The Rev. Canon Jan Naylor Cope: We Are All Called By God

For the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

This morning I invite you to consider, over the arc of your life, your own call stories: those times when you felt God had called you to a particular ministry or mission. Perhaps the community of which you were a part invited you to take some leadership role. How did you respond? Were you eager? Were you hesitant? Did you think that perhaps you were unworthy or inadequate or someone else would be a better choice? Holding on to your thoughts, I invite you to reflect on them in conversation with the story you heard today from Hebrew scriptures of the call of David.

To put this in context, the books of First and Second Samuel are some of the most important in the entire biblical narrative and the story of the people of Israel because they tell of the transition of the people from the time of the judges to the time of the kings, the monarchy. The people had gotten into a crisis situation. They decided that they needed a king like all the other nations around them, to unify them, to protect them—it’s the same old familiar human story, is it not? A seminal character in the transition was the prophet Samuel.

Now, Samuel had his own interesting call story. He was the miracle child of Hannah, who had been barren all her adult married life and wanted nothing more than to have a child. She prayed and prayed and was told that she would bear a son. She promised that if the revelation came to fruition, she would dedicate her son back to the Lord, to grow up in the temple. Samuel was born and, true to her word, Hannah took him to the temple where, from the time he was a small child, he was under the protection and tutelage of an older priest named Eli. While still a young boy, Samuel started to hear things in the middle of the night. He thought that Eli was calling him and he would run to Eli and say, “Here I am.” Eli would reply, “I didn’t call you. Go back to sleep.” This happened a few times and it finally dawned on Eli that maybe that was the Lord calling. So, he counseled Samuel to be still and listen. The next time it happened, Samuel said, “Here I am, Lord, speak for your servant is listening.”

God laid out for Samuel the plan God had for his life—that he would be an important judge and a prophet to help lead his people. The time of the judges ensued, followed by the crisis with the Philistines. The people begged for a king. Samuel didn’t think it was such a great idea, but God said, “Go anoint Saul.” Now, Saul was tall, he was head and shoulders above everybody else, and good looking. Essentially, he looked the part, and he was anointed king.  Saul did really well for a while. And then, the humanness took over—with the power, prestige, and position—and he started to rely on himself and not on the Lord. So, the Lord regretted making Saul king, and the Lord decided to choose someone else.

This is where we pick up today’s story. God tells Samuel to go to Bethlehem. “I’ve chosen someone else.” Samuel’s not too keen on that idea either because Saul is still king. The throne is not empty. If Samuel goes about the business of anointing another king, he risks his own life. God prevails. Samuel goes. Now, Bethlehem was at the time a very inconsequential little town, barely on the map. The family of Jesse came from the smallest clan of the smallest tribe. Let’s just say the whole thing was incredibly unlikely. Nonetheless, we have the parade, the beauty contest of the seven sons. The oldest comes out first; he’s tall and looks the part. Samuel is sure that he’s the one. God says, “No, you’re looking on the outward appearance. I look on the heart.”

You see, in ancient times, the heart was considered the core of one’s being. It’s where your character, your wisdom, your commitment, and your loyalty lay. Your very essence was the heart and God was trying to make clear that God was looking for something else. So, they ran through the seven sons, four of whom don’t even get named, and then came the unlikely one, the most unlikely one—the youngest son who’s just a boy out tending the sheep. Now, the narrator can’t help the narrator’s self. We learn that David had beautiful eyes, was ruddy, and handsome. But I digress . . .

David was the most improbable choice. But isn’t that the biblical narrative, that God over and over and over again calls ordinary, unlikely people to do extraordinary things? Think about it: Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and in the lineage of Jesus, there’s Rahab, the prostitute, and Ruth, the Moabite woman. God lifts them up to use their gifts for the upbuilding of the kingdom. God gives each one of us gifts for the upbuilding of the kingdom. There are different gifts, which is a good thing because we need all the gifts that all of us have.

The question is, when you are called, how will you respond? Sometimes we get in the way of responding to a call. Using an example from my own life: I grew up in a teeny-weeny little town and was part of a very small Episcopal church that was one notch above being a mission church. My brother, during his four years of high school, had been the church organist and he was good. When I was about to move into high school and he was off to college, I was invited to be the church organist. I was not very good. I knew that. I was fully aware of that, but I was free, so, I was attractive. The truth is, I was afraid that I would embarrass myself and my family, but my parents prevailed upon me to pursue it. At the end of the day, I wasn’t great, but I was good enough. Mother Teresa said that God doesn’t demand that we be successful. God demands that we be faithful. I gave it the very best I had. What I lacked in skill I tried to make up for in faithfulness. Going back to King David, he was a good king but not flawless—you’ll remember the story of Bathsheba—but he was the one God selected for that time, for that chapter, and David served faithfully and well.

What are the calls on your life and how have you responded? We know that we can sometimes make mistakes. Perhaps we didn’t hear the call clearly, or perhaps it just wasn’t quite as we imagined it would be. When I was in college and I was in my junior year, I was thinking about my senior year and how I wanted to spend my time. I was encouraged by some of my closest friends to run for president of a social organization to which I belonged. These were my closest friends in college. I loved them. They knew me, they loved me. So, I stood for election, and I was defeated. I’ll be honest, it hurt. I was humiliated.

But God opened another door and, as I had time to reflect, it was the right door. I wasn’t being called to be in that leadership position in my senior year. Instead, I was invited to be more deeply engaged in service and I began to be much more involved in the volunteer service organization at our university. I had the incredible opportunity to do social work in the barrios of San Antonio, to work with autistic children, to work in a mental health hospital. Those experiences helped shape and form and enrich my life. God used that experience to teach me something very important. Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams said this, “God will take your experiences, mistakes, and false starts and transform you so Christ’s transfiguring love can show through.”

We’re not all called to be David, but make no mistake, we are all called. As Mother Teresa also said, “God has created us so we do small things with great love.” It is those small things that make all the difference. So my friends, God’s calling you and me to whatever the next right thing is in your life. We’re three weeks out from Easter. I invite you in this time to pray. How is God calling me now? What new thing or redoubling our efforts on a current thing is God calling me to do so that on the other side of Calvary, the Cross and Resurrection, we too may say, “Here I am, speak, for your servant is listening.” Amen.