The Very Rev. Nathan D. Baxter

Do you know the Negro Spiritual, AHush, Hush, Somebody’s Calling My Name?
Would you sing it with me?
Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name
Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name
Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name
Oh my Lord, Oh my Lord, What shall I do?

It sounds like Jesus; somebody’s calling my name
It sounds like Jesus; somebody’s calling my name
It sounds like Jesus; somebody’s calling my name
Oh my Lord, Oh my Lord, What shall I do?

We live in a world that inundates us with so very many voices. Some are demanding, compelling, seductive voices. Some voices have become like “white noise humming away and affecting us in ways we do not know. Many represent competing values and agendas.

For example, all around us each day are the voices of our professions and careers, calling us to succeed, fulfill our potential, to be all we can be, as the commercial says. All around us in many forms we hear cultural messages saying: Be a winner or at least a competitor.

Of course, there is the voice of economic security, which speaks so loudly lately that greed and chicanery have almost become a virtue in some sectors of our society. We see it on a large scale in the WorldCom and ENRON corporate scandals. But truth be told, we are all looking for an angle, aren’t we?

These value questions challenge our children as they and we hear voices about college choices. The messages are too often not about what college is best suited to my child’s personality and development, but what name will make our family look good. Too often, the question for our children is not, “What do I love to do?” rather, “Where is the market?” “What will give you the most economically secure future?” These are examples of the voices our young people are hearing.

There are the voices of political and cultural values. “Where do you stand on abortion, race, sexual values, cultural and religious plurality in America, and the pending war in Iraq?” The voices are loud and pressing, you must be on one side or the other.

For many there are the internal voices, calling for a choice. “How do I nurture my marriage, my family and keep my career alive?” I think of a young entrepreneur I knew some years ago, which worked for a Pennsylvania Utility Company and had a booming janitorial service on the side. He worked every weekday for the utility company and every evening and weekend at his business. I remember being concerned about his schedule and his replying, “My father did not leave me anything and I’m building this business to leave to my son.” So he worked and his business became so successful that he had to hire others to help. But he had no time for family. He lost his marriage and his health. He was 35 years old.

I also think of a 45 year old foundation program director with a young family. He was living all week in one city, coming home one or two weekends a month. His territory and programs were expanding all over Florida. But his heart was becoming torn between ambition and family. Finally, his company gave him a choice, take a demotion and move back home or continue on this track towards Vice President and greater influence within the Foundation. He and his wife were Christians and they prayed about it. After much struggle, he chose to tighten his belt and go home. Four years later, their only daughter is graduating from High School and on her way to college. His family and marriage are healthy. He is not a V.P. but his career is doing fine; and he and his wife say to me they have no regrets.

In all of these and others situations we, as good people, seek to find the voice of reason, to get in touch with our values in making such hard life decisions. But we gather together today, here in this sacred space, because we are a little different from our neighbors. We are Christians and our lives are not governed simply by reason and personal values.

We are Christians; people called by God through Jesus Christ!!!

And this is the voice that is too often drowned out of our lives. Like Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, and like James and John, the sons of Zebedee, we are Christians because at some point in our lives we have heard the call of Christ. We felt compelled and moved in our souls and decided to follow him … to become disciples.

Thus, we are those who know that true peace of mind and spiritual clarity about life only come when we hear the voice of Christ, when we feel the reassurance of Christ’s spirit and surrender our lives to his way. How often have you been troubled in spirit and then you heard a prayer, or a hymn, or read a verse of scripture, or knelt at an altar railing? Or maybe you spent a quiet meditative moment in an empty church, at home or at work. And in such experience, you felt the peace of God, which passes all understanding, not only finding direction, but also the courage to pursue it?

Now to be a Christian is not necessarily to be reasonable, because when we hear the voice of our Lord it can bear a price. Like James and John, it may mean breaking with family tradition to follow values or purposes that may be in conflict with our family’s traditions. You know, many families have traditions of hate, selfishness, abusive behavior and unjust prejudices. It may mean walking away from the security of a lucrative fishing business, as did James and John and their father who had to have hired help to do their work. But they walked away.

It may demand that we reinterpret our professional or life skills in ways that make no sense to us or those around us. I think of a grandmother in Harlem, who after raising her own children and seeing her grandchildren off to college and retiring as a government worker saw a crack-addicted mother trying to sell her baby. Mother Hale, as we have come to know her, a grandmother who should now be enjoying senior citizen leisure, heard the call of her lord to become a grandmother to crack babies and their mothers. Her singular responses later became know as Hale House in Harlem.

I think of Doctors Without Boarders: doctors and nurses, technicians who hear the call of Jesus to spend their vacations not in Club Med spots, but in some of the most impoverished and desolate places on this planet to bring surgical treatment and health care education. (Come Doctor, Nurse and I will make you care taker for the least of my little ones.) A few years ago, I was invited to speak at a Business Prayer Breakfast in Detroit. There I found hundreds of businesspersons gathered for their monthly prayer meeting of 45 minutes. The idea of a prayer circle began with a business executive who felt the call to start a prayer ministry, getting other businesspersons to daily set aside time to hold the concerns of their churches, the business sector and the larger society in daily prayer. God called this executive to be the shepherd of the souls of executives. The call of Christ can change our priorities and us, but it always gives us peace.

Being a Christian is not being nice, appropriate or successful, but rather hearing the call of Christ, daily. Jesus said, “If any want to become my disciples, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit one to gain the whole world and lose or forfeit themselves?” [Luke 9:23-25]

Do you know who you are? Are you are title, job, collection of achievements, financial security, a role (mom, dad, grandparent)? Do you have joy and peace in who you are? Is God pleased with who you are? Do you know God’s will for your life? If you are a Christian — a disciple of Jesus — you must care about these things.

Are we losing our very selves? Not just our families or our sanity, but our purpose? You are the light of the world…. You are the salt of the world. But if the salt has lost its unique quality what good is it? What good are we to God? Can our families, our work colleagues, our social peers, those in need count on us to be disciples of Christ, to live and speak of the resources of faith?

This challenge is not just true of laity; it is a dilemma for clergy as well. My father was a pastor of some 45 years and he used to say to me, “Boy (never dean, father or doctor), you can be so busy with God’s work that you can lose God.

Much of my work is as an administrator and fundraiser. A few years ago, I was downtown on Pennsylvania Ave. running from one corporate appointment to another. As I exited one building, a large vagrant looking man seemed to be approaching me. Before I could avoid him, he stepped in front of me and said, “Father may I have a blessing?” I had reached into my pocket for some change to give him but became incredulous and suspicious at his request. “A blessing for what?” I asked. He replied. “Father, I’m having a hard day and I just need a blessing.” In that moment through this vagrant looking man, Jesus was calling me to my priesthood, above all the corporate hype I was feeling. So with the crowds pressing, car horns honking and the vendors hawking their wares, I reached up, made the sign of the cross on his forehead, and said a blessing. He thanked me and disappeared into the crowd. God had reminded me of the priority of my ministry above the busyness of my work — my calling to minister in Jesus’ name to the weary.

And you know, what Christ has said to the vagrant, he says to us in the Gospel: “Come unto me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke (or will) upon you and learn from me (how to live); for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28, 29]

So often it’s not just our bodies that are tired; our souls are tired too. Has your soul ever been tired? It is in prayer, not only in public worship, but also in the quiet moments we make in our day that we hush out the world. As we approach Lent, this is a time when many take a spiritual retreat of a day, a few days or longer –a time to still our lives and let our souls quiet and rest to hear the call of God.

But there is a final matter about hearing the voice of Jesus. For one day, this life will end for each of us and we will shut our eyes for the last time…we will move past the veil of death. Jesus has said this of that day: “His sheep will hear his voice and follow him [into eternal life.” Will we know that voice if we do not learn it in this life? If we do not find ways and time to hush the sirens and shouts of professions, culture and internal conflicts and fears, we will at best only know reason and personal values. Such could make us nice people, successful people, but not disciples of Christ. That is what makes a Christian life, one that gives priority to the purposes of God and to a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. But it comes from quieting our lives so we can hear the voice of Our Lord…

So let us just take a moment now and hush out the voices around us and within us and listen with our sense for God. If there is a spouse, family member or friend next to you take their hand and listen in the silence for the voice of Christ, his call and what he would have us do. [A MOMENT OF SILENCE]

Now, in this quiet moment please sing softly with me:

Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name
Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name
Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name
Oh my Lord, Oh my Lord, What shall I do?

It sounds like Jesus; somebody’s calling my name
It sounds like Jesus; somebody’s calling my name
It sounds like Jesus; somebody’s calling my name
Oh my Lord, Oh my Lord, What shall I do?

Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name.
Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name
Hush, hush, somebody’s calling my name
Oh my Lord, Oh my Lord, What shall I do?
AMEN.