“Ready for the Call”

Exodus 3:1-15

One year, I took our middle schoolers in my church in Long Branch to a weekend retreat at Camp Johnsonburg, the Presbyterian Camp and Conference Center where Lydia just went through their Leadership Training Program. It’s a beautiful campground in rural New Jersey (there is such a thing as rural NJ). At the end of the weekend, the youth always lead worship. They are not supposed to have their cell phones on. At this one particular retreat, a group got up to lead the Call to Worship, and they stood in a line in front of the congregation. They started taking turns saying a line of Scripture, and in the middle, one of the girl’s cell phones went off. She quickly silenced it. When you looked around, you could tell what all the adults in the room were thinking. The youth kept speaking and, again, the girl’s cell phone went off. Again she silenced it. You could tell that the adults were just about ready, in this holy moment of a worship service, to go and take that phone away from that disrespectful youth. They kept reciting Scripture, and the cell phone went off again, and this time she answered it, and said, “I can’t talk now! No!” she said. A few of the adults had apoplectic expressions on their face. Finally, the girl turned around and said, “That was God calling, and he wants us to get down to worship.”

That was God calling, she said. Isn’t that just like God, interrupting at inopportune moments, interrupting when we are trying to be holy and good. Isn’t that just like God, trying to get through to us, trying stubbornly to speak to us. Scripture tells us that God calls us again, and again, and again, and the question is...do we answer?

They didn’t have cell phones in Moses’ day, but God, apparently, has other ways of getting our attention. Moses is minding his own business one day, reviewing the Democratic convention with the goats, debating the merits of the Republican nominee for VP with the sheep, swapping humorous anecdotes with the llamas. All of a sudden, he sees a bush, burning but not consumed. His curiosity is aroused. He hears the cell phone ringing (so to speak), and (thank God!) he answers.

“Moses, I have a plan for you. Your life will not be about sheep, or goats, or llamas, but about freedom.” God was there in that bush. It was holy ground. God revealed something about himself in that moment. She pulled back the curtain and revealed what she was all about. “I have heard the cry of my people, and I am going to do something about it. You, Moses, have a part of it. You are a part of my plan to set people free.”

We find in this story a theme that is repeated again and again and again in Scripture. God speaks, and says, “I have a plan, a plan of love, freedom, and grace, and you have a part in it.”

This morning, several millennia later, and every morning that we gather here together, we make a wild faith claim, that God is here. You don’t have to take off your sandals, but at this moment, we are standing (or sitting) on holy ground. We are standing on holy ground because God, indeed, is here.

There is a reason for God’s presence. Well, there’s really more than one. First of all we are here because God’s loves us. God hears our cry. God wants to hold us, listen to us, talk to us, and comfort us. God also wants to party with us, rejoice with us, and laugh with us. God wants to whisper in our ear that we, each and every one of us, is a beautiful, precious, wonderful, gifted (you get the idea) treasure in God’s sight.

But God is also here to call to us. God wants to let us know, like Moses, that not only are we beautiful, precious, wonderful, and gifted, we are beautiful, precious, wonderful, and gifted for a purpose.

God has a plan, a plan to bring freedom to those who are enslaved, a plan to wrap loving arms around those who are alone, a plan to heal those who are wounded and feed those who are hungry, a plan to stand between victim and perpetrator, a plan to speak for those who have no voice, a plan that unites us and celebrates the wondrous, diverse web of creation as it was intended to be. God has this plan...and you have a part in it. Did you think you were that important? You are.

You may be in the middle of a career, or you may be retired. You may have a family or you may be single. You may have lots of gifts that are on display for all the world to see, or you may have hidden talents that you don’t even know about...yet. You may have riches to spare, or you may be wondering about where next month’s rent is coming from. You may feel as if you have time and energy to spare, or you may be wondering how you will make it through the day. You know what? God has a plan, and you have a part in it.

I hope you will forgive me for getting a little personal at this point. In preaching school they say not to do this, but I am going to get a little personal for a moment. There have been many times in my life when I have doubted that I could be a meaningful part of God’s plan, that I could make a difference. I saw all my faults and foibles, darkness and doubt, and I thought that they would be the end of me. But in the midst of all that God has given me a gift. He has placed in my life someone who embodies a sense of call, a focus on God’s plan, a desire to be faithful and giving like no other person I know. Let me tell you a little about him.

Born in Indonesia, he had dreams of being an architect. In school in Holland before the Second World War, he was on the last ship to leave Rotterdam back to Indonesia before it was leveled by the Germans. He saw his father imprisoned and killed there, and he himself was imprisoned there.

In the midst of all of that, he heard a call. Shortly after his father’s execution, he had a dream in which God showed him a valley full of people. “Speak to them!” a voice said three times. After saying no three times, the voice said, “One day you shall.”

He had terrible experiences when he was imprisoned. But in the midst of all that suffering, there came a call, “Is there a minister here? Someone who can preach?” That call was repeated for three days with no response. Finally he said, “I will do it!” He got up and started to preach. They began to transport him in the middle of the night from camp to camp. He would preach. And since that time, he has preached. He has preached to people all around the world: Korea, Australia, Scotland, Holland, and Hawaii. In the face of much resistance along the way, in the face of persecution, at great cost to himself, he preached. He followed his call.

I thank God for this person, my father, for he has planted in me a deep sense of call, a

sense of life that is about more than self-fulfillment, more than career, more than riches. When

I have doubted my call, he has reminded me that God has a plan, and I have a part in it.

God’s plan didn’t turn out exactly like my dad expected, but he has touched many lives. God’s plan for my life hasn’t turned out like I expected. But God does have a plan, and we are part of it.

This story is for all of us. This morning the question is offered to us: What is your calling? The calling, like it did for Moses, may surprise you. It will test you, challenge you. It will shape your life. But God has a plan, and you are part of it.

I hope you don’t mind my getting personal, but that’s what faith is: personal. God has a plan, personally shaped for you, for each moment, for each circumstance.

This is why, by the way, we have to take care of ourselves. This is a big part of why it is so important to receive God’s blessing, affirmation, and care: because it prepares us to pick up the phone. We will be ready when it rings.

God is calling my friends. God is calling you.

Amen.

August 31, 2008

Rev. Paul Heins

First Presbyterian Church

Logan, Utah