Too Light a Thing

My beautiful mamacita.

January 19, 2014

Isaiah 49:1-7

   ¹Listen to me, O coastlands, 
         

 pay attention, you peoples from far away! 
     

The LORD called me before I was born, 
          

while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. 
²   

He made my mouth like a sharp sword, 
          

in the shadow of his hand he hid me; 
     

he made me a polished arrow, 
          

in his quiver he hid me away. 
³   

And he said to me, “You are my servant, 
          

Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” 
⁴   

But I said, “I have labored in vain, 
          

I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; 
     

yet surely my cause is with the LORD, 
          

and my reward with my God.”

⁵   And now the LORD says, 
          

who formed me in the womb to be his servant, 
     

to bring Jacob back to him, 
          

and that Israel might be gathered to him, 
     

for I am honored in the sight of the LORD, 
          

and my God has become my strength — 
⁶   

he says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
          

to raise up the tribes of Jacob 
          

and to restore the survivors of Israel; 
     

I will give you as a light to the nations, 
          

that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

⁷   Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,      

to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the slave of rulers, 
     

“Kings shall see and stand up, princes, 
          

and they shall prostrate themselves, 
     

because of the LORD, who is faithful, 
          

the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

Sermon: 

There is a particular question I get asked quite often (other than “How old are you?” or “How tall are you?” Sigh.): ‘How did you decide to be a minister?  How did God call you?’

I think we all want God’s call to be a dramatic or glamorous thing.  I wish I could say that I was praying with monks in a remote village in the Himalayas and suddenly light broke through the clouds and in a moment of clarity, I knew God wanted me to be a minister.  Perhaps it would be entertaining to say that I had a near-death experience in which I bargained with God that, if I was spared, I would give my life to the church.  The truth is, of course, much less Hollywood.  It’s not really glamorous at all.  God’s call rarely is.

The truth is, I always wanted to be a missionary of some sort – I told that to my kindergarten class.  I knew the church was home to me, and never really considered doing anything else.  No light through foreign clouds, no near-death bargaining.  My call became most clear in a simple conversation with my mother, in the kitchen, one afternoon.

I was around 20, nearing the end of college, and told my mom that I wanted to be a missionary and, when I was too old to travel anymore, I’d “settle down and be a pastor.”  I’d go to seminary, get trained, do the preaching thing on a regular basis.  Her reply was God’s call to me.  The words weren’t particularly profound or eloquent, nor did I feel God’s Spirit in a more tangible way than any other conversation with my mother in the kitchen.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit backwards?” she said.  “Wouldn’t you need to get trained first, to become a minister first and then serve God your whole life?”

Huh.  I’d never thought about it that way.  And just as the call question came in an ordinary way, so did my answer.  “That makes sense,” I said.  Maybe I’ll do that.”  And I did.  I went to seminary, went through the hoop-jumping that is the Presbyterian ordination process, served as a missionary and then came to hear God calling me to be a missionary wherever I am, particularly in a delightful, small, rural community of North Carolina.  All because of an incredibly ordinary conversation with my mother in the kitchen.

God’s call does not usually come with drama…in fact it’s often so ordinary we could miss it.  It comes in the form of a conversation, nearly every time.  Our reading from Isaiah this morning is one such conversation: between a called servant and a calling God.  The servant is reminded that God called him before he was even born, that even as he was being created, God’s purpose for him was also being created.  But like any conversation, there is give-and-take.

The servant replies, “Okay, God, that sounds nice, but I’m having a pretty rough time of it lately.  You might say you’ve called me and set me apart to show your glory at the right time, but I’m exhausted.  I’m overcommitted to things I don’t even care that much about.  I’m spinning my wheels here.  I feel more like a flickering, weak candle about to go out than a light to the nations.  But, I know you know what you’re up to.  So I’m listening, God.”

God again reminds this servant that this call is not circumstantial – it is a call that has been upon him his whole life.  And so, the challenges and struggles of the present time can’t diminish it.  That call was there in his mother’s womb, that call was there to bring back Israel and Jacob.  It’s important to notice that this voice of God to the servant comes in the form of his own internal voice.  He’s talking to himself, only he’s not.  God’s talking to him, through his own thoughts.  See how ordinary this call can be?

The servant begins to feel a certain amount of strength from God, and thinks, “Okay, Israel, Jacob, my people, maybe I can handle that.”  But God intends to go much, much further.  As Amy Oden says, “Restoration of individuals, or churches, or even of an entire people, is never only about that. God’s healing work moves outward, always expanding…“that my salvation may reach the end of the earth.”  God’s story is always bigger than ours, holding our stories within God’s life and weaving them into the wide-open future.”

We see this desire of God to go further in six words:

It is too light a thing.

When we reach out to our own, only concerned at the restoration of our families and no one else’s, God says,

It is too light a thing.

When we only want to answer God’s to call us if our lives seem together, our schedules are organized and our faith feels secure, God says,

It is too light a thing.

When we pray for our own security and safety, and do not spare a prayer for those we would call enemies, God says,

It is too light a thing.

When we only want to answer God’s call if it promises success, wealth and comfort, God says,

It is too light a thing.

God’s call comes in the most ordinary of ways, just as God’s call has come through the voice of this congregation to Andrey, Dawn and Dean this day.  But just because God’s call comes in an ordinary way does not mean it is to be taken lightly.

There is nothing light about God’s call for us to be the people we were woven together in our mother’s wombs to be.  Except of course, that we are each of us, in our own individual ways and as a community, called to be a light to the nations, proclaiming no matter what it costs us that the salvation of God is for everyone.

This is a demanding call.  Sticking to our own is easy.  Extending the salvation of God, both for this life and the life to come, to those we see as “other” is not.  It requires looking deeply at our efforts at reconciliation and peacemaking, at evangelism and mission, and listening when God says, “Okay, good, but it is too light a thing to just do this.” 

You see, we never arrive at a place of fulfilling God’s call to us…our lives are a constant chasing after God’s Spirit as we are led deeper and deeper into relationship with our Creator and the world. 

This can be overwhelming.  You need only look at the news to see how broken, hurting, greedy, violent and disconnected this world is.  It is tempting to let the magnitude of need immobilize us with fear.  How can we ever really answer this call to be a light to the nations?

The truth is: alone, we can’t.   Because God’s call never comes to us alone.  Like mine came through my mother, and through each of you who I’m blessed to now serve, call never comes in isolation.  Like the people of Israel and Judah, we are called in community.  So we do not answer our call alone.  We answer it together, with the powerful guiding of God’s Spirit within us.

And the good news from Isaiah is this: God never calls that servant to be anything other than what he is.  He is not called to be someone else.  He is called just as he was made in his mother’s womb, to be a light in the particular way that only he can.  We are called just as we are.  And so we don’t have to wait for our schedules to become clear, for our faith to feel strong, for our doubts to be eased, for all those excuses to evaporate, in order to say yes.

We simply have to hold fast to one another in community and say, with very little drama and glamor, “Okay God.  We’ll answer your call, whatever that might mean.  We’ll be a light somehow, if you’ll guide us.”  And the God who chose us before we could ever choose God responds, “Good.  Do not be afraid, you’re going to be a light to all people.  Trust me.”

Thanks be to the God who chooses to call through the ordinary, to the Son who goes before us showing us the path of light and restoration, and to the Spirit who fills us with the foolish imagination necessary to say, “Yes, God.  We will follow.  Just as we are, we will follow.”  Amen.