Life in the Beloved: Vocation

Lent V – April 6, 2014

Life in the Beloved: Vocation

“And Jesus, in a loud voice, said – ‘Come out!’”

As we are approaching the end of this Great Holy Lent, in this series of sermons based on materials from the Cowley Fathers, “Life in the Beloved” our theme for today is “Vocation.” Vocation is a Latin-based word (“vocare”) that essentially means “calling” or even “summoning.” And if we even dig further, behind vocare we find the Latin word “vox”, voice. Related words in English are invocation, avocation, vocalist, vocal, and so many more.

By its nature, all words related to voice and vocation have, so to speak, an outward dynamic. Voice is something that we project outside of ourselves. Vocation is a calling, that is to say, vocation is much more than a career, a business card, or even a dream job. It is a calling. It is what it may keep us awake at night or make us to leave everything behind in pursuit of something that has made us uniquely alive. Vocation it is what pushes out of ourselves, summoning to do things way beyond personal gain and self-interest... or even retirement!

Vocation is a word that it is given to us. By definition, we do not generate our own vocation. Vocation is something that comes out of the blue and drags out into world well beyond ourselves. “Come and I will make you fishers of men” … “Come and follow me!”

Now, let me quote the Cowley Fathers, “The Gospel of John is book-ended by scenes of vocation or calling: In John 1, Jesus calls two of John the Baptist’s disciples to ‘Come and see’; in John 21, the Risen Christ invites Peter, saying ‘Follow me.’”

And in between these scenes there is one more than condenses in a nutshell what the Gospel of John and what vocation is all about. In the story about Lazarus, Jesus points out to the tomb and cries, “Come out!” (John 11:43). “Come out of what hinders your true life! Come out of your little niche of self-pity! Come out and be who you were truly meant to be!”

Come out! Not necessarily in the contemporary sense of “come out of the closet,” thought it may well include it. But the voice of Christ, nevertheless, invites us to leave the seclusion, the security or even the self-pity of our own lives to pursue the life of the Spirit, since, as St Paul writes, “the Spirit dwells in us” (Romans 8:9). The voice of Christ is always inviting us to leave behind the strips of cloth that bind us and tie us down not to the world but to ourselves.

Again, the Cowley Fathers write, “‘You have not chosen me,’ Jesus tells his disciples, ‘but I have chosen you’ (John 15:16). Jesus has called and chosen each and every one of us. Everyone has a vocation. This vocation is not equivalent to our career or our business card, though for some people, their vocation might be related to their career path. Rather, our vocation is the unique life to which we are called as children of God. It encompasses our relationships, our talents, and the whole of our identities. The only constant in vocation is that it is other-oriented. ‘I give you a new commandment,’ Jesus says, ‘love one another’ (John 15:12).

(And let me remark here and now, why the so-called Prosperity Gospel is a totally and utterly false gospel, no matter how many times they use the name “Jesus.” First, because their so-called prosperity it is never outwardly oriented. “It is my prosperity.” “These are my blessings for me to enjoy!” And look how they hide their “prosperity”, their mansions, and splendid “blessings” out of eyes of questioning eyes! Where is the prosperity of the grain of wheat that has to die for to be a harvest? Secondly, and perhaps, more to the point – Jesus does not call us to prosperity but to deny ourselves, to take up the Cross, and to follow Him.)

“We can express this vocation to love in our work, in our relationships, or in our world. One way to step into this larger sense of vocation is to ask yourself: What do I love to do? What makes me feel passionately alive? Where do I respond deeply to the needs and desires of others?”

Vocation means calling, and thus it is always a word that moves us to look out beyond ourselves. “Out of the depth have I called you, O Lord,” (Psalm 130:1) cries the Psalmist. However, what truly is going on is that it is the Lord who keeps calling us out of the depths of our afflictions, our pettiness, and short-sightedness — “Come out! Out of the depths I have called you, O man; O woman!”

In the next few weeks and months ahead, hopefully under the leadership of a new Rector, St Paul will start looking afresh to find its vocation. St Paul is no longer the small country church that it was almost one hundred and sixty years ago. It is no longer the “new” church planted in the “new development” that this area was fifty years ago. Not only the neighborhood has changed but people, culture, language, communications, shopping, everything. Even our own understanding of what it means to be “church” has changed dramatically.

Like Martha, the apostles, and the friends of Lazarus complained, we too may be tempted to complain. “If only the promised development between Lake Barcroft and Arlington had materialized…” “If only they hadn’t changed the Prayer Book…” “If only…” And, even like the People of Israel in exile, having lost any reasonable hope of revival and of having a decent future, we too may wish to shy away from answering the question, “Can these bones live?” “Would these dry bones have a chance left in them?” “Is there any hope left for St Paul’s?” “Why should I pledge?” “Why would I give more of my time, energy, and even a bit of the little hope that still is left in me?”

My brothers and sisters, bad things happen to good people. That is the nature of the world in which we live in. Yet, our Lord Jesus Christ keeps calling us out of the gloom of our own expectations into the open world of the life in the Spirit that it is already in us. “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you” (Romans 8:10-11). This is the Gospel, the Good News. It is the reassuring voice of our Lord calling us out of our own belly-buttons to the new life in the Spirit. “Come out!” It is the voice of Jesus asking us to untie ourselves of the strips of cloths with which we have bound ourselves to our own dreams and our own expectations.

So my challenge to you – both as individuals and as the community that is St Paul’s – is to ask you again, “Can these old bones live?” Like Lazarus we all have a choice. Stay in the cave, refusing to believe the commanding voice of Christ and stay comfy in the place where circumstances had placed him. You see, the grave offered Lazarus a sense of security. The security of not being disturbed by the “chances and changes” of this troubled world. He could continue remembering the old prayers he learned as a child and continue humming the well-known tunes of hymns he sung at Sunday School or at Camp. He could very well continue replaying in his head scenes of his “perfect” old white country church, where things never changed, rituals where never disturbed, and where county parsons would visit in the afternoons for a cup of tea.

Or come out to live and enjoy the new and unbridled life that Jesus Christ offering Lazarus then, and to all of right here and now.

“Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Fr. Gustavo

Life in the Beloved: Participation

  

Every time we respond with love and understanding to the many demands that are dropped onto our laps, 

every time we offer a glass of water, tend the sick, and care for the needy,

Christ manifest His presence in the world.

For truly, God has no other hands in this world but ours, 

   and no other substantial presence in the world 

    but the one mediated by women and men of goodwill

   making the deliberate choice of abiding in love.

Fr Gustavo

Life in the Beloved: Invitation

Father Gustavo's Sermon Sunday, March 16, 2014
Second Sunday in Lent

Life in the Beloved: Invitation

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that by believing in him everyone can have eternal life, a life lived in wholeness and gratitude.”

Let me start with a question, “What is the difference between ‘loving ourselves’ and ‘selfishness’”? The answer is that in ‘selfishness’ we knowingly and wittingly act without any reference to any other person, even without to our own good. In loving our neighbor as ourselves by necessity we are drawn out of our belly buttons and must look around to the world around us and make appropriate calls.

You see, as I told you, love cannot exist in isolation. To really love, we need to extend ourselves outwardly! So, even self-love needs an outsider to act as a kind of reflector of our love. For instance, we take care – hopefully we all are doing this – of our bodies. Why we do that? Perhaps, sheer survival. But most likely it is because we care about someone else – spouses, significant-others, children, relatives, coworkers… and even it may be possible that we come to care for our bodies because we care about the God who has given us this wonderful “machine,” which is our body!

In our reading today, we realize that God truly loves us – despite whatever misgivings we may have – because, as St. John reflects in his gospel, God gave. That is to say, God reaches out of himself to give of himself to us, with no expectations. For, if there were any expectations, it would cease to be love. This is love, “in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us,” (Romans 5:8).

In today’s gospel we find the well-known story of Nicodemus coming at night to see Jesus. Nicodemus, a leader in the Jewish community is sincerely puzzled about Jesus, so he approaches Jesus and asks, “Rabbi, we all know you’re a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the things you are doing unless somehow God is involved.”  Jesus said, “You’re absolutely right. Unless a person is born from above, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing to—to God’s kingdom.” “How can anyone,” said Nicodemus, “be born who has already been born and grown up? You can’t re-enter your mother’s womb and be born again. What are you saying with this ‘born-from-above’ talk?” And Jesus said, “You’re not listening, Nicodemus.” (John 3:2-6). You are not listening. That was Nicodemus problem. He had a good start, but then, somewhere along his life he got lost in his own reasoning.

This is, perhaps, where most of us get stuck in our understanding and in our experiencing of the full measure of what it truly means to be a child of God. Somewhere between baptism and adulthood we stop listening to what God really has to say, and we start making up what we guess God may be saying. Remember last Sunday reading about the story of Creation and what God actually said and what the serpent “recalled” God had said?

A lot of the time we spend in Church, and personally, in pastoral care, is invested in cleaning the bad stuff left behind in the “browser” of our minds and experiences. A good reason to read the Scripture is because it helps you really hear what God has to say. (And, if you still haven’t made your mind about which book to read, let me recommend “Evolution of the Word”, which is in our Lenten Readers’ List.)

Our theme for today is Invitation, which is an outgrowth of our Epiphany theme, “Come and See”. Now let me quote from the Cowley Fathers materials,

“In the last days of his life, Jesus gathers his disciples around him and tells them, ‘I have called you friends.’ We watch this friendship grow, throughout the pages of John’s Gospel, in the very real and challenging love Jesus shares with those friends, from his first invitation that they ‘Come and see’ to his demonstration of love in the washing of their feet at the Last Supper. ‘I have set you an example,’ he tells them, ‘that you also should do as I have done to you.’ The same love which he shares with the Father, he now shares with them. He asks them in turn to share this love with one another and with the world. ‘We love,’ the author of First John tells us, ‘because he first loved us.’

“This invitation to intimate relationship crystallizes in John’s Gospel around the figure of the ‘beloved disciple’ who appears at the Last Supper, reclining on the breast of Jesus. We find him again later, at the Crucifixion, waiting beside the Cross. Tradition has assumed that this disciple is also the author of the Gospel, John. Whether or not the ‘disciple whom Jesus loved’ is the same person who wrote the Gospel, it is actually most significant that this disciple is never named. Anonymous, the beloved disciple becomes a stand-in for every disciple.

“We are all invited to be beloved disciples. Every one of us is invited to step into that privileged place, close to the heart of Jesus, and thus close to the heart of the Father. Knowing ourselves to be beloved by God allows us to share that love with a world in need.”

A good question to ask is, “How do we accept this invitation?” Is it a one-time invitation? Do we need to respond only once, perhaps like in an altar call? Is it an invitation that requires our RSVP on a daily, monthly, or yearly basis? Is it a standing invitation?

If you perhaps are wondering, “Did I ever hear such an invitation to closer fellowship with Jesus Christ?” Let me assure you that indeed you have. Perhaps you do not remember the occasion, because you were a little bundle of love in your parent’s or godparent’s arms, but in coming to baptism you came as a response to God’s loving call. Baptism was the first time that as baby you may have heard words such as love, child of God, Jesus, new life, pardon, forgiveness, and, of course, “Welcome into the family of God!”

Remember the parable of the Prodigal Son? When the elder brother sees his father feasting his younger brother he complains that he never been treated like his bratty brother. And what was his father’s answer? “Son, don’t you understand? You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours?” The root of his bitterness is that he never appropriated himself to what it was truly his!

Both Nicodemus and the older brother in the Parable point in the same direction, our failing to understand who we really are, who we really belong to, and how much we miss in our alienation.

So, today, you are again invited to listen carefully to what God has to say, “You are my beloved child. I am delighted about you!” This is what God has to say about each one of us. And, yes, if there are issues that need to be dealt with – And we do know that we have issues that need to be dealt with! – they will be dealt in the context of a loving and affirming relationship. After Peter denied Jesus, all Jesus had to say was, “Take care of my sheep.” This is love, as you have heard me so many times, “in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us.”

“We are all invited to be beloved disciples. Every one of us is invited to step into that privileged place, close to the heart of Jesus, and thus close to the heart of the Father. Knowing ourselves to be beloved by God allows us to share that love with a world in need.”

In their 2014 Easter Letter, the Benedictine monks of St Gregory Abbey, in Three Rivers, MI, try to respond to the question of why people join a monastery rather than going out into the world to spread God’s love, and they write about “monastic evangelism” as follows.

“Christian nuns and monks in the past and present have found this type of [monastic] evangelism to be fruitful. After all, much of northern Europe was evangelized by establishing monasteries in pagan areas, allowing the neighboring inhabitants see the joyful life of the nuns and monks. Although politics sometimes did play a part in the ‘Christianization’ of these areas, much of the time the people around the monasteries merely decided that they wanted some of the life that nuns and monks had, and became Christians themselves.”

We too, as a community of the beloved, a community of those who feel themselves known and accepted in Christ Jesus, a community of brothers and sisters who recognize their belonging to each other, can be a center of renewal and evangelization, here at the Crossroads and beyond. Describing the Christian Church, the African historian Tertullian wrote, “See how much they love each other.” He didn’t congratulate them on their theology or doctrines. Their way of life, their love was their witness. They knew themselves to be beloved in Christ.

Today, our invitation to walk in closer fellowship with our Lord is an open and standing invitation. It is a kind of “come as you are.”  There is an old traditional hymn that rings so true to our Saviors invitation, Just a Closer Walk with Thee.

“Just a closer walk with Thee, Grant it, Jesus, is my plea,

Daily walking close to Thee, Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.”

Make this Lent season a time for you to catch up with yourself, and with your beloved Master and Redeemer.

Lent @ St Paul's

Life in the Beloved



Lent as a season of contrition, conversion, and change cannot hold its own unless it is understood in its proper place – Between the Incarnation of Love in the nativity of the Holy Child, our Lord Jesus, and the Triumph of Love in the Resurrection of the Holy One, our Lord Jesus and Christ. 

As the writer of the letter of John affirms, love consists not in that we loved God, but that God loved us first (cf. 1 John 1:19) and, that such love is not grounded in personal holiness or in human achievement, but in grace and mercy, for “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Love always prevails when everything else fails.

"Your real life is hidden with Christ in God"

(Colossians 3:3)

Our 2014 Lent Program has been designed to help us re-discover and re-affirm whom we are – God’s beloved children – and to whom we belong – He who made us, the handy-work of his own loving hands. For “in order to fully realize who we are, we need to remember to whom we belong” (The Rt. Rev. Pierre W. Whalon, Bishop in Europe). 

Borrowing from materials produced by The Society of St John the Evangelist, (SSJE, “The Cowley Fathers”) all through the Sundays in Lent we will explore Gospel themes such as Revelation, Invitation, Participation, Collaboration, and Vocation. Please come and join us in as fellow travelers in a spiritual journey of discovery, affirmation, learning, and renewal.  

 

Daylight Saving Time...

... begins at 2 am on Sunday, March 9.

Ash Wednesday.

Today Marks Ash Wednesday 2014

The Beginning of the Lenten Season

Ash Wednesday always seems to creep up on us in the hustle and bustle of life.  It's almost as if we get to Ash Wednesday unprepared and reeling for what to give up for the next forty days.  

Well, let's prepare for a Lenten journey.  Today is the first official day of Lent; but, instead of thinking of the season  as a time of giving something up let's think of it in the historical context from which it comes.

Historically Lent has been used as a season of penitence, or reflection on the human condition in preparation for holy baptism.  The practice of baptism was traditionally only done one time throughout the year in the early church.  The Holy Vigil before Easter Sunday was the time that baptisms were performed.  

Before taking the vows of baptism candidates were asked to use the season of Lent to prepare for this experience.  Others who were already baptized were also asked to use the forty days before Easter as a time of reflection and penitence.  

Let's use this season in the spirit of its original context.  It's not about depriving ourselves of something or using this season to lose weight or start a healthy physical habit.  It's about using these forty days to adopt habits that lead us to reflect openly on our relationship with God, our spiritual life in the context the collective Christian whole, and how we can support other Christians, new and seasoned.  The season marks the beginning of a journey that leads us to live a more holy life.  

Some ways that my fellow seminarians have begun this journey is to adopt journaling based on a theme, for example, journaling every day about gratitude, taking a photo a day on a themed basis (click for a link to a 2014 live photo journey with daily photo ideas), or find a lenten Bible study to journey through scripture personally or/and with a group.  

I am personally going to journey through the Lenten section of Reuben Job's book A Journey to Prayer for All Who Walk With God.  Do what fills your life with the love of God.  Be reminded of the holy life we have acquired through Christ and remember that this season is more than deprivation.  It is a life-giving reflection on how truly loved we are that God would send his son so that we may have the chance to be heirs with Christ through ressurection.

Peace,

Sam

Sam is a seminarian at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC and works on staff at St. Paul's as their Mission and Outreach Coordinator.  Feel free to drop her an e-mail at outreach@stpaulsbxr.org.

Lent @ St Paul's

Ash Wednesday

March 5, 7:30 pm

Liturgy of the Day, 
Imposition of Ashes, and

The Holy Eucharist