"Jesus Is the One Who Calls" Mark 1: 16-20; Genesis 12: 1-5

I switched the third move to the first move in the Chapel, but I decided it would work better the way I had it in the text below.  After doing it both ways, not sure which was better.

I enjoyed the sermon.  It could have been several sermons, and I could have added more about call.  I probably needed to focus on Jesus as the one who calls a bit more.  I'm going to need to keep reminding myself that the focus is on who Jesus is.

“Jesus Is the One Who Calls” Genesis 12: 1-5; Mark 1: 16-20; FPC, Troy; February 3, 2013; Jesus Is the One Who... series

Introduction: As I was working on my sermon last night, my wife said, “keep it short, we have a lot going on in worship tomorrow.”

We do, so I will (try!).

Move 1: When Jesus calls, we leave something behind.

a. Andrew and Peter leave their nets behind.

1. not to be outdone, James and John leave their father and the hired men out in the boat.

2. They leave things behind in dramatic, immediate fashion.

3. In fact, you may have yourself or may have known people who have dramatically left something behind to follow God's call.

b. I may not be a dramatic leaving behind, but we have to leave something to answer Jesus' call.

1. Maybe it's leaving behind something else we would do with the time being demanded by our new call.
2. Maybe it's leaving behind the fear we have of trying something new.
3. Maybe it's leaving the certainty of what we know how to do for the uncertainty of venturing out into a new place.

When Jesus calls, we leave something behind.
Move 2: Conversely, Jesus calls us to something.

a. That something does not have to be a church thing.

1. In Wendell Berry’s novel Jayber Crow, the title character is raised in the Good Shepherd orphanage. He describes hearing preachers “tell in sermons how they had received “the call.” … Not one of those [preachers] had ever suggested that a person could be “called” to anything but “full-time Christian service,” by which they meant either the ministry or “the mission field.” The finest thing they could imagine was that an orphan boy, having been rescued by the charity of the church, should repay his debt by accepting “the call.” Wendell Berry. Jayber Crow, pp. 42–43
2. Call is not the same thing as church work, although I would like to think that church work is about call!
3. IN a global sense, Jesus calls us to a new way of life. A new way of life that encompasses all we do, not just those tasks that are tied to the church.

b. Called to Particular tasks

1. Abram had to leave his home and go to a new land when he was called to be in covenant with God.
   2.  Moses heard God's call to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness.
2. Isaiah was called to prophesy to God's people.
3. The elders and deacons that stand before us today are called to the particular tasks of church leadership and pastoral care.
4. Within the context of the new way of life to which Jesus calls us, there are particular tasks to which we are called.

100. Sometimes, our call is glorious.

1. Frederick Buechner once described calling this way: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Frederick Buechner. Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (1973), p. 95.

500. Sometimes our call lacks such such beauty and symmetry.
     1. Mission trip to Nuevo Laredo.
     2. Hot.
     3. Hardest job, but quickest job. Putting in two pieces of insulation in the attic. Had to wear goggles and a mask, long sleeves, and then crawl across an attic to place the two pieces,. Dirty and probably 120 degrees. I volunteered because I figured an adult should lead by example. This big kid from the other youth group volunteered.
     4. Up we went to lay our two pieces, only to discover that the all the insulation had been installed upside down. Had to be pulled up, flipped, placed back down.
     5. We could only work for about 10 minutes before having to come back down for water and cool air (mind you the cool air was about 98 degrees).
     6. It was miserable. Made me rethink the importance of mission trips./
     7. I asked the young man, “Do you want me to get someone to change out with you?” “No.” “really, this is miserable work, no problem getting someone else.” “No. God sent us here to finish this church. Might as well be me.”
     8. Not much fun in that particular task; but if felt like a calling.

Jesus calls us to something.

Move 3: Listen for Jesus' call.

a. We do not know this from mark's gospel account, but in John we have the sense that the disciples were looking and listening for the Messiah.

1. When Jesus called, they were ready to respond.

2. Are you listening for Jesus?

b. Computer Jr. year in college. Did not have to retype papers. It had a phone modem. We could type in a number and have it call someone. We never did figure out how to talk to the person, but it did not really matter because we only used that mode to pester people. We could set it it sequentially add to the phone number so that it called room after room in the dorm and we would sit and listen to the frustrated people in the dorm answer their phones with no one on the other end.

Our favorite was to set it on an endless loop of ceiling the room next to ours, the one we could hear the guys through the wall, so we could especially enjoy that fun. He would answer a few times, then unplug the phone. Of course, no matter how long he waited (1 minute, or an hour), the minute he plugged the phone in, it rang. Our computer just kept calling!

1. We live in a world where we cannot turn off the demands that call on us. Do this; do that. people and situations demand our attention and call us to do all sorts of things. Sometimes it seems like the calls are on a never-ending loop.

2. Look and listen for Jesus's call.
   
   
   Amen.