"Your call into God’s mission"

[The Rev. Susan Champion; Jeremiah 1:4-10, Palm 71:1-6, Hebrews 12:18-29, Luke 13:10-17; Christ the Lord, Pinole, CA; August 20, 2010]

Poor Jeremiah...his job was not easy.
God appointed him as a prophet to the nations.
And, as Vicki reminded us in her sermon last week, being a prophet is not always easy.

In fact, if prophets are really doing what they are called to do, they're inevitably going to get some people pretty upset.
Especially when they're doing the pulling down, destroying, and overthrowing part that is described at the end of today's reading from Jeremiah.

No wonder Jeremiah tried to weasel his way out of the task God was giving him, saying, "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy."

But God wasn't going to let Jeremiah off the hook that easily.
After all, God had a plan for him, a mission for him.
This mission wasn't Jeremiah's mission...it was God's mission, and God reminded Jeremiah in no uncertain terms that he would tell him where to go and what to say, and that he need never be afraid because God would be with him to deliver him.

God had a plan for Jeremiah.
A plan.
Isn't this something we all struggle with?

For, if God had a plan for Jeremiah, doesn't that mean God has a plan for each of us? 
We remember those famous words from the beginning of today's OT reading: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
And we wonder, when God formed me in the womb, what did God plan for me?

Of course, many of us have crushed this wondering down so far that we rarely think about it.
After all, we're far too busy just trying to hold our lives together - keeping the house relatively clean, keeping the tasks at work caught up, mowing the lawn, preparing food, taking care of our children and families, maybe making just a few minutes for ourselves.
There just isn't any time to think about what God might be calling us to do, is there?

Sometimes we even try to compartmentalize the idea of call.
Having a calling is something for major prophets like Jeremiah or maybe in the modern world for people like Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King. 
It isn't for folks like you and me, is it?

Or maybe we think that only people with religious vocations have a calling.
I guess that includes Vicki and me, and then there are seminarians like Lisa who are still listening to and trying to discern what their call might be.

But what about everyone else?
What about all of you sitting in the pews?
Do you believe that you have a calling?

Well, yes, I've heard some of you talk about having a vocation.
I've heard Ann talk about having a calling to teach...she sees it as very much her vocation.
The word vocation comes from the Latin word, vocare, which means to call, so it's very appropriate for us to think about our vocation as a calling.

Unfortunately, though, I think even the concept of having a vocation can be limiting because it can make us believe that we are only called to do ONE thing.

Of course, that's what the passage from Jeremiah today was about...it was about Jeremiah's calling to be a prophet.
But if you read through the 52 chapters of the book of Jeremiah, you'll find that there were actually many different aspects of Jeremiah's calling to be a prophet.
So even the vocation of being a prophet is about doing more than one thing.

I can confirm for sure that the vocation of being a parish priest is about doing many different things.
It's about preaching and teaching, and doing pastoral care.
It's about being a good administrator and a good worship planner and leader.
It's about being a person of prayer and spiritual depth.
It's about being a good organizer and inspirer of people.
It's about speaking out for justice in the community.
It's about discerning how best to help people without enabling them.
And sometimes it's about being a plumber or a computer repairperson.

To be honest, when I think about all the tasks this one vocation involves,
sometimes it feels pretty overwhelming because I know I'm not equally skilled in all those areas.
In fact, in some of them (like being a computer repairperson) I feel downright inadequate!
Sometimes I feel like following Jeremiah's example and saying to God, "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to be a priest for I am only a girl."

But then I'm reminded of God's response to Jeremiah.
And I remember that it's not up to ME to be good in all these areas.
Instead, my job is to trust God to provide for me in all the areas where I'm called, and sometimes that means recognizing that I'm not called to do a particular thing and that God wants someone else to do it.

Last spring a group of us spent a number of weeks wrestling with these issues of call and mission in our Member Mission class, and I'd like to share with you some of what we learned.
These are important concepts from Wayne Schwab's Member Mission training, in which I participated last year.

First of all, we learned that God is on mission everywhere all the time. 
It is not up to us to do the missions to which we are called. 
Instead, God is always working with us and through us to make the world all that it can be. 
That means, as we set about doing God's work in the world, we are only joining what God is already doing.

This certainly fits Jeremiah's experience. 
He didn't feel worthy to do what God was calling him to do, but God was already carrying out his missional work - God didn't want Jeremiah to do all the work. 
God wanted to do the work through Jeremiah.

Second, God's mission is NOT all about what we do at church.
Other than me, most of us here today only spend a small fraction of our week at church. 
God cares as much (if not more!) about how we live from Monday to Saturday as about what we do at church on Sunday.

And third, we carry out God's mission in many different areas of our lives. 
In fact, Wayne Schwab identifies 7 different areas. 
1) Home, family and close friendships
2) Work (including school and volunteer work)
3) Our local community, including neighborhood, town, or city
4) The wider world (society, government, state, nation, world)
5) Leisure and recreation (all those activities with which we rest and refresh ourselves)
6) Our spiritual health (what we do to meet our spiritual needs and grow in spiritual health and depth)
And, last but not least,
7) Our share in our church's life and outreach (the things we do as part of the church)

In looking at these different areas of mission, our group realized that there is sometimes overlap between them.
For me this is certainly true, as work, spiritual health, and my share in the church's life and work all get kind of mooshed together.
We also discovered that, at different times in our lives, we may be more focused on one particular area than on others.

For example, although my daughter, Laura, is still keeping up connections in the local community and  her new landscape architecture business, with a 3 month-old baby, she is spending much more of her time on the mission area of home and family right now.

But we also learned that it's important for us to remember our calls in all these areas of mission.
For example, if I focused only on work and church by working 60 or 70 hours every week, my family and friendships would suffer because I wouldn't have any time for them.
This is probably why, sadly, clergy have one of the highest divorce rates of any profession.

In fact, whenever we find ourselves focusing too much on just one area, we might want to reflect on the Jeremiah story and the whole concept of call and mission.
If I'm working too hard in one area, so hard that I become stressed and obsessed, I'm probably trying to do all the work myself instead of allowing God to work through me and through others to accomplish God's mission.

Carrying out God's mission is not always easy, but it's not supposed to burden us more than we can handle.
In fact, sometimes God's mission for us might require us to let go of some of the things we are currently doing because they are keeping us from doing the things that God wants us to do.
This requires discernment, listening to God.
If we don't listen, how will we hear God's voice calling to us?

How do we listen?  This will not be the same for every person, but I can only tell you how I listen.
I listen through prayer, through journaling, through my daily practice of classical guitar, through spending time in nature, through studying the Bible, through sharing my struggles with trusted friends like members of my Covenant Group, or Peter, or my close friends in Narcotics Anonymous.

Listening to God is an art, not a science.
It must be practiced in order to hear clearly.
Sometimes I think that I am called to do something and I try it, only to discover that it wasn't what God wanted me to do after all.

As a matter of fact, this is as true for a community as it is for an individual.
Sometimes we as a church are going to think God is calling us to one thing only to discover that we were supposed to be doing something else.

This is OK.
God uses even our mistakes to help mold us into the people God wants us to be. 
And it is through that molding that we become better able to help carry out God's missions.

Today I invite you to take some steps towards recognizing your calling into mission for God.
First of all, remember and claim that, even before you were born, God knew you and formed you, just as God knew and formed Jeremiah.
You have been created by God for a purpose.
There is no one else but you who can carry out that exact purpose for God.

And second, I invite you to think about the seven different mission areas Wayne Schwab identifies.
You'll find a paper inside your bulletin that lists them.

Take some time with that paper this week.
Think about and write down what you are already doing to make the world a better place for God in each of these mission areas.

And then spend some time in prayer, asking God to show you what else you might be called to do.
You may have to give up or change the way you are doing something you are currently doing, but doing God's mission is all about being willing to change.

It's not easy to change.
All of us want to back out on God sometimes. 
All of us want to quit.
There's something very satisfying about the crazy moment when the flight attendant quit his job by deploying the emergency chute and proclaiming, "I'm out of here," as he slid out of the plane.

But God won't let you off that easily.
Remember, God has a purpose for you. 
You may be only a boy, or only a girl, but with God's help, you can do what God is calling you to do.