Pentecost 24 (NL3) John B. Valentine
Isaiah 6:1-8 November 15, 2020

“WHAT’S MY LINE?”

How many different jobs have you had in your life?

Seriously ... if we were here in our Sanctuary together today ... I’d have you do a “turn and talk” ... and share three different jobs you’ve had over the course of your life ... and hear of the jobs of two or three of your neighbors.

But since were NOT all here in the Sanctuary together ...

You’re just going to have to let me rifle through some of the jobs I’ve held over the years ... and hope that my list gets you to cogitating on your own!

• I was a paper boy for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Oakland Tribune ...
• I was a warehouse stockboy at Consumers Distributing over in Walnut Creek ...
• I was a lab tech and then a chemist in a uranium mine outside of Casper, Wyoming ...
• I was a backpacking guide at a youth camp outside Rocky Mountain National Park ...
• I was an instructor of Koine Greek at the seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota ... and
• I’ve been a pastor ... in some form or another ... since like 1988 ...

Just to name a few.

Odd thing is ... most of those jobs I went looking for ... either:

• because my mom insisted that I get a job ... or

• because I needed the money ... or

• because I wanted to stretch myself a bit and see the world.

But the last one on that list ... that “pastor” job thing ... I didn’t actually go looking for at all.

No ... it came looking for me!

In fact ... I spent the better part of a decade trying to do everything I could to avoid that “pastor job” thing.

And when I first took a call back in Phoenix thirty-some-odd-years-ago ... I only did so with the mindset that I’d be a pastor for a while ... until the next great adventure came along.

Heck ... even to this day ... every once in a while I find myself wondering what I’m going to take on as my next job ... when I’m not doing this anymore!

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Now the reason I tell you this is NOT to get you to worrying that I’m about to take a new call or get a new job ...

No ... there’s not much of a job market out there for six-decade-old clergymen like me!

But rather by way of confession that I really CAN’T relate to this week’s Bible story!

You see ... this week’s lesson ... as recorded in Isaiah chapter six .... is about the call ... the calling ... of the Prophet Isaiah.

Apparently ... in the year King Uzziah died ... that is ... in a time of serious national uncertainty following the fifty-some-odd year reign of one of the more-respected kings in Israel’s history ... this young man Isaiah has a vision of the throne room of God.

And Isaiah seems to hear God say: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

Well ...... Isaiah’s immediate response is that of a third-grader who has done all their homework and is absolutely certain that they know the right answer to the teacher’s question:

“Ohh! Ohh! Ohh! Pick me! Pick me!”

In fact ... Isaiah’s response to God’s request was as filled with eagerness and excitement and energy as were a number of my seminary classmates back in the day ...

Who ... in response to God’s call ... seemed to want to say “Pick me, Lord! Pick me! Pick me!”

But you know how there are TWO kinds of kids in the third grade classroom???

• Those who shoot their hands up at and attempt to blurt out the answer even before the teacher calls on them .... and

• Those who sit on their hands ... and keep their eyes affixed to the desk ... and pray with all their might ... “Lord, I hope the teacher doesn’t call on me.”

Now the Prophet Jeremiah is the patron saint of all those in the latter camp ... those who keep their hands down and their eyes down and hope the call won’t come their way ...

For when Jeremiah hears the call of the Lord ... his immediate reaction is “Huh? What? Are you talking to me??”

While the Prophet Isaiah is the patron saint of all those kids who did their homework and know the answers and can’t wait for the teacher to call their name.

And I ... for my part have always felt a LOT more affinity for Jeremiah than Isaiah when it comes to my own call into ministry.

But I digress ... for the text we have before us today is NOT the story of the call of the Prophet Jeremiah.

It’s the story of the call of the Prophet Isaiah.

But somehow BOTH of those call narratives of those two important biblical prophets ... they beg of us the same question:

Not “WHO has been called to be a prophet or a pastor?” ....

Not “Have YOU been called to be a prophet or a pastor?” ...

But rather this one: “What is it that God has called ... and is calling ... you to do?”

Yup ... you heard me right ... “What is it that God is calling you to do?”

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Now ... I KNOW that some of you are going to immediately start playing the ‘Jeremiah’ card ...

• “Who??? Me??? I’m not a pastor!” ... or
• “Don’t you have to have a masters degree to do that?” ... or maybe
• “Don’t you know that I’m retired??”

But here me out.

You see ... there was a time ... back in the day ... when people thought that the only real calls ... the only real ‘callings’ in life ... were related to ‘church-jobs’ ...

“Pastors” and “prophets” and “priests” and the like.

But when ol’ Martin Luther showed up on the scene back in like 1517 he turned that thinking upside down.

Seriously ... and even we Lutherans sometimes forget to pay attention to this ... one of the truly GREAT discoveries of the Reformation had to do with what is called “vocation”.

For whereas most folks in Luther’s day believed that the only really important tasks in society were in the political and the religious realms ... “the priests and the princes” as it were ...

Luther insisted that every realm of society was a place wherein Christians could live out their callings ... that every station is life was a place from whence one could serve God and neighbor.

So just as being a pastor could be a Christian calling ....

• Being a farmer could be a Christian calling.
• Being a teacher could be a Christian calling.
• Being a homemaker could be a Christian calling.
• Being a soldier could be a Christian calling.
• Being a government official could be a Christian calling.
• Being a businesswoman could be a Christian calling.
• Being a craftsman or a musician or an artist could be a Christian calling.
• Being a shoemaker could be a Christian calling.

To the extent that we ... in any of those positions ... have opportunity to embody the love and grace and goodness of God to our neighbors ... THOSE are our callings .... THOSE are our vocations!

For our mutual vocation ... our mutual calling ... is to what?

“Love the Lord our God with all or heart and soul and strength and mind ... and love our neighbors as ourselves.”

To quote Doctor Luther ...

““If you are a craftsman, you will find the Bible placed in your workshop, in your hands, in your heart; it teaches and preaches how you ought to treat your neighbor.

“Only look at your tools, your needle, your thimble, your beer barrel, your articles of trade, your scales, your measures, and you will find this saying written on them.

“You will not be able to look anywhere where it does not strike your eyes. None of the things with which you deal daily are too trifling to tell you this incessantly, if you are but willing to hear it; and there is no lack of such preaching, for you have as many preachers as there are transactions, commodities, tools, and other implements in your house and estate; they shout this to your face, ‘My dear, use me toward your neighbor as you would want him to act toward you with that which is his.’”

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You see ... for Luther ... and for Lutherans by extension ...

Christians have a whole variety of callings ... vocations ... stations in our lives ... wherein and whereby we can grow in faith and holiness.

• Maybe you’re a spouse ...
• Maybe you’re a parent ...
• Maybe you’re a child ...
• Maybe you’re an aunt or an uncle or a grandparent ...
• Maybe you’re an employee ...
• Maybe you’re an employer ...
• Maybe you’re a student and a classmate ...
• Maybe you’re a teacher and a colleague ...

• You’re a citizen ...
• You’re a neighbor ...
• You’re a church member perhaps.

But in each and every one of those stations in life ... those callings ... those vocations ... you ... I ... we ... each and every one of us ... have opportunity to love and serve our neighbor.

In every one of those stations in life ... we have the opportunity to treat others ... be Christ to others ... in a spirit of love.

Now sometimes those neighbors whom we’re called to serve are someone who is bleeding by the side of the road ... like in that story which Jesus told about the good Samaritan ...

• But sometimes they’re our co-workers ...
• And sometimes they’re our colleagues ...
• And sometimes they’re our competitors ...
• And sometimes they’re our kids ... or our companions or the people who live right next door ...

• And sometimes our neighbors live in a city just overt the hill ...
• And sometimes our neighbors live in a city clear across the country ...
• And sometimes our neighbors live half-way around the world.

But be they our friends, our enemies, the people next door, strangers or that someone bleeding by the side of the road .... our calling is the same ...

To render them love and service ... to be Christ to them ... to love them as Jesus loves us.

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You see ...

The question is NOT “Who has been called to be a prophet or a pastor?” ....

The question is NOT “Have you been called to be a prophet or a pastor?” ...

The question IS “What is it that God is calling you to do?”

And the answer?

“Love your neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself!”