We are Called…

In December I was driving down to Fort Collins for a VA appointment. I left early enough that I could take my camera with me and make some stops along US 34 (Big Thompson Canyon). I had driven by this site a number of times but this time I was able to stop. We had just had a fresh snowfall the day before and this little cabin was covered in a fresh blanket of snow. Even though it is in the midst of a small grouping of homes, it stood alone in its uniqueness. It reminded me of an old time cabin that you might find in the woods or the mountains (with the exception of the modern windows and tools on the front porch).

The cabin doesn’t look like it is big enough for more than one, possibly two people. I began wondering about similar cabins in the mountains or in the woods and lakes of home (Minnesota). Such cabins have been romanticized through the years and the solitary life has as well. From Thoreau’s “Walden” to solitary monks living in hermitages, the notion of living alone has emerged as some sort of ideal situation. Interestingly enough, even a monk like Thomas Merton who lived in a hermitage for a significant period of time as a Trappist monk in the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky, wasn’t separated from community. As John Donne famously said, “No man is an island entire of itself.” We were all created to be in community.

This Sunday’s lectionary readings from Luke and 1 Corinthians speak to community and calling.  As Luke relates the story, immediately after Jesus spent his forty days alone in the wilderness being tempted by the Devil, he returned home to Nazareth in Galilee where he had grown up. Notice how, after spending forty days alone in the wilderness, he returned to community. This pattern would repeat itself over and over again in his ministry where times of solitude would be followed by a return to community. When he sent his disciples out and when he sent the 72 out on a mission, he sent them out two-by-two.

What was the calling of Jesus in Luke’s account? His calling, straight out of the scroll of Isaiah, isn’t what so much of Christianity considers the call to be. It wasn’t to amass great wealth so that leaders can fly around in million dollar private jets. and live in exclusive mansions. It was to do something that was radical back in Jesus’ day and is, sadly, radical today. Preach Good News to the poor! Proclaim that captives will be released… the blind will see… that the oppressed will be set free! All this was a part of the inauguration of the time of the Lord’s favor. Can you hear echoes of Micah 6:8 in this?

That was the call of Christ to the disciples as well. They were called to give up entanglements that would keep them from following Christ. They would be called to go to the outcast and bring them hope. They would be called to buck the religious system in order to bring God’s Good News to the outcast instead of the burdens the religious elites heaped upon them.

There was only one way that this could be done. Jesus called the twelve to come along side of him and do the work. He wasn’t going to do it on his own. He needed the community because he knew that only the example of community he lived out with the disciples would equip and sustain them for the the work that they were being called to do.

When I look around today, I see many people who claim to be Christians only concerned about themselves. An inordinate amount of time is spent deciding who is right and who is wrong. They worry almost exclusively whether or not you have followed the exclusive steps that they say you must to get your “get out of hell-fire and damnation” eternal life insurance policy. This is not a new issue though. Since the beginning, the concern has often times been more about who is in and who is out than what we are called to do as Christ followers. Remember, even the disciples were so busy worrying about stopping someone who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Jesus basically told them to knock it off! (Mark 9:38-39 & Luke 9:49-50) Even though in Matthew 7:22-23 he appears to condemn those who did miracles in his name, he followed it up with the story about the house being built on solid rock or on shifting sand. The rock is not just Jesus’ name, but actually doing what he asks us to do. The impostors were using Jesus name, but not really following what Jesus was asking his followers to do (Love God, Love Neighbor…).

Well, that is what was going on in the church at Corinth at the time Paul wrote his letter to them. They were more concerned about who’s spiritual gift was number one than they were about doing what they had been called to do. Paul laid it out pretty clearly in verses 12-13 of 1 Corinthians, Chapter 12. “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.” (NLT)

During his discussion of spiritual and physical anatomy, you can almost hear the frustration with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Look at yourselves! Are you simply an eye? Are you simply an ear? Are you simply a nose? Are you one of the less honorable parts of the body that we treat with greater 24b-27? Nope! “God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other.If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad. All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:24b-27, NLT)

What is that body called to do? The answer is found in verse thirty-one which leads into 1 Corinthians 13, the great chapter on selfless, agape love. “So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts. But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.” (NLT)

Did you catch that subtlety? Earnestly desire the most helpful gifts. The most helpful for whom you may ask. Read the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians and you will find the answer. It is for love. The love that God has for us and that God asks us to share with others. It is the love which Jesus pointed to when he read from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue in his home town. The love that thinks of others before ones self.

I may sound like a broken record, but the answer is really quite simple (to explain, not necessarily to do). Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God… Love God… Love Neighbor… Love even your enemies… It was that love which allowed Jesus to say from the cross, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing” instead of saying “Father, strike them dead like the dirty little people they are because they aren’t as good as me.”

As I look around at the world today, I see so much hatred, vitriol, and venom spewed. We shoot people (or carpet bomb them as one candidate has said he will do if elected president) because they are different or they annoy us. Frankly, such hatred makes me want to hide away in our little corner of the globe in the Rocky Mountains and never come out. But that isn’t what God calls us to do.

Will you join me, dear reader in this challenge? We may be a small part of the body, but we are called to do wondrous things. The greatest gift according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 is love. May we desire the most helpful gift and then live it out in any and all ways that we can. Lord knows this world could stand a little more love and a lot less hate!