Loading...Sermon December 18, 2016
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, LSW
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen, Newport, PA
To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 1:7
Please be seated.
Facebook is an interesting social media program. One thing I like about it is being able to stay in touch with family I don’t see very often, like my cousins in Sicily.
And Facebook can also be tough. Seems like on the computer, people feel emboldened to say things they’d never say face to face. Sometimes the comments are cruel, not usually from family, but on various pages where lots of people can congregate.
Perry County Talk is one of those wide-ranging pages. It’s for people to talk about Perry County and for people in Perry County to talk about anything they’d like. Sometimes people ask for recommendations or suggestions about day care centers or oil companies. Accidents and fire company calls are posted. There’s a variety of political posts and sometimes the back and forth is not very kind. I’ve been told to move to China or Canada or that my opinions don’t matter, because I’m “just a housewife.”
I also find people who are different from me and I’m interested in trying to understand their worldview.
One of the people who posts is JC Neill. He’s dying from cancer. I started seeing his posts as he was dealing with lots of pain. He’d post how he was feeling and what was happening, asking for prayers. And lots of us prayed.
In healthier times, Mr. Neill loved riding his motorcycle. His profile picture shows him on the cycle with his three grandchildren. I don’t agree with all of the things he posts, so we’re different in how we see the world in many ways, yet we share our humanity and our love of Jesus Christ.
At the end of November, he ended up in the hospital and posted this:
“Well tomorrow sometime my daughter is going to meet with hospice at my place and move in some of things they think I will need. They said I have maybe six months, but only god knows that. Anyways after she gets that done, she’ll go to hospital and bring me back home . I know I will like that… never was a fan of hospitals. The good thing, god willing, I will be home and kicking for Christmas. I really do think I will make it one more time. Love Christmas times of the year. All the great oldies on tv. So let me take this time to again say thank you for keeping me in your thoughts. Hope each of you have a great holiday season."
He’s not posted a lot since then, as you can imagine. He missed going deer hunting and asked people to share their photos and lots were shared, including a video of just walking in the woods with the crunch of leaves sound. Then someone posted a PO Box and asked us to send Christmas cards to him, which I did and so many others too.
In all of this, Mr. Neill has been gracious and thankful, reminding us that he is at peace and ready to go be with the Lord. I’ve found reading his posts is a blessing.
I think Mr. Neill is an example of being a saint in the way Paul addresses the Romans in his letter to them. All of us who are followers of Jesus Christ were considered saints by Paul. We’ve come to think of saints as people who are perfect and somehow above being human. But Paul’s view is that anyone is a saint who responds to God’s call.
By his gracious and loving posts even as he’s dying, I believe Mr. Neill is responding to God’s call. I have never even met him and I believe that’s true of many who have reached out to him. Yet, he is reminding us how precious life is, how to love our families, and how to love each other.
In our Gospel today, we hear about another saint. Joseph has a dream to clarify that he should stay with Mary, even though she is pregnant and they had not lived together yet. In a dream, Joseph receives the explanation of what is happening – that Mary will bear Jesus. And when Joseph awakes, he does what the angel had commanded in his dream. Joseph is obedient to God’s call and serves as Jesus’ earthly father.
Each of us has a call from God. We need to stay in constant discernment regarding our call. This is what is required of us as saints who follow Jesus Christ.
As part of my discernment process for the priesthood, I was fortunate to be in a weekend workshop with Marjory Zoet Bankson. She has written an entire book about God’s call, The Call to the Soul: Six stages of Spiritual Development.
One of the things she stresses is that our call shifts and changes over time. We experience life; things happen to us. It’s not like we figure it out once and we’re done.
Marjory Bankson says there are six stages to the call cycle. Often as we begin to feel God’s pull in our life, that “God wants me to do something,” we resist. We question what we’re being called to. We see this over and over again in our Bible. Most of the prophets and Moses resisted their calls initially. Our response is often, “Not me; I can’t do that!” Sometimes we’re afraid.
Now the thing is, God keeps calling us, so often we move to the next stage – reclaim. Sometimes we ask God for a sign.
In the reclaim stage, we begin to open up to the possibility of what God is calling us to.
Stage three according to Bankson is Revelation. We see a glimpse of what it looks like when we respond and embrace our call.
The fourth stage is Risk. Our call is becoming clearer and now we must take action. We can’t keep the call to ourselves any longer. When we take the risk to share our call with others, we also risk getting their support and encouragement, which are absolutely necessary any time we are doing God’s work.
The fifth stage is Relate. Bankson describes it like this, “Our task in Stage Five is to connect with a larger community who can share in our sense of purpose, find a common language, common symbols, and a common story.” (p. 131) We must begin to live out our call in a community that supports us, celebrates with us, corrects us, and provides a place for the impact of our call.
This is the stage where we truly live out our call…embody our call. We have answered God and are doing what God has asked of us. And we must have that community surrounding us. It’s not something we do in a vacuum.
But you see, God’s not done. Answering God’s call changes us and changes the world we live in. The sixth stage is Release. We step back and take a look. We listen for God’s leading again. Things are changed, both with us and with our community. We may be called to let go and to move on to a new call. We start the cycle all over again.
I know we think about the various positions in the church as responsibilities, and all of them are calls or should be. When you volunteer to sing in the choir, serve on altar guild, be a reader, or Eucharistic Minister, or Vestry member, or lead a committee or project, it should be because you have answered God’s call to you…because it is a way to live out your sainthood of answering God’s call. It is a way to answer God’s call like Joseph…to answer God’s call like Mary, “here am I the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your Word.” Luke 1:38
Dear, dear saint, what is God calling you to today? Maybe you’re just in the early stages of hearing God’s call or maybe you’re at the place of releasing a previous call. May you continue in your sainthood and in the words of one of our favorite hymns, answer:
Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.
Amen
