August 22, 2004 (Jimmie Johnson)


Jeremiah 1:4-10

Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.” Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

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For any of us, the question is never will I serve some purpose larger than myself? Of course you and I will. All of us are busy being determined by something. The question you and I need to be asking is will the master whom I serve be true or false?

See, one of the really great fictions of our modern age is the notion of the freedom of the individual, the notion of a person without a role, the idea of the free spirit, the idea that we are most fully alive when we have divested ourselves of all the possible external claims upon us. The truth is freedom comes from a sense of call. Freedom comes as a gracious by-product of being attached to something greater than ourselves, of being owned, claimed, commandeered, called for purposes larger than ourselves. The freedom we are offered by the Living God is the freedom to serve, the freedom to love, the freedom to respond to our calling.

Jeremiah opens with the belief that “The word of the Lord came to me.” Jeremiah says the word of the Lord chose him even from this first breath. Can you and I say that about ourselves? Something is wrong if we can’t. Something is wrong if we don’t have a sense of call, if we don’t have a sense of the word of the Lord coming upon us to claim us and use us for purposes greater than our own selves.

Sure, you and I are going to go through days or nights where this sense of call is suspect and where belief in God and Jesus seems absurd. But if you learn to doubt your doubts, too, the faith will be found not only to ebb but flow as well. Good doubt will never hurt you as much as bad belief.

A senior at Baylor, Megan Cracraft, appeared before the elders of the church this past week. The elders are the men and women who are elected, called, by the congregation to make up what we say in Presbyterian terminology is the Session, the governing body of the congregation. She is asking the Session members to listen with her to determine if God is calling her to become a minister of Word and Sacrament.

In our Presbyterian understanding of God’s call, we believe God speaks through people to us rather than God speaking individually to us. This helps avoid the mistake of confusing our spirit spelled with the small “s” and God’s Spirit spelled with the capitol letter “S.” Presbyterians believe God’s call upon your life will be heard by others, too, not just by you if it’s really a true calling.

Ginger Green heard God’s call this past winter not to become a preacher, but she heard God’s call in her retirement to become our volunteer Parish Nurse. She asked the elders of the church and some of you if you were hearing the word of the Lord calling her to this task.

David Patrick left for the state of Washington this week having heard a call from God to spend a year to serve on the Yakima Indian Reservation doing God’s knows what as part of the Presbyterian Young Adult Volunteers in Mission Program. It is a counter cultural thing to do, and it is kind of risky. David just graduated from Austin College. The thing to do is to rush out there and try to get your foot in the door that will open to a fast track to money making. Instead, he met with the elders and talked with some of you, including you teenagers. He was wanting your input on this idea of a call upon his life. Last Sunday we confirmed to him that we thought he was being called. We said it all from the perspective of humble faith, you know. There are no guarantees, which is why we call it “faith.”

In September, another member of the church, Georgia Brady will come before the Session to ask the elders if they believe God is calling her to volunteer as a nursing home chaplain and lead a monthly service of worship as a Presbyterian elder. I know she is exploring the idea with many of you, seeking your honest input. She is listening for the Spirit’s validation, the Spirit’s call, the Word addressing her life.

I want all of you to know you are welcome to invite the leaders of your congregation to listen with you. Maybe you are being called to be a Meals on Wheels driver for a year. Maybe you are being called to become a banker--it could happen, (all things are possible with God!). Maybe you are being called to be a physician, maybe to study art, maybe to be a church office volunteer, or maybe to help us as our liaison with Hope House, the shelter up the street on Austin Avenue built to help women with children. Perhaps you are being called to be a school teacher. All callings are holy if, of course, the One calling is God.

This call came to Jeremiah when he was young. He could have been old. The call came to Abraham and Sara when they were very old. The call came to Jeremiah when he was very young. Age has nothing to do with a call. The important factors seem to be a willingness to listen and a willingness to serve, and a willingness to be humble and invite others to listen with you with the risk that they might, at the end of their time of listening, tell you, “No, we don’t believe you are being called.”

The call might still be sometime off. In the meantime you are already serving a call. I am thinking, for instance, that I am beginning to hear God already talking to me about another call for the time I retire in 8-10 years from being an active Presbyterian minister, your pastor. I am thinking that I am hearing a call to volunteer in a hospital, specifically, in the nursery where the babies are, a call to become a “rocker.”

I think I might be called someday to hold little newborns and rock them. I saw an older woman doing that not long ago when our grandson was born. She was there in her volunteer uniform just rocking up a storm, rocking and holding those little squirmy, sometimes sleeping newborns. I am not sure, but I think I might have heard God whispering to me even though the opportunity for this new call is several years off.

Are you hearing any Holy whispering going on in your life? Do you think you are being called? I can assure you that every thing I know about Christianity says you are. A signal is coming to you; words are being spoken to you. Are you listening? It’s kind of scary to be hearing a call. It can radically alter your life. On the other hand, it might not be so much of a change at all. I already love rocking babies. I know about rocking babies. That won’t be any huge change for me. I believe we too often think that if we say yes to our calling, we will be miserable. We might think that callings are supposed to make us suffer or make us do what we really don’t want to do. I doubt that is what a true calling is all about. I believe a true calling leads to freedom and fulfillment. I don’t think God is out to make us miserable. We do that pretty well on our own without any help. No, I think God’s call and our deep gladness and some real need in the world all match up and the result is joy.

I think God calls congregations as well as individuals. I think we as a congregation heard a call from God back in the late 80's. We came together as Presbyterians do and created committees of people to listen and hear if God were calling us to a long range plan. We used the old Willy Nelson song, “On the Road Again” as our theme. We conducted congregational discussions. We did surveys. We waited for a long time for the elders to study and pray regarding all the data. The decision was made that God was calling us to remain a downtown church. We raised about two million dollars to construct or remodel everything you see today from parking lots to buildings, all to serve what we perceived to be a calling from God to serve God by being a down town church. We perceived a calling from God to be good stewards of the beauty of this sanctuary, not to tear it down or sell it so that we could go and be somewhere else where we might attract a bigger, more rapidly growing membership.

Central Presbyterian Church eventually heard a call to relocate. They are our sister church and were just a few blocks away from us for decades. We are excited for them in their call to move out. We want Central Pres to succeed and become a strong vibrant Presbyterian witness out there near the suburban growth area of Woodway and Hewitt. The presbytery checked out their call. The presbytery listened to the leaders of Central talk about being possibly called to move. Representatives of Central Presbyterian met with us and on several occasions. They asked us if we thought God was calling them to relocate so that we would have a strong downtown Presbyterian witness for God’s service and glory through us and a strong suburban witness through them. We all said, “Yes, we believe you are being called to do that.” We have even had some members leave us and join them to be a part of that call.

When we heard God’s call years ago to remain here on 11th and Austin, we did so believing we were to help anchor this downtown area for the greater good of the people of McLennan County and Waco as its county seat. We saw staying here as a form of service to others, thinking of others more than our own convenience or comfort, and as a form of service to people who might never even notice that we were here on this corner as they drive by on their way to work or to worship at another church.

We will pay a cost for hearing this call and being faithful to it. It means we will probably always be the size we are now—about 700 members. It means we will have to work harder in order to invite other people to join us here, just to retain our present size. We will have to work harder to help potential new members to hear the same call to be part of a downtown church. In some ways it might have been easier for us to have been the ones to have moved out, moved out closer to areas of population growth. But in good faith that’s not what we heard.

We heard the words, “Stay, rally together, financially give to build and remodel and preserve.” We heard the call say: “Establish outstanding children and youth ministries.” We heard the call say: “Cast your lot with a style of worship that is high church and formal where people think in their believing and believe in their thinking.” We heard the call saying: “Stay and be a church that because of its location prizes diversity in beliefs and politics, in lifestyles and choices. Stay and motivate your members to be generous givers, supporting the agencies that serve the poor and, as possible, volunteering their own time and energy.”

Yes, we heard a call that said, “There is a future in your past, First Presbyterian Church of Waco.” We have a new long range planning committee. They have been listening for God’s call for two years now. We have some building plans being drawn up. We have some new program ideas being generated. We still sense the call. We still believe our call will always be to serve God’s glory and not our own. We believe in the end that the voice we hear won’t be a liar but will be the voice that really did set us free--free to love and serve, free to say goodbye to fear and hello to faith, free to enjoy people who disagree with us, free to be God’s people who listen and hear the Word of the Lord calling.

 

 

 


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