Known and Called

There is an anonymity to our contemporary world that comes with blessing and challenges.

Recently, I checked into a hotel online, and upon arriving to the facility, got my key and moved into my room without needing to speak to a single human soul.

On one hand, there was an efficiency and ease to this process that made sense from the perspective of convenience and economy.

But on the other hand, I experienced a certain sadness at the lack of human contact and interaction.

As I reflected on this feeling, I started wondering about how this experience of impersonal-ity could stack over time to produce a profound sense of isolation and disconnection in a person.

We know that our experience of the pandemic only accelerated this sense of detachment from others, and my guess is that as we embrace more processes and preferences in the name of efficiency, we are at the risk of even greater depths of isolation.

In this contemporary context, what would it mean to us to be known and called by God to a life of reconnection in community?

That is the central question at play as we listen to Samuel and today’s Gospel.

Both are call stories—stories meant to reveal to us how God reaches out to us as human beings and draws us into relationship and service.

In Samuel’s case: the young boy, whose birth was an answer to his mother Hannah’s prayer, has been dedicated to service in God’s Temple under the tutelage of the priest Eli.

Eli’s sons have done some pretty unholy things, bringing shame on their father’s legacy, and in a sense, Samuel is a sort of redeeming spiritual son to the old priest.

When the Lord calls Samuel, at first, he believes the voice to be Eli’s, but as the pattern repeats, Eli the elder becomes aware that it is God calling the boy.

Even though the prophetic word that the Lord shares with Samuel is painful for Eli to hear, he still is faithful and wise enough to instruct his apprentice to utter it, no matter the cost.

In this story of being known and called, I am moved by the way that Eli knows the Lord well enough instruct Samuel to address God directly, and by the way that the calling of Eli and Samuel are bound by fidelity to the word of God, regardless of cost.

I think back to my own experience of ministry and the faithful mentors I’ve had who have known God and known me well enough to guide me into an authentic relationship with God and God’s people.

Those mentors were not perfect people—it turns out that none of us are!—but they were faithful enough to speak truthfully about their imperfections and their challenges as well as speaking honestly about the contours of their own call in Christ.

For years, I identified with the younger Samuel but now, as one who is aging, I find myself on the other side of the equation: hoping to pass on the value of allowing oneself to be fully known by God and one’s peers while staying true to the call we have.

In the Gospel, we see how being known and being called are experienced by those first followers of Jesus.

When word of Jesus begins sweeping through Galilee, it is Philip who eagerly responds to the call.

Then he goes and shares the good news with Nathanael, that the Messiah whom they’ve longed for is from Nazareth, and Nathanael responds incredulously, “Can anything good come of Nazareth?”

I love this scene because Nathanael’s response is so human and very much like the kinds of things we think these days—and yet a key feature of the good news in Christ is that God’s message and messenger can—and do—arise so frequently from the places and persons we’d least expected.

Can anything good come out of Rebibbia?

Can anything good come out of Alabama?

Can anything good come out of Gamburu?

Nathanael’s question is a reminder to me that looking for God in the parts of the world and the corners of our lives which may not be as prized as others is one of the best ways to draw nearer to the Holy One.

As we learn to look for God beyond the flashy and the traditional, we are put into contact with people that God knows and loves, and we might even better learn how to love them.

Nathanael can’t believe that Jesus knows him and has regarded him, even before they meet in person for the first time. 

Such is the way God knows us all.

Before we were formed in our mother’s womb we were known and loved, and God has been calling every single one of us into an abundant life in community that is shaped and molded by the wisdom, pattern, and gift of Christ’s life.

And IF we are so fully known and loved, then part of our calling is to extend that knowing and loving to one another, and to ever wider circles of creation.

We have this holy gift called Church where we get to practice the methods that lead us to knowing one another better, and over time and with much dedication and prayer, we begin to learn the connection between knowing and loving.

But for too long, churches have been known less for being the places where imperfect-yet-faithful people practice, and more as the haven for those who wish to hide behind the veneer of surface religion.

Jesus’ call and mission had a lot to do with confronting this kind of religion, and if we are to be faithful to Christ, then we have to accept his call to confront such superficial kinds of religion in ourselves and in our own day.

Rather than pointing the finger at others as a first course of action, it would be better for us to begin closer to home, with the shape of faith in our own community and in our own lives.

Jesus’ words to Nathanael, “Here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit” is the catalyst that causes Nathanael to realize that all of who he is, what he has done, and what he has left undone is known to God.

And over the course of their ministry together, the first disciples began to learn that God’s full knowledge of them leads not to their total rejection and condemnation, but to ever more incredible and meaningful displays of God’s love for them.

Yes, part of their call—and the call upon all our lives—is to allow ourselves to be transformed and conformed by the love, justice, and power of God.

But for the vast majority of us, the greatest challenge we face is coming to terms with the truth that God fully knows us AND fully loves us. Right. Now.

Flaws and all, and no matter what kind of standing or estimation we may have in the larger world.

When we honestly accept this truth, as we are called to initially in our baptism, and begin to live according to it in a community of practice, then a couple of important transformations are apt to happen.

First, we begin to see one another as fellow children of God, engaged in a shared journey.

And since God so freely knows and loves us in our imperfections, then we gain the capacity to know and love ourselves and our neighbors more faithfully.

This shows itself in how we speak to one another, how we seek one another out for support in times of challenge and celebration, and is an invisible, yet tangible feature of church communities.

When visitors comment on the welcome they receive from each one of you at coffee hour, or when your fellow members expound to me your good deeds of compassion and care through the week, they are experiencing the gifts of a church that is moving from the superficial to the authentic world of knowing and loving.

Secondly, the more practice we individually and communally get in this, the greater capacity we gain, through God’s grace, to share it beyond the walls of ourselves and our community.

Embracing the truth of being known and loved, leads us to embrace our deepest call in Christ—which is nothing less than the reconciliation of the world in God’s name.

The saints are fellow human travelers who have seen themselves through God’s revealing and loving gaze, and emerged from that purifying fire as empowered servants called to share the love they have known through the particular gifts God has given them.

It is our mutual calling to follow their lead, but to do so uniquely, as only we can do, based on the gifts among us and within us.

What part of this continuum do you find yourself on this week?

Are you in need of accepting the reality that God knows and loves you in your entirety?

Are you in need of praying for ways to put that knowing and loving into greater practice here at St. Paul’s and in the situations of your daily life?

Or are you in need of exploring how you’ll answer the call to share this good news beyond this community, so that God’s knowing and loving can reach a world that seems bent on isolation, division, and impersonal-ity?

Wherever you are this week, know that just as God knew and loved Samuel, knew and loved Eli, knew and loved Philip, and knew and loved Nathanael, God knows and loves you.

Embrace that truth this week, however you can and as deeply as possible, and then take up the mantle of the call to practice its ways here in community, and with the world beyond.

Remember that God’s call is not about pretending or posing.

You will recognize it whenever the option set before you is to choose authenticity and transformation—and, most of all, love.