"Called to Be" | The Rev. Heidi Thorsen | January 21, 2024

Between the words that I speak, and the words that are heard, may God’s spirit be present. Amen.

What does it mean to be called?

In this season of the lectionary, we encounter a number of call narratives. Last week, we heard the story of a young Samuel being called by name, by a still small voice, only to realize later that this was the voice of God. Last week too we began to hear these stories of disciples being called to follow Jesus. One of them, Nathanael, felt called simply because Jesus saw him under a fig tree. We don’t entirely know what it is about that moment that felt significant to Nathanael, but we know that Jesus saw Nathanael. And because of this, Nathanael felt called to follow him.

This week we read more stories of the disciples being called to follow Jesus. Last week our call story came from the Gospel of John, and this week it comes from the Gospel of Mark. In today’s reading Jesus calls a number of fishermen in the midst of their work—some of them were casting nets to catch fish; others were mending their nets in the boat. Jesus says to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 

Our story from the Old Testament is also a story about a calling. In this story, Jonah is called to be a prophet to the people of Nineveh. Jonah walks across the city, a three day’s walk, and proclaims that God’s judgment will soon come upon all the people there, for their evil ways. Surprisingly, the people hear his words. They change their ways, and God changes God’s mind, and the people of Nineveh are spared. But of course, we can’t hear this part of the story without thinking about the earlier part of the story too—how initially God called Jonah to be a prophet in Nineveh, and Jonah said no. Jonah tried to run away on a boat, and a storm came and tossed Jonah in the sea, and Jonah was swallowed by a fish where he had three days and three nights to contemplate the wisdom of saying “no” to God. God mercifully commands the fish to spit Jonah out, and the story picks up with our passage today, in which Jonah hears the word of the Lord a second time, and responds to the call. This story is aptly paired with the words of our Psalm today: “God has spoken once, twice have I heard it, that power belongs to God.”

So once again: what does it mean to be called? What does it look like? Does it look like fishermen interrupted from their days’ work, or a man literally being swallowed by a fish? What does it sound like? Does it sound like God calling our name through the darkness? Or does it sound like Jesus, in the bright of day, saying “Come and see.” “Follow me.” What does it mean to be called?

Two weeks ago I responded to a call. But it was not the call of God. It was the call to jury duty. I woke up early and hustled my daughter to daycare, and then booked it downtown to the courthouse where I stood in line with a variety of other people who had received this same call. After heading through security, we were ushered to the ninth floor where we signed in and waited. We watched a video about jury duty. Then we waited. Some names were called. Then we waited. Other names were called. Then we waited some more. During this time I did the daily Wordle, Connections, and Spelling Bee, and read several chapters from a book. I also wrote half of the sermon that I preached from this pulpit two weeks ago. All in all it was time well spent. Around 1:15pm the small group of people whose names had not been called were dismissed, myself included. According to the court, our jury duty was complete. We had responded to the call. Our work was finished.

Sometimes, I think we understand our calling, as Christians, in a similar way to how we understand jury duty. We think of it as something that we have to do, at a certain point in time. We may or may not want to do it, but we know that (if we don’t do it), there will be consequences. Think, for example, of Jonah. Jonah did not want to preach to the people of Nineveh, and when he tried to avoid this call, there were consequences. When God calls Jonah again, this time he won’t make the same mistake. But it isn’t simply that Jonah said yes, or did the right thing the second time. I would wager that something inside of him has changed. Jonah is not the same person that he was before he spent three days in the belly of a fish. And so being called is more than simply doing a task. Being called is about understanding who we are, growing into ourselves, and acting from that place of integrity. Vocation isn’t just about doing, it is also about being. It is about who we are, and who God is calling us to be.

Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, speaks to this nuanced understanding of calling in his excellent essays on Vocation. Rowan begins by saying that we tend to have a dramatic idea of vocation—not in the sense of melodrama, but in the literal sense of theatricality. We think that a calling is a role we have to play. If only we could find the right role, the role that God has ordained for us, then we will find spiritual fulfillment. 

Williams says that there is some truth to this idea of calling. However, it doesn’t tell the full story. Williams goes on to suggest that we cannot understand what it means to be called without first understanding that calling and creating are closely related to one another. I’d like to quote a large portion of William’s essay on vocation, as he explains it in this way:

In the most basic sense of all, God’s call is the to be, the vocation of creatures is to exist. And, second, the vocation of creatures is to exist as themselves, to be bearers of their names, answering to the Word that gives each its distinctive identity. The act of creation can be seen as quite simply this– the vocation of things is to be themselves, distinctive, spare, and strange. God does not first create and then differentiate a great multitude of roles within creat: in one act he creates a multiple, noisy, jostling, and diverse reality.

So [it is] with the human world; God does not create human ciphers, a pool of cheap labor to whom jobs can be assigned at will. Each human being called into existence by him exists as a distinct part of a great interlocking web of identities. Each is a unique point in this great net. To be is to be where you are, who you are, and what you are– a person with a certain genetic composition, a certain social status, a certain set of capabilities. From the moment of birth (even from before that) onwards, you will be at each moment that particular bundle of conditioning and possibilities. And to talk about God as your creator means to recognize at each moment that it is his desire for you to be, and to be the person you are. It means he is calling you by your name, at each and every moment, wanting you to be you. [1]

I love that last line, so I will repeat it again: “God is calling you by your name, at each and every moment, wanting you to be you.”

This is a radically different understanding of vocation from a role-based, task-based, jury-duty version of what it means to be called. In this understanding of vocation, being “called” isn’t something that happens just once, or a few times in your life. Instead, it is a constantly unfolding process of becoming. To be called is to be set on a journey of growing evermore into the person God created you to be. And, as Rowan Williams says, “answering the call to be oneself at any given moment is not at all easy.” However, this is the call that each one of us has, as followers of Christ. It is a call to be authentic, with ourselves and with the world around us. It is the call to act out of that truest sense of who we are– as people made uniquely in the image of God.

I believe that our Gospel passage for today affirms this understanding of call. In our reading from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus calls a group of fishermen to be his disciples, and he invites them with these words, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” It’s as if Jesus honors the fact that they have been fishermen, and will continue to be fishermen even once they become his disciples. In this new calling, Jesus does not overlook the lives they had been living. Instead, Jesus offers a kind of continuity. He sees them for who they are, and he gives them a glimpse of what they could be. Not just fishermen; but also fishers of people.

What does it mean to be called?

Well, it can mean a lot of different things, depending on your life and circumstance. But it means, above all, that we are called to be. In a world where we are obsessed with doing—with the busy-ness of work, and life, and church, and extracurricular activities, and oh my gosh how can I even fit in jury duty—God calls us simply to be. God calls us to get in touch with the core of our created selves, and to let love and action flow out from there. 

 I hope you will listen for the calling of God in your own life. Where do you feel like you are most yourself most completely? How can you bring that sense of belonging to your prayer, and to your priorities? We worship a God who does not want obedience, so much as wholeness and authenticity. So listen for the voice of the God who is calling you, at each and every moment, wanting you to be you. Amen.

[1] Rowan Williams, “Vocation (1),” in A Ray of Darkness: Sermons and Reflections (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1995).