Never Alone
Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Cor. 1:1-9; John 1:29-41
The Rev. Ken Howard

“The LORD called me before I was born, while I was in my mother's womb he named me.” “Paul, called to be an apostle . . . to those . . . to be saints.” “John exclaimed, ‘Look . . . the Lamb of God!’ And he two disciples . . . followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’”

In the Anglican/Episcopal tradition, as with other traditions within the Christian faith which have a liturgical bent, we read through the Scriptures in a three-year cycle called the Eucharistic Lectionary. It takes us through the Holy Scriptures in what is intended to be a logical way, organized around the life and ministry of Jesus and his twelve disciples as set forth in the Gospels. The readings chosen from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Epistles are intended to support or reinforce the story of the Gospels. In both cases I say “intended” intentionally, because sometimes the connection is stronger than other. And sometimes, the only link seems to be a word that appears in all four of the texts.

As in the line from Fiddler on the Roof, where Tevya, when he was challenged about an old saying he had dispensed, supposedly from the Scriptures, replies, “Somewhere in there it said something about a chicken.” But in today’s lectionary selection, the theme that connects them is clear and strong and unmistakable. It is about being called. And today’s Scriptures teaches some important things about being called, like how to discern your calling. And make no mistake about it. None of us gets off easy in the calling department. All of us are called. What do today’s Scriptures tell us about our callings? Four things: they are before us, that they are between us, that they are beyond us, and that they are beside us.

“The LORD called me before I was born,” is what the prophet Isaiah says about his calling. And this is the way God calls all of us. We may not be used to thinking in such terms, but God inhabits eternity and God’s call to us comes from eternity. God has planted a absolutely unique calling in each of us. And by the time we come into this world that seed has already started growing inside us. And one of the ways we begin to learn about our calling is that when we tend it, it grows. The thing about a calling is that it is not always clear to us at first what it is. And it doesn’t usually get communicated to us in unmistakable words or in a blinding flash of insight. Even Paul had to take time to figure his calling.

After God got his attention by blinding him and knocking him off his horse on the road to Damascus, he still had to spend three years figuring out exactly what God was calling him to do before he set out in earnest to actually do it. For most of the rest of us God uses more subtle approaches, so it usually takes most of us a lot longer to figure it and with a lot more trial-and-error. It took me many years for God to make it clear to me what I was being called to do, many more years for me really face it, and even many more years to get up the courage even begin to follow it – about 16 years all-in-all. My old mentor, now retired, passed on some solid wisdom to me about this process. He said, “You will know that you are getting close to your call, when the things you are doing with your life, bring you more joy. Not joy as in happy, happy, but joy as C. S. Lewis described it, “Laughter born of tears.”

But John also told me this: “Until you are actually following your call you will know you haven’t quite found it yet, because something will seem like it is missing until you do.” A calling is like a yearning God plants in you – a yearning that will not be completely nourished until you are doing what you are “supposed to.” But a calling is not something we search for on our own, or find without help, or enter into alone. There are no “Lone Rangers” in the kingdom of God. A calling is something that is between us. Today’s Gospel makes that clear. If both John’s Gospel and Luke’s Gospel are true, then while we know that Jesus and John were cousins, they did not, at least not at first. And this makes sense, since many believe that while Jesus was raised in the Pharisaic tradition in a community near the Sea of Galilee, John was raised by the Essenes – a group of ascetics who opposed the Pharisees – out in the Judean desert near the Dead Sea.

The point is even Jesus did not discern the shape of his ministry entirely without help. And some of the help came from unexpected sources. In Jesus’ case, a long lost – not to mention very strange – cousin named John. None of us can find our calling on our own, we seek out our calling in the midst of – and with the help of – a community. As our own recently ordained Alison Quin said in her “thank you” note to us, those around us not only help us to recognize our calling, but also to shape it and to give us the courage to follow it. And whether your calling is to ordained ministry or to lay pastoral care or to be dog catcher or an economist for Christ, those around you will be crucial to you in discerning what God is calling you to do and to be.

And speaking of people within our community, here is a quote from the Gospel according to Frank Anderson: “Any job worth doing, is impossible to do perfectly.” Another way we recognize our calling is that it is beyond us. Stepping into the calling that God has put before us will stretch us. It will awake our souls and stretch every nerve. It will stretch us to our limit and beyond. It will call upon every gift God has given us or will give us – and beyond. It will call upon all the support our community of faith can offer us – and then some.

One of the books we were assigned to read in seminary was entitled, The Impossible Calling. The calling to which that particular book was referring in its title was ordained ministry. But I think that title is misleading. Because I think that any true calling is an impossible calling. Because any true calling is impossible to follow without God. Which brings us to the last – but not least – thing about our calling. The most important thing about our calling is not the finding of it precisely, or the validation of it publically, or the fulfilling of it perfectly. The most important thing is who is beside us on the journey.

Thomas Merton, in his essay Thoughts in Solitude, puts it into prayer this way: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” That person – the one who will never leave us alone – is Christ. Thomas Merton authored that prayer just a few years ago in the late 20th Century.

Yet almost 1,700 years ago in the 4th Century one of our forebears in the faith offered up a prayer with much the same theme. But his prayer had that lyrical quality to it that only Celtic Christianity has produced. We know him as St. Patrick: the one who brought Christianity to the Celt’s and through them to the Anglican Church and to us. I’d like to close with his prayer. And if you’d like to join me in that prayer, pick up your hymnals and turn to Hymn 370. The prayer is found in verse 7: Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger. AMEN.