Epiphany 2B ​(1 Samuel 3.1-10(11-20); Psalm 139.1-5, 12-17; 1 Corinthians 6.12-20; John 1.43-51)

In the first lesson from the First Book of Samuel and the gospel lesson from St. John, we hear the stories of the divine calling. Samuel’s calling story is described dramatically. The word of God is rare in Samuel’s time. No visions of God are widespread. It sounds like there are no signs of God’s action in his time. This can mean that the leaders aren’t doing their job as visionaries who can direct people into a better future that is in align with God’s will. This statement of lacking God’s words and visions seems to criticize Eli that he isn’t doing his job as the high priest and judge of the Israelites. In this era, they have no kings but judges. Eli is the second to the last judge, and Samuel becomes the very last one. After Samuel begins the era of kings. So they have Saul, David, Solomon, and so on. 

Samuel’s call takes place in the situation where God’s words and visions almost disappear. He is called to be God’s servant who delivers the divine word and provides the divine vision to the Israelites. Figuratively, physiologically, and spiritually speaking, Eli’s eyesight is getting worse in the story. He is becoming blind as Samuel’s eyesight is getting better. God is with him and lets none of his words fall to the ground. As Samuel’s sight increases, the Israelites gets to see more of God in their lives. 

Today’s gospel reading also presents another calling story of Philip and Nathanael. Their calling story involves an actual encounter with Jesus himself. Philip seems to be a less skeptical person than Nathanael. Jesus simply tells Philip, “Follow me.” And he does. Nathanael isn’t so much like Philip, perhaps more like us. He doubts. He questions Jesus’ credentials and scoffs at his friend Philip, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” This drastically changes after he talks with Jesus face to face. Jesus neither questions Nathanael’s credentials nor scoffs at him. Instead, he praises Nathanael as a true Israelite who has no deceit. 

These biblical stories of the divine calling are always fascinating and intriguing. We see all these biblical figures responding to God’s call and doing great things for God and people. Responding to the divine call first heard in his room, Samuel becomes a trustworthy prophet of God. Philip and Nathanael are the official members of Jesus’ twelve disciples, in which they participate in Jesus’ vision to institute a new Israel with its twelve tribes. 

This is all great, but at this point, we might wonder how this theme of God’s calling might be relevant to us. We might wonder if this calling or vocation is an overrated and misused term whose usage seems to be mostly dominated by clergy. When we hear the term calling or vocation whether in a church setting or not, the context of how it is used is mostly about how one is called to become a deacon, a priest, or a bishop. It is usually a story of one’s call to the holy orders.

In our diocesan magazine Voice which is published every other week, you might have come across a new series called “stories of discernment.” This was initiated by the Commission on Ministry to encourage those who may be interested in the holy orders of the Church to start their discernment process. I have no intention to to tell you spoilers but it’s not too difficult to imagine how each discernment story unfolds. It will probably talk about how this clergy person senses the call under some circumstances and how he or she decides to follow that call and finally become a clergy. 

With all due respect for this effort by the COM of which I’m a member, I think this is a good example of how the term calling or vocation is most frequently used in the Christian life. This phenomenon of using the term only to the case of clergy, I think, isn’t so healthy for the Church. It might limit the use of the term only to a selected few as if only those who are specially chosen to be clergy have a calling or a vocation from God. This apparent domination of the use of the term can very well lead to clericalism which creates a class of spiritual elites, not faithful servants of God for the Church and the world. 

God doesn’t call a selected few but all. God calls every single one of God’s creation, and probably few of them respond to that call. This nature of God’s calling each one of us to himself always involves one condition. That is, God first initiates himself to us. God reaches out to us. God comes to us. A calling or a vocation always presupposes that there’s a relationship between God and those who are called. This season of Epiphany until Ash Wednesday highlights this coming of God to the world as we celebrate God’s coming to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Through Jesus in whom God becomes human, enfleshing God’s very own self in order to be in the most intimate relationship with God’s own creation, God calls all of us, not some spiritual elites. In Jesus, all are chosen by God. 

Moreover, God does this not just once and for all at a fixed date and time but happens from birth to death. (paraphrased from Rowan Williams, Ray of Darkness, p. 150) Psalm 139 which we recited together beautifully confesses that vocation takes place from birth to death. Which also means that God first initiates himself to have the most intimate relationship with us. So the psalmist sings, “Lord, you have searched me out and known me; *you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways... For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. My body was not hidden from you, while I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth.” 

St. Augustine’s words echo something similar. He famously confesses, “Deus intimior intimo meo — God is more intimate to me than I am to myself.” (Confessions, 3.vi.11) In this sense, our sense of being called by God, this realization of God calling me so deeply and personally, this intimate experience of God calling me to God’s unconditional love is when we become truly who we are. We are known by God. We are called to be and become ourselves as God wills. 

All of us here this morning at St. Agnes’ are called. We are constantly called by God. We are called to become who we truly are and live out who we are called to be in our relationship with God and others. All of us have a unique vocation that has been happening from our very own birth. We respond to God. God comes to where we are. We respond to God from where we are. It is not a private matter. It is always a communal act which involves a bigger community. We respond to different needs of a community we belong to. It always starts with God’s first initiative to us in which God personally comes to our lives and we personally meet God as love, forgiveness, grace, and compassion in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. We respond to this call as we love God more and more.
​
It can very well develop and move outwardly. For example, some of us are called to become parents to children. Being a parent is a calling. It is a vocation that God has given you. In that calling, we respond to God as we provide a safe environment for children to grow and nurture them to flourish. This is not a private business. This is a godly calling. 

In God’s loving relationship with us, we sense God’s compassion and respond to God’s calling. God calls us to tune our desires to God’s. We respond to God’s desire in each different situation and context. This is the Christian life that is faithful to God’s calling. Don’t confuse a vocation with a job. Vocation, of course, can be exercised in your occupation, but these are not equal. Vocation is much bigger. It constantly happens as God happens to us constantly and always. Being a spouse is a vocation in which God calls you to be united with some other human being. In that relationship, you share and practice the love of God with someone other than your biological family. What about being in a helping profession? Yes, it is part of your vocation to live out. You’re responding to a specific need of someone or some community to which you belong. Vocation is not hard to understand though it may be hard to follow when we don’t listen to God, ourselves, and our neighbors. 

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Dr. King is a great example for all of us in how he responded to God’s calling. Not only because he is one of the greatest civil rights activists in American history, but also because he shows us what it is like to listen to God’s desire in the suffering of African-American communities and responds to that divine calling. Vocation calls us to be attentive to God. It also leads us to see what kind of needs our community, society, and country have. Howard Zinn, a historian and activist, once said, “The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don’t listen to it, you will never know what justice is.” (Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, p. 10) Adapting this prophetic words of Zinne, we can say that the cry of the poor is not always divine, but if you don’t listen to it, you will never know what the divine calling is. 

May we in our prayers listen to God who calls us and invites us to join God’s mission of reconciliation. May we have eyes to see and ears to listen to the cry of our church, communities, society, and world. May we respond to that call with our whole selves just like Jesus who never looked back after following God’s desire. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.