Reverend Ref +

EPIPHANY IIA

Isaiah said, "The Lord called me before I was born."

Paul said that he was "called by the will of God."

Jesus called Andrew and another to "Come and see."

Andrew called his brother, Simon Peter.

Who does God call? If you take a limited view of things, God calls only a select few. Abel, not Cain. Moses, not Pharaoh. David, not Saul. Peter, not Judas. And the list goes on. It would seem that, from the beginning, some people were chosen by God and others were destined for destruction. How else can you explain the genocide, or attempted genocide, by Israel against its enemies? Or the specific number of the 144,000 in Revelation? It would appear that God has already determined who is saved and who is damned.

But if you take an expansive view of things, God’s call to salvation is all-encompassing. Abraham was to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Jonah was sent to save the Gentile city of Ninevah. God told Isaiah that he would be a light to the nations so that "my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth." And John declared that Jesus would take away the sin of the world.

Who does God call? God calls Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ruth, David, Mary, Joseph, Andrew, Peter, Paul, James, John, you, me, Jeff, Gwynne, Charlie, George, Susie, Mark and Jane. God calls everyone. The issue isn’t one of God limiting who is called; the issue, rather, is who chooses to answer.

Looking back through history and through the bible, there really are very few people with whom God speaks directly. The vast majority of people hear God through another person. The prophets to Israel. Paul to the Roman Empire. Andrew to Peter. Philip to the eunuch. At its most basic level, Christianity is based on individual relationships and it is up to us to spread the Good News. How do we do that?

Baptism is a good place to start. In our baptism, not only did we promise to renounce the evils of the world, but we promised to continue in the apostles’ fellowship. We promised to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. That means that we promised to talk with other people about our faith. Our baptism is the starting point of evangelism.

Evangelism. Now there’s a scary word for Episcopalians. There’s a joke that goes like this: A man shows up at Peter’s desk in heaven. Peter says, "What are you doing here?" The man says, "I don’t know. I was walking downtown and this guy jumped out from behind a bus and yelled, ‘REEEEEPENNNNNNT!!!!’ S cared the hell out of me."

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Evangelism doesn’t have to be scary, either to us or those we are talking to. We don’t have to be John crying out in the wilderness, "REPENT!"
Instead, evangelism can be inviting. Supposedly we follow the teaching and example of Jesus. He had a knack for talking to people on a personal level, at a place that was most relevant to that particular person. The rich young man. The prostitute. The bleeding woman. The centurion. And all of this, remember, happened after his baptism.

Jesus’ baptism, like our own, is a significant event. For Jesus, and for us, our ministry begins at that point. It begins when we answer and acknowledge God’s call for us. In his ministry, he talked to people about God and his mission, and he called people to follow him. He invited people to come and see.

In that coming and seeing, people learned about the kingdom of God. People learned how to change their view of the world. People learned what it meant to put God first. For some people, this is a good thing. They realize that, even though they may have thought they were searching for something, they were really trying to figure out how best to answer God.

For others, however, this new way of looking at things, this assumption that the kingdom of God has arrived, is a bit more than they can handle. They choose to ignore God’s call. They don’t believe that the Gospel is really Good News. They think it takes too much effort. They don’t want to make the commitment or the sacrifice. They think Christianity is a crutch for the weak. And that’s okay too. Remember, it’s not our job to convert people; it’s our job to tell people.

And then there is that third category – people who never hear the Gospel. These are the people we need to be concerned about. These aren’t necessarily people in Africa or South America or other far flung reaches of the globe. These can be people right here in our community. People we see everyday, but with whom nobody has ever told them about Jesus or invited them to church.

Christianity is relational. The relationship between God the Son and God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. The relationship between Jesus and his disciples. The relationship between the disciples and the early church. The relationship between the church and you. The relationship between you and the other.

Very few of us are either lucky enough or unfortunate enough to have God speak directly to us. Most of the time, God calls people through other people. An invitation to come and see. A conversation with another person about Jesus. Think about how you got to this place. Somewhere, sometime, somebody called to you, and that call led you here.

Granted, not everyone called will answer. And God is not keeping score on how many people you call. In fact, none of what we do is because we are trying to score points. We do what we do– invite, include, inform, proclaim and rejoice – because we believe that God calls people through people, through relationships. Who have you called? Who have you asked to come and see?