Christ's Call

The other week, well, New Year’s Day to be precise, I had a phone call from my mother that set me thinking.  She was confused.  To her the fact that it was now 2005, said to her that she was now 90.  We had a little disagreement, because I said she wasn’t 90 until November.  But she wasn’t to be budged and I was in the wrong because I hadn’t sent her a birthday card.   As well as feeling a little worried that Mum might be losing the plot, it led me on to one of those moments of realisation which happen to us all from time to time, some good, some less welcome.  In my case it was the realisation that just as Mum will be 90 this year,  in the next year or so I will turn sixty.  I could be a pensioner, entitled to a senior citizen's railcard and other goodies. Whether I like it or not, I'm getting older and, as we get older we have a tendency to look back a little more and forward a little less.  But I don’t feel ready to stop looking forward yet.  There’s still so much I want to do, and see, and learn!

When we were children we were always looking forward - to birthdays, Christmas, holidays, treats.  My brother certainly always wrote and thanked an aunt for his Christmas Present, making sure he told her what he hoped to have for his birthday, and he always got it!  Children live in the present and look to the future - probably because they have so much future to look forward to.   As adults we still live mainly in the present and go on finding things to look forward to.  But we also have a growing tendency to look back and, in doing so, to see the way our lives have developed. We recognise the movement from stage to stage - from childhood to adolescence and then into adulthood and, eventually, to old age, a movement marked by the big turning points of life – starting work,  maybe marriage, children and grandchildren, bereavement -  which between them create a web of joy and sorrow inextricably mixed.

As a Church we also do this with the life of Jesus, especially in our lectionary readings between Christmas and Easter.  At Christmas we welcomed the baby in the manger at Bethlehem, the baby whose birth was greeted with a mixture of joy and warning. At Epiphany we saw this child recognised and acknowledged for who he is, the light of the world, and watched as this recognition brought danger and exile.  A fortnight ago we heard about Jesus baptism in the River Jordan and saw his own growing awareness and acceptance of who he is and what he has to do.  Last week we saw others beginning to recognise and talk about him and come to him to learn more about who he is,  and what he has come to do. 

Now we see Jesus beginning to call people to follow him and learn from him,  and in the weeks ahead we will watch him meeting people, teaching and healing, until the authorities feel so threatened that they conspire to have him killed.  Today we think about Jesus at the very beginning of his public ministry, as he gathers around him the first of that group of disciples who will accompany him in his work. They will become his closest friends and followers, who will support and help him and will learn from him how to tell others about God's Kingdom.

Jesus knows why he has come.  He knows what it is that God wants him to do. He knows too that his mission is difficult and that he cannot accomplish it on his own.  Jesus needs friends and disciples to be with him in a deep and loving relationship of mutual support.  He needs their help whilst he is with them,  and he needs them to carry on his work when he has left them.

So Jesus begins to call people to follow him - all sorts of people, rich and poor, educated and humble.  He calls manual workers like Peter and Andrew, James and John, all of them fishermen on Lake Galilee. He calls office workers like Levi the tax collector and political activists like Simon the Zealot.

The  women who follow Jesus are just as varied - people like Mary Magdalene, someone with a past’, who was healed by Jesus, and, to me, most strikingly, loved him with all her heart and soul right to the end.    There was Joanna, the wife of one of Herod's court officials.   Mary and Martha, the sisters of his friend Lazarus, ordinary women caring for their home and their brother.

None of these people was special.  None of them was a likely candidate for this demanding and dangerous work.   Far from it, quite a motley crew, and if you had their applications in front of you for the job of ‘disciple’, I doubt whether you or I would have even considered calling them for an interview, let alone appointing them for the job.  But Jesus did - because he saw in these men and women, not so much what they were when he called them, but, as what, by God's grace, they had it within them to become.  And he was right.  We are here today as living proof of that. This mixed and, in many ways, un-promising group of men and women were so transformed by Jesus love  - his forgiveness  - and his example that they went on to turn the world upside down.

So what does this reading say to us today, as followers of the Jesus who called these first disciples?  What does it teach us about our own calling as Christians?

Firstly it tells us that we are here because God wants us to be here, because he knows us (yes he knows all about us) and he still loves us, and knowing what he knows, calls us into a personal relationship with himself, calls us to work with him and for him,  just as Jesus did with his disciples.

Secondly we see that the disciples had to be with Jesus.  They had to live close to him, to get to know and love him and to trust his love for them, before they could do the work of spreading the gospel.  This is just as true for us today.  We too have to be close to God.  We have to get to know him through prayer and reading the Bible. We have to experience his love for us, his forgiveness of our sins and our failures, before he can use us to do his work.  And it’s not a ‘one off’ thing.  It has to be that we are in a constant relationship with him.  One that is a living one; - a life changing one. 

Thirdly - just like the disciples - God doesn't call us because of what we have already achieved, but because of what he can make of us.   I don't believe we can avoid God's call by saying he doesn't call people like us. He does - we know he does - from what this Gospel reading tells us, and from the very fact that we know he has called us.

Like the first disciples, we need to say yes to God.  We need to accept his call and find out what he wants us to do for him, at home, at work, in the community and, not least, in the church.  Whether we are lay or ordained, God has called all of us.  God needs us -  he needs you and me - to carry on Jesus work in our own day, in our own world.  It's one of the reasons we are here, not just for what we can get, but for what we can give.

Jesus prayed, taught, loved, forgave and healed and he calls his church and that means us - you and me - to do the same.  This is why our bishops encourage parishes to form ministry teams of clergy and laity in order to involve as many people as possible, with all their different gifts, in the whole range of the church's work. This kind of service isn't just an optional extra, for those who like that kind of thing. It's an essential part of our Christian calling, to which we are committed by our baptism.

Most of us will have seen the famous First World War recruiting poster of Lord Kitchener pointing as he says: "Your country needs you."  That slogan is still true today in more than one way.  Yes, our country does need you and me to play our part in society.  But also remember: Your God needs you; your church needs you.  If the church is to fulfil its calling to bring people into God's Kingdom her in Epping.  It needs us to play our part, an active part in the work of bringing the Gospel to everyone we see, everyone we meet, everyone we work with,  and -  everyone we come into contact with.  There are absolutely no exceptions. 

For me this calling is summed up most memorably in the words of, Teresa of Avila.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours, no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes
through which is to look out Christ's compassion to the world.
Yours are the feet
with which he is to go about doing good.
Yours are the hands
through which he is to bless people now.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours. 

Amen.