It all
began with a call. A young girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, receives
a message from one of God's most important angels that she was going
to have a baby and that the baby's name would be Emmanuel, God be with
us. But the first thing that the angel announced to the young girl was
this: "The Lord is with you." The traditional reference to
this scene is Annunciation, but what we really mean is Call. When the
angel Gabriel told Mary that she was "blessed among women"
it was because God was calling her.
The object
of Mary's call was certainly unique, but Scripture has many instances
of people minding their own business when from seemingly out of the
blue they are called by God, and their first response is to be afraid.
That was certainly true of Mary when she asks, "How can this be?"
We can't blame her for asking because she's not even yet married to
Joseph, she is a young woman without any particular education or preparation
for what it is God is calling her to do. How can this be?
We might
think back 700 years before Mary's call when Isaiah is in the temple
and he sees God surrounded by the Seraphim calling to one another, "Holy,
holy, holy Lord, God of power and might; Heaven and Earth are full of
your glory." (Did you know that when we sing that Sanctus, that
it's the angels' song of 2,700 years ago?) And Isaiah is afraid for
his sins and for the sins of his nation. But then one of the Seraphim
touches Isaiah's mouth and says, "This has touched your lips; your
guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven." And so then Isaiah
says, "Here am I. Send me."
Or 1,000
years before Mary's call when we see Moses in front of the burning bush
and God calls him to lead God's people from their slavery in Egypt to
their freedom in the Promised Land. Moses too is afraid for he lacks
the eloquence he believes he will need in his confrontations with Pharaoh.
God, however, assures Moses that he will provide him with what he needs,
and so a star is born. (Our very own Charlton Heston!)
Or 2,000
years before Mary's call when God calls Abraham to leave his home and
be the father of a great nation. But Abraham is afraid and bewildered
because as an old man he and his wife have not been able to have children.
But then miraculously he does have children-Isaac by Sarah and Ishmael
by Hagar-fathers in turn of those today who call themselves Jews or
Arabs.
Returning
to Mary, we also remember the fact that Joseph had a call in that drama-called
by God to keep Mary and the child Jesus safe particularly after Jesus'
birth when Joseph was led to take his family to Egypt until Herod's
threats abated. We also remember the call of the Wise Men twelve days
after Jesus' birth to worship this newborn king, a call to represent
the birth of a king not just of the Jews but of all people, from every
corner of the globe, a king, a lord, a savior.
Last Saturday
many of us were present at the Cathedral in Chicago when George Smith
was ordained to the Priesthood. Like Mary, like Isaiah, like Moses,
like Abraham, George was responding to a call to serve God and to serve
God's people. About nine months ago (appropriately symbolic) in George's
interview with us for the Curate's position, I had the privilege of
hearing the story of that Call, of his reluctance and fearfulness all
mixed in with his excitement and enthusiasm and his certainty of the
presence of God at that moment in his life. George's ordination was
on December 20, which happened to be the 33rd anniversary of my ordination
to the Priesthood, and after the service someone asked me to recall
when it was that I had received a Call from God. It gave me an opportunity
to recount how in my Junior year of college as I was walking to class
it came to my mind that God wanted me to go to Seminary, and that I
offered the simplest and most natural of prayers: "Yes."
But I
also recalled how it was for me and for George as young boys that we
had been formed by God by virtue of our familiarity with the Lord's
Table and our inclusion at a place at that table. Acolytes and choristers
and confirmands and college students: how might God be forming and calling
you?
And so
today, God is still calling people-people just like you and me-to serve
God and to serve God's people, not just through ordained ministry but
through the ministry of every Christian by virtue of our baptisms. Abraham,
Moses, Isaiah, Mary: all ordinary people through whom God worked to
change the world. It has been observed that God changes the course of
history, not through earthquake, wind, and fire, but through ordinary
people who get called-ordinary people who say "Yes" to the
daily opportunity we have to exercise ministries of love and caring-in
our homes and neighborhoods, in our schools, in our workplaces, in our
church-anywhere we find physical, emotional and spiritual need.
What,
or who, has called you here tonight? I doubt it was anything extraordinary,
certainly knowing that the music would be lovely, and, mostly, familiar,
certainly a sense of reunion for those who have been away at school
or perhaps visiting with family in Winnetka, perhaps a desire to hear
the Christmas story and the carols in a setting other than malls and
restaurants. (By the way, for a really good rendition of "Good
King Wenceslaus" sung by England's Prime Minister Hugh Grant's
bodyguard, take in "Love Actually.") Perhaps you were called
here tonight because Mom said you had to go. Take comfort that most
of those people called in the Bible were reluctant, too!
However
we have arrived, I believe in my heart of hearts that God is calling
us here so that we might hear God's invitation to offer ourselves in
service for a world so desperately in need of God's word of peace. That
was the call to the shepherds when they heard the angels sing, "Glory
to God in the highest, and peace to God's people on earth." The
angels could have well have been singing, "Let there be peace on
earth, and let it begin with me."
And so
we begin by coming here tonight to find that peace God provides in the
turbulence of our world and even in the turbulence of our own personal
circumstances. Those of you here tonight who are burdened with unemployment
or under-employment, those of you who are bearing personal sorrow, those
who are confronted by illness or disability, those who have no family
or who have lost family should know that you are surrounded by those
who love you and care for you and that all of us in our own way need
that peace the Christ Child brings us. It happens through music. It
happens through our prayers. It happens through our confession of our
shortcomings and weaknesses and then God's promise of forgiveness. It
happens through the offering of bread and wine, which are then transformed
to be for us the gift and the presence of Christ's body and blood. And
it happens because all of that has nourished us and readied us to hear
and to respond to our calling:
"Go
in peace to love and serve the Lord."
To which we respond, "Thanks be to God."
Amen.
