"Theology of Call"
Rev. Sue Engh
Sunday, January 22nd 2006

Dear friends in Christ, grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and from our loving Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

By way of further introduction, I want to offer a theory as to why you, a community of Catholic Christians, and I, an ordained Lutheran woman, find ourselves together this day. For one thing, I am aware that certain people in your midst, shall we say mutual friends of ours, have been conspiring for some time to bring this meeting about. And the reason has to do with our shared sense of call, which I am currently answering through my work as an organizer with ISAIAH. ISAIAH is an ecumenical collective of 80 churches in the greater Twin Cities region and St. Cloud working together on issues of social justice and public policy. Now I know a little bit about this particular community of Christians, St. Joan’s. I know that most of you gathered here today share with me a deep concern about the growing disparities in society between those who enjoy, and indeed often overindulge in, God’s abundance, and those who struggle even to gain access to it. I believe that God has brought us together in order that we might consider ways that you and I, ways in which the St. Joan’s community and the community of ISAIAH, might grow in our partnership to make real God’s radical vision. And that vision offers a striking alternative to the stark disparities so prevalent in our world today. So I am honored and humbled to be in your midst in such a significant role, and grateful to finally meet so many of you face-to-face.

Since we are drawn together today by our common sense of call, it seems serendipitous that the Bible readings assigned for today are all about the concept of call. The Old Testament reading from Jonah has a very familiar tone to it for me. For like Jonah, I too have at times been reluctant to answer God’s call. Notice that we pick up the Jonah narrative with this line: “The word of God came to Jonah a second time.” What happened the first time God called? Perhaps you recall that the episode just preceding the one in our reading describes Jonah’s attempt to run away from God’s initial call to go to Nineveh. At first, Jonah traveled in the exact opposite direction, boarding a boat, enduring a terrible storm, and ending up in the belly of a great fish. Jonah was eventually vomited out, by God’s order, only to face once again the persistent call to proclaim a divine message to Nineveh. Because Jonah was still reluctant, his message was as stark and unimaginative as he could make it. Eight little words: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed!” Despite his reluctance, and perhaps in part because of the stark simplicity of his message, the people of Nineveh responded with a 180 degree turn around. They – every single one of them – repented of their evil ways. Witnessing their widespread repentance, God repented too, and did not deliver the destruction divinely threatened upon that city. Even in his reluctance, Jonah paved the way for God’s grace toward the inhabitants of Nineveh.

My own reluctance to answer God’s call first took the form of denial that God wanted me to be a pastor. True, I didn’t run in the opposite direction, like Jonah did. For I knew from an early age that I was being called to a church vocation. By the time I graduated from college in 1980, Lutherans had been ordaining women for 12 years. But I had never met a woman pastor! And twelve years was just long enough for the horror stories to have taken on legendary proportions, about how women had to be twice as smart and three times as tenacious to survive in parish ministry. So I determined that I would not waste my talents and time fighting the battles that were still being waged over women’s ordination. I would attain a two-year Master of Arts degree from Luther seminary and move quickly and quietly into youth work, Christian education, or church music, where the ministry of women was familiar and welcome.

But God had something else in mind. One sunny afternoon during seminary, I was walking home after a particularly inspiring preaching class, which, for my two-year degree, I wasn’t required to take but just felt like it anyway. That day on the way home I had what was for me a rare epiphany – the unmistakable sense that God was saying, “you will be a pastor, won’t you?” I stopped dead in my tracks, laughed out loud and knew instantly that it was so! I dashed home to break the news to my husband, who smiled knowingly and braced himself for an extra three years of supporting me while I finished my Masters of Divinity degree toward ordination.

But reluctance isn’t the only thing I – and probably you – share with Jonah. We also share with him a call to be prophetic in a culture and time desperately in need of saner voices prevailing. Reluctant as Jonah may have been, he was eventually bold enough to bring a clear public message that was heard and heeded by those in every social class in Nineveh. It’s unfortunate that, probably for the sake of brevity, several verses are skipped in the middle of the Jonah passage assigned for today. I want to add them back in because they show us that Jonah’s message made its way to the highest seat of power in Nineveh, to the king himself.

“When the news [of Jonah’s message] reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes [the customary ritual of grief.] Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: ‘By decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall eat, nor shall they drink. Human beings and animals [alike] shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and turn from this fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’”

In other words, Jonah spoke truth to power and he had a powerful impact on the way of life in that great city.

It is this idea – that we as God’s people are called to be prophetic and to build power enough to influence the powerful – that recently drew me out of parish ministry into the role of full time community organizer with ISAIAH. Even though I had resisted becoming a pastor at first, over the 16 years that I served in parishes, I nevertheless became way too comfortable and complacent in my pastoral role. I so loved preaching and presiding at the liturgy, leading Bible studies and developing ministry programs, that I denied that I was once again hiding from God’s call, this time to create a more public life for myself and my congregation. But by God’s persistence my church and I were introduced to the ISAIAH organization, which calls forth the gifts and passions of leaders and congregations for collective action in the public arena.

Well, Jonah’s story, my story, and perhaps your own, are linked in some important ways. But one thing I don’t want us to take from Jonah’s example, especially in today’s climate of fear-mongering, is his cynical message of doom and destruction. It may have been what God called for, indeed what was needed in his day, for it certainly was effective, as we’ve seen. But I believe God has a different and particular message for us to deliver in our own time and circumstances. And so I want to turn our attention at last to our Gospel reading for today.

Like Jonah, Jesus too had a sense of urgency about him, as he traveled through the countryside proclaiming God’s word. But unlike Jonah’s message of doom and destruction, Jesus’ message resides firmly in the realm of hope and promise: “This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand. Reform your lives and believe in the Gospel [that is, the good news]!” It is into this realm of hope and promise that Jesus called his first disciples. And it is into this same realm that Jesus calls you and me today. Ours is a call no less prophetic than Jonah’s. But our prophecy should trump the claims of those who insist that we must be afraid. “Be afraid of anyone who represents something different than the familiar or traditional.” It’s fear that gives wedge issues so much power in a polarized environment. Instead, our message, as faithful followers of Christ, is one of hope; hope that God’s reign is at hand, if only we’d lay claim to it. Hope that God is doing new things among us, made most evident by the beautiful diversity – our very differences! – that are so obvious around us, if only we will celebrate, not shun them!.

Today’s Gospel lesson also gives us another vision of how God calls that is markedly different from the call to solitary Jonah. God calls us as community into the larger community. Witness the four fisher folk who together heeded Jesus’ command to follow. It’s not enough, in times such as ours, for even the most charismatic of prophets to walk solo through the neighborhoods and call for reform. It’s not enough for you or me to leave this place of communal worship and each find our own personal niche to fill in service to others. Our strength, our power to influence the powerful and change the culture, will depend on our banding and going forth together, inspired by a renewed sense of God’s call. And this, even as we leave some old ways behind – at least for a time – as did Simon Andrew, James and John. They left their familiar boats, nets and even their cozy clans, to join Jesus on his journey into a wider world in need.

And so, rather than conclude, I want provide more of a segue. Because, as grateful as I am to finally meet you face to face, I am even more eager to partner with you in the important work that God has for us to do together in the world. I invite you to seek me out, either today or in the days to come, so that we can explore together that great work that is God’s call. Better still, seek out those mutual friends that I mentioned before, common fisher folk from your own community, who I understand will be in the gathering area after mass. They want to share with you their joy in being a part not only of the St. Joan’s community, but of the ISAIAH community and, through the vehicle of ISAIAH, a significant part of shaping the wider world. God bless you and keep you. Amen.