Rev. Cathy Cox
Sermon March 20 – 2022
3 Lent C
This morning I want to reflect with you about the word – vocation – call – calling.
This week’s Moses story has been in my heart and on my mind all week. Maybe you’ve been thinking about it as well.
When we add to that the Jewish festival of Purim with the wonderful story of Esther, and then St Patrick, and yesterday, St Joseph – well, there is a whole lot to unpack.
I want us to notice a few things:
First – in every case, the initiative is God’s.
Second – God knows each of them and has prepared them for what is to come – and will use their knowledge and experience and their unique personalities AS THEY ARE.
Third – the evidence, the proof that it IS God comes after the fact.
Fourth – this IS how God does God’s stuff – using ordinary human beings.
Fifth – all that is asked is to say, “yes.”
Moses didn’t even know this God – He had been raised in Egypt and at this point in the story, lives in Midian, herding his father-in-law’s sheep. But God knows him – and knows his name.
“When God saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”
All Moses can do is answer whoever it is who is calling him, and he does: “Here I am.”
And then God identified himself as the God of Moses’ ancestors – the God of Moses’ people – the God, also, therefore, of Moses himself.
It doesn’t take God three minutes to let Moses know what he wants, either. “I have come down” – God says – “to deliver my people from the Egyptians,” so …”Come, I will send you to Pharaoh.”
I have come – but I do not do magic. I use human beings to do what must be done, and you are the one I choose.
Moses freaks out, because – who wouldn’t?
But God persists – even promising to be with him – and then drags his poor unsuspecting brother Aaron into it! But Moses does know the language, the people, the religion, the customs of Egypt.
But notice this, too – Did you notice how he will know for sure that God – this God – has sent him??? That he isn’t on a wild goose chase? “WHEN you have brought the people out, you will worship God on this mountain.”
You won’t know until AFTER you have done it.
You have to take a chance that this call is all fantasy and sunstroke.
And then in desperation, when Moses asks God’s name – he doesn’t even get an answer: “I AM WHO I AM.” That’s it.
“I AM.”
Now look. This is the story of Esther, too.
God doesn’t step down, and in fact, God isn’t even mentioned in the book of Esther. Read it and see!
But when she is accidentally chosen to be queen, even though she is Jewish in a Persian empire – and isn’t even allowed to go to the king unless he calls her – Esther’s uncle tells her to pick up her courage and find a way to get an audience with the king to prevent Haman‘s evil plot to murder all the Jews can happen –
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish, And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
She didn’t choose any of it – and the only voice she heard was her uncle’s reminding her of the God of her ancestors – the God of her people – and that without ever mentioning God’s name – but she did choose to use the position she was given to do what she could, using her own feminine intelligence and cleverness – despite the very real threat of death – and the Jews were saved. Her very Jewishness was the gift she had to offer –
St Patrick – He didn’t choose himself, either. The Irish enslaved him – and yet – having learned the language and customs he would need to know later, and having begun to take the God of his people seriously, he was given a way to escape. And he took it. Once home, he went to study, was ordained, and then he heard a call – saw a vision – urging him to return to Ireland. And he went. With all that knowledge and history with him. He might have been wrong. He could have been killed, or re-enslaved. But he went. And he never left Ireland again, but became Ireland’s best-beloved preacher and bishop.
And what can we say about poor Joseph? Just a carpenter sort of guy, apparently an ordinary, hardworking Nazarene, and happily engaged to an ordinary hometown girl.
But then.
That voice – and he didn’t get to hear it until the girl he loved returned from a visit to her relative, pregnant, carrying a baby that he knows isn’t his.
He also had to take a chance that she was lying, and that that voice he heard, the angel who came to him, wasn’t real.
And he did.
And you can be sure he was glad forever after.
So here’s the deal.
Jesus tells a parable in today’s gospel about a tree that has beautiful leaves, but no figs.
You are to imagine that the owner of the vineyard thinks the tree SHOULD have been bearing fruit by now – and he’s ready to burn it up. Throw it away.
But the gardener, a man wiser than the impatient owner of the vineyard, tells him to wait another year – to allow him to fertilize and aerate the soil –
Why?
Because he knows more than the owner does, He knows that tree will bear good fruit in its time – and is determined to give that time and care to allow it to happen.
God didn’t call Moses before it was time.
God didn’t put Esther on that throne until the threat against her people was real.
Patrick wasn’t sent back until he was ready and prepared.
And Joseph wasn’t even let in on the secret until he was troubled enough to hear it.
It never was about them, really, or whether they were good enough to do what was asked. It was always about God.
It still is.
All is well and will be.
If you have a dream – follow it.
If you end up in a position of responsibility or influence you didn‘t expect, just be there and do what is there to do.
You want to expand your skill set but don’t know why? Do it.
You think your life is boring and ordinary? You might be surprised at what God is up to –
If you feel called to plant a forest, or teach a class, or start a new venture? Go for it. Risk a bit.
You really won’t know for sure that it really is God calling until afterwards – sometimes long afterwards.
But “why me?” is always the wrong question.
Why NOT you?
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