A Strange Encounter
Imagine for a moment a young woman waking early, just before dawn to begin her daily chores. Still groggy with sleep though the morning is cold and quiet, she feeds the animals, and gathers water for the day’s washing. As she fills her bucket at the well, she imagines the life she is going to have with her fiance. She thinks about what a blessing it is to be betrothed to a man who not only is already a skilled carpenter, but who has a reputation for being righteous and devoted to God. The troubles of kings and empires are far from her mind as she thinks about the children she will have, of the house they will build together, of the rhythms of life which will unfold before her as she raises a family dedicated to living by the Torah and caring for each other.
Suddenly her daydream is interrupted as the hairs on her neck stand on end. Was the man who is suddenly standing before her there just a few moments ago? She didn’t see him walk up. Her hands shaking, she drops her bucket and briefly thinks of screaming for help or running for the house. She’s frozen in place and doesn’t know what to do, when suddenly the man speaks a strange greeting.
He calls her “full of grace” and tells her she is going to have a son. How can this possibly be? She knows how babies are made. It takes two, and yet she has never been intimate with her husband-to-be or anyone else. And this son is going to be a king? Not just a king, but the king to take the throne of David? Suddenly all her previous daydreams seem a million miles away. What king would ever come from Galilee? Don’t we already have a king? How could a boy from her humble womb in a poor village on the edge of the frontier ever take the throne under the thumb of the most powerful Empire to ever walk the Earth? She doesn’t know how to raise a king. And she’s pretty sure no one ever gave birth to a son while still being a virgin before.
While thoughts of worry and astonishment still race through her mind, she is suddenly at peace. If this is what God really wants of her, then she’s going to trust Him. She has no idea where this road is going to lead, and she certainly couldn’t envision it ending at a cross and an empty tomb. But she knows God is good. She knows God is loving and kind, and cares for His people. And so, she utters those famous words pregnant with the unfathomable trust and hope that God will always be faithful to his promises… “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”(1) And with that, the man vanishes as quickly as he appeared.
A Reflection on My Call to Ministry
As I prepared for this morning’s installation service, I could not help but reflect on the moment when I first received the call to be a pastor, and on just how improbable such a call was. It was 2013 and I was fighting a war in Afghanistan. I was a Soldier and a warfighter, and I was good at it. I had made Sergeant early and was trained in the brand new-and-growing field of unmanned aviation. I loved everything about flying aircraft and running flight operations, and I felt that the work we were doing was important, when the rug was suddenly swept out from under my feet. It was a hot summer afternoon and we had just called off the rest of the day’s flights as the atmospheric heat meant the drones couldn’t safely launch and land without risking a crash and endangering ground crews who would have to go retrieve any downed aircraft.
It was only a few minutes after our aircraft were ordered back, when the radio exploded with the voices of frightened Soldiers. An IED had ripped through one of the vehicles from Alpha company, and worse that vehicle was filled with my friends, most of whom were badly injured and one of whom was killed. Suddenly the war hit home in a way it hadn’t before. We had endured mortar attacks multiple times a day for months, but I and my friends had gone through each attack unharmed. We had begun to feel a little bit invincible, but that morning we knew just how vulnerable we could be. Here was a young Soldier, much younger than me, whose parents wouldn’t get to hold him tight and welcome him home when we all got back. Here was a young man who wouldn’t ever know the blessing of having a wife and watching his children grow the way I have.
As I saw the discouragement and sadness hang over the heads of my men, I knew in that moment my mission had changed and the pull of God’s call suddenly became clear. Instead of killing the enemy, my job would now be to bring comfort to those who had lost or who felt lost. Instead of fighting for my country, I would now bring the light and life of the gospel. God was calling me to give up the life of the Soldier and take on the life of a pastor.
The very idea was crazy. I had helped out with some ministries in the past, but being a pastor was the furthest thing from my mind. In fact, if somebody had told me I would be a pastor just a few months before, I would have laughed at the idea. I had a degree, but it wasn’t from a Christian school and it was in political science, not theology. Not only that, but I had only been a Nazarene for 2 years! I felt completely inadequate to the task, and to tell you the truth, I was. But paradoxically, that’s the whole point.
The Call Has Gone Out
None of us are called by God because we are good enough. As 2 Tim. 1:9 says, “[God] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus.” And as Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:26-29, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”
By our own efforts, we could never be good enough. And yet each person here has been called. I’m not saying everyone is called to be a pastor or to lead a bible study, but everyone has been given unique gifts with which to serve God and each person here, if you put away your fears and inadequacies, will find that God is calling you to a greater purpose than you could have ever imagined on your own. You might never experience the call to full-time ministry the way I did, but I can promise each and every one of you has already been called to something… and that something is a life of holiness. The call to holiness is the call to a life of purity and separation from the things which the World desires. Again and again, scripture associates the calling which all believers receive with holiness. In Eph. 4:1-3, Paul tells us this is a holiness which is characterized by humility, gentleness, patience, and a loving unity with one another. And in 1 Thess. 4:7, he tells us that “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.” Or as Peter puts it, we are to be “obedient children, ...not... conformed to the passions of [our] former ignorance, but as he who called [us] is holy, [we] also [should] be holy in all [our] conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”(2)
The Expectation of Holiness
Now that is a tall order, isn’t it? To be holy the way God is holy? I mean, how can we possibly be holy at all? If it is true that our sin has corrupted us, and separated us from God, then how could we possibly strive to be like God?
But that’s the beauty of God’s call, it comes with a promise. Just as when the angel Gabriel called Mary to an unbelievable calling, he also promised her that the Lord was with her and that nothing is impossible with Him; so also when God calls us to holiness, he also promises us that his grace and love are freely given to us, without any strings attached.
When we come to really understand this, to internalize it and take it into our hearts; our own ability to love is sparked and kindled by the Holy Spirit. Where, before God began to work in us, our hearts had about as much ability to love as a virgin has the ability to give birth to a son. But once we receive God’s grace and love for us, we begin to be able to love Him back, and not only Him, but others in turn. That’s how transformation happens. We don’t simply resist temptation until we aren’t tempted anymore. We also embrace a new desire to reflect God’s love back onto Him and into the lives of others, until that desire replaces the old, selfish desires which used to define us.
As author G.K. Chesterton once said, “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”(3) That’s how it was for me when I experienced my call. I no longer fought to defeat the enemy in front of me, but rather to support those whom God had entrusted into my care. And that’s how it is to be for all of us who are called to a life of holiness. We fight on in the pursuit of holiness not simply because we hate sin, but because we love God. John Wesley once observed that it is the love of God which is the root of holiness itself, but it is our realization that God loved us first which enables us to love Him at all.(4)
The Challenge
So today, I challenge each of you to reflect on where God may be calling you. Even if it isn’t a call to change your vocation or to lead a church, God is still calling you. He loves you and is calling for you to love him back. Will you respond? Will you give up those desires which stand between you and him? Will you answer the call?
Footnotes
(1) Luke 1:38, ESV.
(2) 1 Peter 1:14-16.
(3) Chesterton, G.K. Essay in Illustrated London News from Jan. 14, 1911. Found in "The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton," Vol. 29. Ed. by Aidan Mackey (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994).
(4) Wesley, John. Sermon 10: The Witness of the Spirit, 1:8.
Delivered December 09, 2018 - Cortez (CO) Church of the Nazarene.
