January 19, 2014
Come and See
- Isaiah 49:1-7
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
I have the privilege – well it is mostly a privilege – to serve on one of our presbytery’s committees – the CPM, which stands for Committee on Preparation for Ministry. We meet once a month and get to meet and know those who are studying to become ministers, or teaching elders as we are now called by our denomination. Each member of the committee has 2 or 3 students who are in seminary and it’s our job to make sure these students jump through all the hoops so they can be ordained. That means we have to make sure they take the required courses, take the ordination exams, do a hospital chaplaincy and follow the steps to find a call in a church or wherever they plan to serve God as an ordained minister. The process takes two to three years.
This past Monday we got to meet a new student who is just beginning the process. She is a reformed lawyer – lawyers always need reforming don’t you think? – and she is about half way through seminary. One of the things we always ask those who are new to the process, we call them Inquirers, is about their sense of call. We ask, “Why do you feel called to ordination as a minister and where will that call lead you?” People’s sense of call varies. Many have felt called to ministry since they were very young. Others have felt the call later in their lives. Some inquirers have had Damascus Road or mountain experiences of being called – and that moment or moments were very dramatic for them. But for the reformed lawyer, her call to ministry was much more subtle. She had always been a woman of faith and she was an excellent trial lawyer – a prosecutor who knew how to persuade people of something. The difference, the sense of call, was to now persuade people that God loves them and the way we see that made manifest is in Jesus Christ.
I could relate to the woman I met last week. As most of you know I am a second career pastor. Actually I am a fourth career pastor. I had 3 other careers before I became a minister and they all informed my sense of call to ordained ministry and led me to the process of ordination and to this call as your Associate Pastor. I majored in Biology and Chemistry in college and I worked as a medical researcher for three years after graduation. I loved to do research and experiments. Most of my research was testing antibiotics to treat sexually transmitted diseases. (Imagine how popular I was in social situations – “Hi, my name’s Ruth and I work with sexually transmitted diseases!) While I worked in medical research I went back to school at night and got my Master’s in Secondary Education and became licensed to teach science. I then taught high school biology for two years – my second career. After staying at home full time for a few years to raise our children I became active at our church in Washington DC and chaired the Christian Education Committee and served on the session. That led to my third career – Christian Educator, which I did for ten years before I went to seminary. Researcher, teacher, Christian education, ordained ministry – the progression may seem roundabout – but all along God was showing me my gifts and how I could use them to serve. Researcher – I love to dig into the bible and try to figure it out. Teacher – I love to teach, lead and resource groups to learn about the bible and our faith. Christian educator – once again I got to use my teacher skills and I got to learn more about the bible and my faith as I worked toward becoming certified as a Christian educator. And then I got to go to seminary – and I learned so much and found out I had much to learn. And now I have been ordained as a teaching elder for eleven years. I may have a Master of Divinity, but I have not of course mastered the divine and continue to learn and explore my faith just like all of you do.
But I never heard John the Baptist tell me that Jesus was the Lamb of God. I never heard God’s voice calling me to ordained ministry. But along the way of life and in working in my different careers, I met people of faith who encouraged me to explore my gifts. I met people who said “Maybe you can use your gifts of teaching or research or working with children in a different way.” And I met someone who said to me, “You know Ruth, I think you have the gifts for ministry, why don’t you explore that.” I had someone come into my life who invited me to come and see what this ordained ministry was all about – and so I did. I just decided to come and see and try and explore and see if this was the right vocation for me – not knowing if this was the right path or not. But I decided to take the first step and enrolled in a course at Christian Theological Seminary. Through this man’s words and through the way he lived his life, I was given a testimony of what it meant to dedicate my life and vocation to God and I decided to see if I could do that too. Just a few words uttered in a hallway one day led me to come and see – to take a leap of faith – and serve God in a new and exciting way.
I keep using this word “call.” What does that mean to you and can it mean different things to different people? Last week we ordained new officers to the office of deacon and elder. Teri talked about a sense of call to these offices of service to the church. But did God suddenly flash a fluorescent light in our officers eyes saying “I need you, come and use your gifts as an officer?” Probably not, just like God did not do that to or for me. My call came quietly and slowly and out of life experience.
In our gospel passage today John the Baptizer is standing with two of his disciples when Jesus happens by. John then points to Jesus and says: “Behold, the Lamb of God.” Seemingly moved by the compelling mystery and drama of the moment, the two disciples follow Jesus. Did you hear a call to follow Jesus in John’s words? I certainly didn’t. Maybe that’s why they do not seem to be fully certain of what they’re doing. When Jesus notices that they are following him he asks them, “What are you looking for?” Which I think is Jesus’ way of saying, “Do you know what you’re looking for when you follow me?”
And then the disciples ask Jesus where he is staying. Now this is a strange response. Jesus asks them a question about discipleship and they ask a question about his housing situation. But their question was not really about lodging, but more about the nature of Jesus himself. “Where are you staying?” in Jesus’ time really meant, “Who are you and who are your people?” John’s disciples were also asking, “Where is the ‘home,’ the center of your life?” Or maybe it was the disciples asking, “At this point we don’t know who we are following or where this path is leading. Can you tell us?” And so Jesus invites them to “come and see,” because it is only in the journeying and in the seeing that the disciples can begin to fathom the true dimensions of what is happening to them.
What does it take to make up a “call?” The picture John gives us when we inspect it, tells us that a call involves testimony or witness along with the experiences of our lives. John the Baptist testified to who Jesus was. Andrew testified to his brother who Jesus was. They pointed away from themselves to something different and important. And because of that new disciples of Christ were begun and Simon received a new name from Christ. A witness is someone who has seen and heard something significant. When I testified in a child support case one time, the judge didn’t want to know anything about the spiritual life of the parents. All the court wanted to know was my testimony: tell us what you have seen and heard.
John and Andrew’s testimonials are short – see the Lamb of God and we have found the Messiah – yet on the basis of their witness disciples are made and a new name is given. Having seen, they testify, so others might see. We might not understand what others have seen, but like Jesus tells Andrew and Simon Peter, we are invited to explore and to go on an adventure. We are invited to “come and see.” These new disciples started following a man who they did not understand and discovered after the fact that the path they ventured upon led them to the Christ. We see Simon, being tugged along to Jesus by his brother, and finding at the end of the trail, and not at the beginning, that his name and his life have been transformed.
I bet there is someone in this congregation today who would rather be sitting at home reading the newspaper, but he came because his wife insisted he come to worship with her. I bet there is a teenager in the balcony today listening to the sermon with one ear and listening to her friends whisper about last night in the other. There is a couple here today because they didn’t have a good excuse to say no when they were asked to attend. There is a person here today because of the music and who reads a book during the sermon.
The point of these examples is that the calling to follow Christ is a pathway which is marked “come and see.” It is a call to begin the journey, not a call that tells you where it will end. It’s a pathway which is far more important because of where it leads, than because of where it begins. It can begin because you want something more in your life, or it can be a longing in your heart or soul. It’s a path you enter by tagging along with friends or family or through which you are dragged by parents or teachers. But it always begins with testimony. It always begins with someone telling you what they have seen and heard. “Come and see,” we are told though the voice is sometimes faint and is filtered through the voices of the ordinary people around us. And, for whatever reason, we do go, and then, we do see. And what we see is that no matter whom we were when we started, we end up with a new name, a new identity, given by Christ. What we see is that no matter how we began our travel, we end the journey resting in the Christ who is all in all.
The words testimony and witness are not mentioned in our ordination vows- not for ministers and not for officers. But faith must be received from another. As William Willimon says, “No one is born into this faith. Nobody stumbles upon it after walking in the woods or rummaging around in one’s ego. Christians are recipients, never initiators. Here is truth that can be had only with receptive, empty, open hands. Someone had to love us enough to show and to tell the story. We know what we know only through epiphany – that is witness, testimony” and revelation from another. And that is what teaching elders are called and privileged to do – to share testimony and to witness. I get to do that in my preaching, in my prayers and in the way I live my life. I get to tell all of you what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard. I get to invite you to come and see what this Christian life is all about. And all I ask in return is that you do the same for someone else. Isaiah calls us to be a light to the nations. And if we can’t be a light to the nations, we can be Christ’s light here in Indianapolis and in our workplaces and with our friends and family and neighbors. We are all called to witness and to share what we have seen and heard. We are all called to make disciples of all nations. So try to be that someone in the hallway who recognizes another’s gifts. Or be the friend who sees and responds to another’s suffering. Be the neighbor who invites the person across the street to come to Northminster with them. Be that spouse who gets her husband to church. Be that parent that brings their teenager to worship when they would rather sleep in. Be that person who points away from themselves to the truth of God and has the guts to tell others what you have seen and heard. Be the person who says, “Come and see.” Jesus asks for no more. Amen.
Resources:
A great deal of this sermon comes from Thomas G. Long’s sermon, “Party in Room 210…Everyone Invited.” Found on Sermons.com
“Reflections on the lectionary” by William H. Willimon. The Christian Century, January 8, 2014