wherever you go
I will follow you
Genesis 12:1-9
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother's son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan.
When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak [terebinth] of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So Abram built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. 9 And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
Matthew 9:9-13
9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, "Follow me." And Matthew got up and followed Jesus.
10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" 12 But when Jesus heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners."
Ordinary Time
We've reached the half-year long stretch of (green, growing, eventually browning into autumn and winter) Ordinary Time when we especially explore God's call on our lives as individuals, as church communities, and as both of those out in the larger world. Similar to Jesus of Nazareth, we express much of God's claim on our lives in ways we serve or minister to others. It often feels easy and safe to focus on people and causes outside the doors of our homes, churches, and workplaces, but when we discern what's next for us, it's important first to take care of persons and concerns in our immediate vicinity.
From Acts 6:1-6, we learn the newly called and sent church first ordained (not elders—for formal, structured leadership; not ministers of word and sacrament—to officiate at font and table, to proclaim God's words of grace) deacons—bearers of towel and basin, as Jesus modeled in John 13:4-5. The servant class of deacons would help grow the church into the image of the servant God. Society in general then would perceive the nascent church as a world-facing servant people (and that it was), but doesn't God first call us to attend to the who and the what we easily can reach out and touch?
We need to take care of persons and concerns in our immediate vicinity. How about caring for ourselves, our most important relationship next to our relationship to God? An emphasis on mental and emotional wellness has been a bright part of the fallout from Covid. Think about it!
Abraham and Matthew
We frequently reflect upon God calling, charging, and "after the fact" qualifying people for particular ministries, as in "God equips the called." It's well known that Moses, David, Amos, and others in the Hebrew scriptures didn't start out with stellar résumés. With their "blue collar" backgrounds, the original twelve are another major example of people who turned the world upside down in the power of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
For Martin Luther and the sixteenth century Reformers, God's call and Abram's response early in the book of Genesis or Beginnings was the standard for our own journeys of trust. Saul/Paul of Tarsus (with his former life spent persecuting Christians, Paul was one of God's surprising call stories) explains in Romans 4:3-5, because Abram "believed" (trusted, had faith in, essentially took God at God's word) God considered Abram righteous, his life balanced in God's accounting ledger. Because of this, Isaiah 41:8 calls Abraham a friend or lover of God, as does Jesus' brother in James 2:23.
It's not about standing up during worship to publicly proclaim, "I believe in God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth – We believe in one God, the Father, the almighty…" although doctrinal teachings are important. It's about taking God at God's word and therefore doing what God asks us to do.
Scripture tells us Abram, later renamed Abraham, set out for the land God promised him, but it doesn't provide details of questions or equivocations Abram may have had. It also looks as if Abram had a sizable retinue and considerable wealth, so he could afford that aspect of venturing toward a place unknown to him.
No one really knows if Matthew the tax collector mostly wrote down the gospel that bears his name, but still, today's gospel reading from Matthew is another famous example of God's occasionally surprising call and claim on people's lives. As Matthew sat as his place of employment as a tax collector for the occupying Roman empire, Jesus' instincts prompted him to call Matthew to follow him, and Matthew did. Again we don't have any inbetween information.
Where We Live
This year we've also looked at the call – and response – stories of prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. During the Great Fifty Days of Easter we heard from the Acts of the [Original] Apostles.
But God's calls and charges aren't always astonishing. Only looking at ministries inside the church, someone with expertise in accounting being called as church treasurer. A skilled soprano (formally trained or not) serving as choir section leader. A music lover who truly can't carry a tune or whose schedule doesn't allow them to attend rehearsals serving as choir librarian.
As you follow Jesus during the ripening days of summer, as autumn arrives with programming that helps us imagine and create life beyond many of the confines Covid required, what is God calling you to do? What have you done in previous years or previous lives that you'd love to revive? What do you see others doing that you might like to try, either because you have gifts and experience in that field or because you'd love to reach out, risk, and find out you're really good at that endeavor or you're actually not?
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