checked recently, but I am pretty sure that some of the positions are still open!  I realize that it is hard for some of you to come to the church during the week and to participate as fully as you would like in the activities of the church.  For many good reasons, including declining health and mobility, it is an effort for you simply to get to church once a week on Sunday (especially on days like today when it is snowy, cold, and icy).  That’s OK.  Many of you in earlier years were tireless in your service to this or other congregations.  But don’t sell yourselves short.  There are still things you can do.  We need people to be faithful in prayer for the ministries of our church.  We need folks who are willing to encourage those on our prayer list with cards and telephone calls.  I tell even our members who are shut-in or living in the nursing home that that we need their help at church.  As we read in the book of James, “The prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective.”[8]

Sometimes God calls us to something completely new.  We realize that God has given us particular talents and that there are ways we can use these talents in serving Christ.  Maybe the nominating committee doesn’t even have a position for it.  That’s OK.  If you feel called to do it, and if doing it will give you joy and a sense of fulfillment, then let’s talk about how you might work it out here at the church.  Now if you feel called to be Gary’s back-up organist and you have never even had a piano lesson, we need to talk some more.  God’s call often stretches us, but it is always within the realm of possibility.  But don’t rule out what feels like a calling just because no one else is doing it.  God may have brought you to Central just so that you could work on something new here—something we really need.

How do we know that we have heard God’s call correctly?  Well, to answer that, let me return for a moment to Luke’s version of the baptism of Jesus.  When we have found the “sweet spot” of God’s calling, the task that God intends for us to do, it may be daunting, it certainly will require effort, and it probably will have its share of frustrations, but there will be a sense of “right-ness” about it.  As Frederick Buechner has written, and I’ll quote him roughly, “Our calling is where our deep joy meets the world’s deep need.”  We may not actually see the Holy Spirit descend upon us when we discover our calling and accept it, but we will feel a certain grace and lightness in our own spirits, as if our own hearts had the wings of a dove.  Finally, let us not forget that when Jesus was baptized, and as he heard God’s affirmation of his calling and saw the Spirit descending in graceful assistance, Jesus was praying.  That is the best way for us to know God’s will in our lives.  Indeed, Christians who have written most extensively about prayer tell us that the process of prayer is not so much us telling God what we want, but rather allowing our wants to be conformed to what God wants. 

As today we celebrate the baptism of Jesus and his acceptance of God’s calling, and as we celebrate God’s loving claim upon the newest member of our congregation, I pray that we all will remember our own baptisms, that we will consider afresh how God is calling to us in our lives, and that we will joyfully accept the task God has placed before us.