Cathedral Sermons
Evensong January 24, 2010
Readings: Numbers 9: 15-23; 1 Cor 7: 17-24
Some years ago I trained as a journalist and took a job working for three community newspapers in the Waikato. While I enjoyed the work I did, the job itself was frustrating. Working in three towns, splitting my week between three offices, meant that it was not easy to build relationships and I often had to pass on my best and most exciting stories to the journalist who worked permanently in each town. Some months after I took the job the opportunity came up for me to take a full time journalist position at one of the papers. I felt deeply conflicted about the decision. From a career development perspective taking the full time job at one paper would be good, but it was in Matamata – a half hour drive from Cambridge where I lived.
I did not want to make the wrong decision. I wanted to follow God’s call on my life and to be where God wanted me to be. In my confusion, I sort the advice of an older wiser friend. What should I do? I asked. I don’t want to make the wrong decision. Perhaps, she suggested, there is no wrong decision.
No wrong decision? How could that be? Surely God had a plan for me. I just needed to work out what it was. “God will be with you which ever path you choose.” My friend explained. “You can serve God in either situation.”
What might seem incredibly obvious now, came as quite a revelation to me at the time. My friend had helped me to see that I could live out my call to follow Christ anywhere, in any situation or any context.
This is I think the very point that Paul is trying to make in his letter to the church in Corinth. The passage we heard read today comes from Chapter 7, in the context of a discussion about marriage and celebacy. The people of Corith are concerned about which is a better and more Christ like way of life. Paul explains that whether married or single, the people of Corinth should remain. He then offers a series of wider examples of categorization in first century society, to emphasize his point. Circumcision and slavery.
“Let each of you lead the life that God has assigned to you. Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called”. Married or unmarried, circumcised or uncircumcised, slave or free. Remain as you are.
Rather than talking about being called by God from one place to the other, as we often use the term call, Paul is referring here to conversion. Remain as you are at when you came became a Christian the time you came to know Christ.
Paul had quite a short term vision of the world. He believed that Christ’s return was imminent. His advice to remain as you are for the end of time will soon be here.
His point is not that Jesus does not call us out of our present situation. Paul himself knew that God sometimes calls us to a radical change in life direction. On the Road to Demascus he went from being persecutor of the Christians to follower of Christ. And in this passage itself he encourages any who are slaves and how the opportunity to be free to “avail themselves of the opportunity”. Paul encourages the early Christians to grow in knowledge and likeness of Jesus many times in his letters to the early church.
If we were to take his advice to remains as you are when you were converted literally those of us who came to know Christ in childhood would never leave home, or school, we would never explore the world or grow in our knowledge of God, ourselves and others.
There is however a timeless truth I think in Paul’s message. This is his rule in all the churches – not just for Corinth. His point is that where you are in society does not matter when you live in Christ. Married or unmarried, circumcised or uncircumcised, slave or free, in this job or that job, this country or that country; it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you keep God’s commandments – that you follow Christ. Where ever you happen to be.
This passage echos his message to the Galatians – “In Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. In Christ there is no discrimination of gender class or race.”
It is easy I think to loose sight of the fact that who we are is good enough for God. That while life with Christ leads us to spiritual growth and development, God delights in each one of us, just as we are.
If offer the story of a young man named Sam by way of example. Sam was considering his vocation to the priesthood. Sitting in church one Sunday he listens as the vicar Paul delivers a powerful and relevant sermon. Already feeling a little daunted by the prospect of ordained ministry the young man finds himself become more and more overwhelmed. As he watches the man he admires deeply, he is filled with the sense that he could never be a priest.
I can’t do this, he thinks. I could never preach like that. I haven’t his gift with words or his confidence in public speaking. I must have been crazy to think that I could be a priest. I must have misunderstood God’s call.
At this point God intervenes. In order to look at the preacher the young man must look over the shoulder of a woman in the community named Jan. Jan is the mother of a dear friend of Sam’s. She is in formation for ordained ministry and has been supportive and encouraging of Sam’s spiritual journey and exploration of his call. John has always admired Jan’s pastoral gifts. I wish I had the patience and gentleness to listen as she does, he had often thought. Sam turned his attention from the preacher to Jan. She is not like our vicar he thought to himself. She does not have his confidence in front of crowd. And yet I do not doubt her gifts for ministry.
It was then that Sam realised that God was not asking him to be like his Vicar Paul or like Jan. God was asking him to be himself – with his gifts and talents, his unique combination of strengths and weaknesses, life experience, hopes and dreams. With this realization he found a peace in his own discernment. I can be myself he thought. I can be myself and offer all that I have to serve God where this journey takes me.
As we go into the week I invite you to consider your own unique situation – your position in your household or family, your place of work or the community organizations and friendships of which you are part. God is calling you to serve Christ, as and where you are. In your ethical choices, your kind words, the extra time you take to help someone, the love you share. In any given everyday situation, God is calling you and giving you the grace and wisdom you need to live Christ’s mission to the world.