Reflections on “A Higher Calling” Deuteronomy 30: 15-30

This is the penultimate sermon in the preaching series "Calling All Disciples."  It felt like it worked.  

 “A Higher Calling” Deuteronomy 30: 15-30; SAPC, Denton; February 5, 2023; Calling All Disciples series Richard B. Culp 

 See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. ¹⁶If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. ¹⁷But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, ¹⁸I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. ¹⁹I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, ²⁰loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Introduction:   We continue our preaching series “Calling All Disciples” and the invitation to reflect on our own sense of what God is calling us to do.

Two weeks left. 

Move 1:  To follow your call means to make a decision about that next step.

a.  the story we read in Deuteronomy is about making decisions.

1. Part of Moses’ farewell address.

2.  he is looking at the future for God’s people as they are about to enter the Promised land, knowing he will not go with them.

3.  and he is looking back over his life and the history of the Israelite people and recognizes that his life has been a series of decisions he makes about following his calling.

4.  Remember, Moses was an Israelite baby saved by his sister and mother from being killed as an infant and then raised by Pharaoh’s daughter.  

5.  AS his life unfolds from that point, Moses has to make a series of decisions. 

As a young man, he has to decide if his loyalty was with his Israelite people or with his adopted Egyptian upbringing and stature.

then, when Moses encounters the burning bush with God’s request that he go back and lead god’s people, Moses has to make a choice - go back and lead God’s people out of Egypt or do something else.

Throughout the journey in the wilderness, Moses has multiple moments in which he can choose to follow God’s leading, or turn away.

  3.  Likewise, Mose can look over the history of God’s people and see where they have made decisions to follow God’s calling and other times when they have ignored God and chosen a different path.

b.  As we read this story, we are reminded that following God’s call for our lives means making particular choices at particular times in our lives.

1.  As we move down our life’s journey, decision points come along the way.

3.  interesting point about this story we read in Deuteronomy - it describes a time in the life of the Israelites when they had to make a big decision, it was a story that was told often in the 6th C BCE when the Israelites were in Babylonian captivity.

In both settings the shape of Israel’s future was uncertain and this word from God was intended to assure God’s people that a future of life in the land of promise was certainly in view. At the same time, how the people responded to the word of God would shape the nature of that future.(https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-23-3/commentary-on-deuteronomy-3015-20-3; Terence E. Fretheim)

4.  The point being made is that the Israelites’ journey as God’s people will have multiple decision points about how they follow their calling.

5.  Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we may misread our calling at times or like Moses try to avoid God’s call for our lives,  but the good news is that God is ever before us, giving us opportunities to change directions again or finding ways to redeem the call we have chosen.

4.  Answering God’s call for your life is not a one-time event, but a series of decisions we make as our lives change and the world around us changes.

move 2: The story from Deuteronomy also gives us the important reminder that We do not choose our call as a way of earning God’s love or our salvation.

a. Scholars point out that when Moses sets up this moment of decision-making, the people had already been redeemed by God (see Deuteronomy 7:7-8). 

1.  God has already chosen them.

2. they do not have to answer God’s call correctly to earn God’s love.

3.  Instead, making decisions about their calling is a response to their experiencing God’s saving grace.

b.  As you consider how to answer God’s call for your life, it is not about you having to do something to earn God’s love

1. God has already chosen to love you.

2. Following God’s call is your response to God’s gracious love.

move 3:  the story we read from the Gospel of Matthew also reminds us to think about our call in aspirational terms.

a.  Notice how Jesus talks to the gathered crowd.

1. this passage follows up Jesus’ teaching that we know s the Beatitudes, sort of his instructions for how we are to approach our lives.

2.  in a series of comments, he takes the letter of the law and pushes it to a higher standard.

3. We are not called to act in ways that settle for the lowest standard we can get by with, but to push for ways that reveal God’s grace and god’s love.  

b.  As you ponder where God is calling you in your life, do not settle for the easiest things that come along that may or may not fit what you are sensing God is calling you to do.

1. Be aspirational.

2.  Consider how and where God is sending you that pushes you and calls you to give of yourself in meaningful ways.

Move 4:  Final thought - as you consider your calling, remember  Moses’ words - choose life

a.  Interestingly enough, the way Moses uses this phrase is very unique in the Old Testament.

1.  This is the only time in the Old Testament that this Hebrew word for “choose” (behar) has human beings as subject.

2.   (usually God “chooses”). 

3. Perhaps this emphasizes the importance of choosing to follow God and how in doing so it is life-giving.

b. years ago as I contemplated my own sense of call, one of the pivotal moments was listening to a sermon.

1.  I still remember the sermon title: “I’d Rather Be Fishing.’

2.  I actually heard it twice - Friday night at the final worship service at Synod Youth Workshop, where I was an adult leader,  and then again two days later in Houston where I was about to start law school and decided to worship at the church where the keynoter from Synod Youth Workshop served as pastor.

3.  He didn’t write a new sermon. 

 he preached his Friday night sermon again.

i guess I needed to hear it twice to get it.

4. the preacher’s main illustration that led to the sermon’s title was a bumper sticker that adorned many cars at the time that said, “I’d rather be fishing.”

5. The minister suggested that too many people chose to do those things that we thought we were supposed to do, or that the world told us to do, or that we thought we should do because of all the rewards that might come with doing it,  instead of listening for and then following God’s call for their lives.

6. He suggested if you follow God’s call, you will never need

 a bumper sticker that says, “I’d rather be fishing!”

c. As I responded to that sermon then and have reflected on it through the years, it seems to me that he was saying follow your call that is life-giving to you.

1.  sometimes the call we choose to follow may be difficult;  

2.  sometimes, it may feel like the wheels have been greased because everything flows so nicely.

3. either way, our calling should be life-giving to us and bring opportunities for us to give life and meaning to others.

4. the God who gives us life by blowing the breath of life into the mud calls us to places and tasks that breathe life into us and others.  

5. That is who God is; that is what God desires for us.

Conclusion:   The Israelites are at a place where they know their world is about to change drastically as they enter the Promised Land.

Moses reminds them at this critical moment: “follow God’s call and choose the path that is life-giving.”

You may not be at such a critical moment in your life’s journey, but Moses’ words still ring true:   “follow God’s call and choose the path that is life-giving.”

Reflections on “Called to Feed” Isaiah 58

This Sunday, we had our Worship through Work activity with an abbreviated worship service, which did include celebrating the Lord's Supper.  I had intended to have a brief sermon (5 minutes or less), but it got a little long.  To preach a short sermon like that demands the sermon be very focused.  I did not achieve that either!  

Here is a link to the Last Supper painting I mentioned in the sermon. LmpwZw.jpg  I actually had never seen it, just read about it.  Seeing it, I realize that the way I described it did not really reflect what it looks like (I blame Nicolas Sparks for that).  A member of the congregation noted she had seen the painting, which led me to look it up on the Internet (should have done it before the sermon).  It does not look like what I expected, but the painting does jar our expectations.

“Called to Feed” Isaiah 58; SAPC, Denton; February 5, 2023; Calling All Disciples series Richard B. Culp 

Isaiah 58: 1-9  Shout out, do not hold back!
   Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
   to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet day after day they seek me
   and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practised righteousness
   and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgements,
   they delight to draw near to God.
‘Why do we fast, but you do not see?
   Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast-day,
   and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
   and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
   will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
   a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
   and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
   a day acceptable to the Lord? 

Is not this the fast that I choose:
   to loose the bonds of injustice,
   to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
   and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
   and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
   and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
   and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
   the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
   you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. 

Introduction:   We continue our preaching series “Calling All Disciples” and the invitation to reflect on our own sense of what God is calling us to do.

As we did last week, this week we are looking at particular aspects of your call.  Today’s conversation may not address your exact call, but perhaps it can be a springboard for you to consider different aspects of your own call.

Move 1:  Prophet Isaiah uses the food context to make his point.

a. what fast is acceptable to our Lord?

1.  Fasting is a fairly common term these days with the popularity of intermittent fasting as a way of dieting or living in a healthy fashion.

2. Isaiah, of course, is referring to fasting as a religious practice, a ritual people did as a response to God.

3. In part, Isaiah connects fasting with the concrete example of feeding people.

c.   Sara Miles, in her book Take This Bread, tells the story of her becoming a disciple of Christ as well as starting the Food Pantry, which provides free groceries to over 1200 families at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal church in San Francisco.

In a carnival-like atmosphere, each Friday night families arrive at the sanctuary to “select the food they need from a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, rice, pasta, beans, cereal, and dry goods The Food Pantry is run entirely by volunteers, most of the people who came to get food and stayed to help out. It is supported entirely by donations:(Read more about it at https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/52648/the-food-pantrys-sara-miles-on-serving-the-citys-hungry or https://sara-miles.squarespace.com/the-food-pantry

She asks the question:  “How could I take communion, read the Bible, and not feed people?”

Sounds like Isaiah asking the question:  is it not the fast of righteous people to share your bread?”

So we go from our Lord’s Table to pack meals today to help feed the hungry in the world.

 Move 2:  But Isaiah uses the term fast in a broader sense than just food.

a.  He asks:

Is not this the fast that I choose:

   to loose the bonds of injustice,

   to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

   and to break every yoke?

   and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

   and not to hide yourself from your own kin? 

doing more than just answering the call to feed the body;

also hearing the call to meet the needs of the world.

b.  I am reminded of the story Nicolas Sparks tells in his autobiographical work titled,  Three Weeks with My Brother,

1.  He chronicles his life through the three weeks he and his brother travel around the world seeing some of the great sites.

2.   When they are visiting the Inca civilization in Peru, he describes what it was like when the Spanish missionaries arrived to convert the Incas to Catholicism,  they’d had to blend the religion with local culture as a way to make it more palatable to the natives.  An example was a painting of the Last supper that the missionaries commissioned a local artist to paint. the painting has, as expected,  Jesus surrounded by his disciples as they gathered around the Table.

there was the bread and wine prominently displayed. And there was another platter in front of Jesus with a roasted pig on it. Three Weeks with My Brother, Nicholas Sparks, 114).

The Incan painter could not imagine any great meal, even the Last Supper, without a roasted pig in it.

3.  A reminder that we incorporate our faith in the context of our lives.

4.  As you lay claim to Isaiah’s call to fast, you live it out in the context of your own life and your particular call.

is the fast you choose, in your context, 

to feed the hungry;

 or to loose the bonds of injustice,

   to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

   and to break every yoke?

   and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

   and not to hide yourself from your own kin? 

Conclusion:  You listen for God's call and the choose your fast.   

Reflections on “A Call to Do Justice” Micah 6: 1-8

this week, we shifted from reflecting on our calling in general terms to particular aspects of our call.  this preaching series follows the lectionary passages, so I did not randomly reflect on how the command to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God" fits with our sense of call.  But, it seemed highly appropriate.

One interesting point in Micah that I didn't include is the ending of Micah, which speaks about how God is faithful and will forgive.  At one point in the sermon preparation, I had that as my last point of the sermon, but by the time I preached the sermon, it seemed extraneous. 

 “A Call to Do Justice” Micah 6: 1-8; SAPC, Denton; January 29, 2023; Calling All Disciples series Richard B. Culp 

Micah 6: 1-8:  Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. ²Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. ³“O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! ⁴For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. ⁵O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”

⁶“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? ⁷Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” ⁸He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Introduction:   We continue our preaching series “Calling All Disciples” and the invitation to reflect on our own sense of what God is calling us to do.

In the last two weeks, we have reflected on the calling of the first disciples and our own call in broad parameters.

In the next few weeks, we will be looking at different aspects of our calls.  As we do so, I hope you will listen and reflect and lay claim to how the sermon’s theme may speak to your own particular call. 

This week my wife Leslie asked me to read the chapter in the book Laughing your way to Grace, which is the book the women’s class is studying on Super Wednesday.  She thought it fit with the sermon series on call.

So I read it.  the chapter was about the author working on answering the question, “Who are you?”  which fits nicely with the idea of who God is calling us to be.    in this particular chapter, the author was describing how she discovered laughter was an important part of her sense of call. 

We all have different aspects of the particular call God has for us.  

So as we hear the prophet Micah speak to us about an aspect of our calling, which is not laughter by the way, I hope you will use his words as a springboard to discovering different aspects of your call.

More 1:  We begin our reflections on call this morning with the prophecy Micah.

a.  highly appropriate to turn to a prophet when reflecting on call.

1.  prophets had their own sense of call - called to prophesy, to share God’s word.

2. Micah’s sense of call grew out of his context of growing up in a village in the foothills of Judah southwest of Jerusalem in the 8th century BCE.

3.  he hears to call to proclaim God’s Word during a time when Israel went from a  divided monarchy - southern and northern kingdoms - through the time when the northern kingdom was conquered and the southern kingdom was being threatened.

b.  His call included helping God’s people analyze and refine God’s call for them as people of God collectively and individually.

1.  Micah looks out over the two kingdoms, sees what is happening to God’s people, and calls them back to what it means to be God’s people.

  

2.  He describes their calling in one of Scripture's most well-known passages:  

and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

more 2: As we hear Micah’s prophesy, we are reminded that all of us are challenged to hear the call to do justice.

a.  By the time Micah arrives at the passage we read today, he has already “lodged complaints” against all sorts of people.

1.  He has a complaint against Israel.

2. In particular, the capital cities of Samaria in the northern Kingdom and Jerusalem in the southern kingdom.

3. he has called the religious leaders false prophets.

4.  Micah takes the civic and cultural elite to task.

Micah paints a horrifying picture of political oppression and economic exploitation by the strong and powerful against the weak and dispossessed. “The powerful dictate what they desire — they all conspire together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge” (7:3–4). The rich are people of violence (6:12). (Don Clendenin, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/1251-micah-prophetic-critique-and-pastoral-comfort)

b. My point is this - Micah’s reach was far and wide.

1.  if we hear Micah’s words and think they are only about those “other people,” we have probably neglected to recognize our own complicity.

2.  Micah’s challenge “to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God” is for all of us.

3. As you reflect on your own calling, consider how Micah’s prophecy lays claim on us.  

4.  within our own particular circumstances, how are you doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God?

5. in particular, if where God calls you puts you in positions of leadership, or positions of power, or access to resources, how are you living into Micah’s call?

Move 2:  We might also note that the call to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God is a reflection of who God is and a response to what God has done.

a.   Notice that in the middle verses of the passage we read this morning the reminder of who God is and what God has done.

1.  Those “saving acts of God” (verse 5) on Israel’s behalf include: the exodus from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 1-15); 

2. the leadership of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam (a striking female reference, Exodus 15:20-21);

3.  the deliverance from the Moabite King Balak through the agency of Balaam as the people made their way through the wilderness (Numbers 22-24); 

4.  and the climactic move into the promised land itself, a place full of milk and honey.  using familiar shorthand:  from Shittim, east of the Jordan, to Gilgal on the west (see Joshua 2:1; 3:1; 4:19; 5:19). (https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-after-epiphany/commentary-on-micah-61-8-3; Terence E. Fretheim)

5.  In remembering what God has done, we remember that God is a God of salvation;

God brings us to a new way of life.

God is the one who walks with us in all circumstances.

6. Who is God?  the God of saving grace and new life.

b.  Now that Micah has reminded us of who God is, he calls us to respond.

1.  Apparently, the people in Micah’s time thought that the response God desired was more burnt offerings, more rams, more oils, and even your firstborn.

2.  in other words, in response to God’s saving grace, God’s people decide to share their riches.

3. But, that is not what God asks of them.

4. Micah declares that God does not care about their worship sacrifices;

God cares about how they live their lives and treat people.

5. What does the Lord require?  that God’s people live in a way that reflects the God of salvation.

do justice

love kindness

walk humbly with God.

6. Our call should reflect two important aspects -  concern for those who are in need of justice and aligning ourselves to walk with God.

7. That is not necessarily a distinct calling, but a part of all of our callings.

Move 3:  Nothing easy about living into our calling.

a.  Next to the window in my study, where I can’t but see it every day, there’s a framed cartoon from an old edition of the National Lampoon. It’s a spoof of a Medici rose window from the cathedral in Florence, and depicts a laughing camel leaping with ease through the eye of a needle. The superscription reads: “a recurring motif in works commissioned by the wealthier patrons of Renaissance religious art,” while the Latin inscription on the window itself is “Dives Vincet,”or “Wealth Wins!” John Rollefson, "Eye of the Needle," Christian Century, September 21, 2004, 20. Referenced in Robert Dunham's sermon at Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church, 6/14/15. 

1.  Hard to pull back from the pressures of the world and demands and expectations in our lives to conform to a world where power and riches and concern for only ourselves runs rampant.

2.  But, the prophet Micah calls us to the challenge.

3.  Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann notes:

We have been sent dangerously by God’s address—
called by name, entrusted with risky words, 
and empowered with authority. 
We are to tell the truth openly, work for justice, 
and stand in solidarity with our neighbors. 
The cost is high, but the purposes are those of the Holy God.

Walter Brueggemann, “Can We Risk It?”from Prayers of a Privileged People

4. not an easy call, but a call that reflects the nature of God’s saving grace.

b. Paul asks the corinthians to consider their call.

1. “Consider your own call brothers and sisters,” he writes to the Corinthians.

2.  they are trying to figure out what it means to be called by a God of resurrection

3.  Paul describes it as the foolishness of the gospel - that through Christ’s submitting to the powers of the world in his death on the cross, God’s saving grace might come to all.

4.  foolishness 

like turning away from the powers of the world and choosing

“do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Conclusion:    After all, it is part of your calling