Living In A Manner Worthy Of The Call You Have Received

I was talking with someone recently who was praising the work that we do through Spiritus Christi – almost to the point of elevating it above other kinds of work. And while I am proud of what I and we do here, I often reflect that I am grateful that I get to do this work AND I am grateful that so many other people have been called to OTHER kinds of work! Imagine if we were ALL called into ministry! There’d be no surgeons, scientists, bus drivers and child care workers!

In the past few weeks, I met someone who is wildly enthusiastic about accounting and loves to help companies with this.

I talked with someone who is doing caretaking these days and considers it an honor and privilege.

I met someone who works in manufacturing helping to produce parts for hearing aids and really appreciates what their work makes possible for others.

And I have talked with numerous teachers who recently went back to school and just LOVE being with the children that they are with every day.

Our first reading today from Ephesians 4 encourages us to “live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience.”  I just love that framing from Paul because it invites us each to try to sift through the noise in order to discern our call.

And our call can change over time.

So I see this as the real and ongoing invitation to listen to God’s present urgings in our life and not get caught in comparisons to what others are doing or even what we used to be doing.

Paul continues by telling us that “grace was given to each of us” and that some were asked to be “apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry.” 

I know that sometimes our “call” comes in a dramatic way that makes it clear to us as we hear or feel, “Do this!” Other times we only have an inkling that we need to test and follow. Sometimes it starts as an invitation from another.

Like in our gospel.

Today we read from Matthew 9 where Matthew (the gospel writer himself) is called to follow Jesus. 

As best as we can tell, Matthew was likely a tax collector who worked for the Roman empire (see the part below about working at the ‘customs post’). The general public despised tax collectors, in part, because tax collectors often extorted more money from people, took bribes or engaged in other shady money practices. And they were especially despised by the Jewish people who watched as their tax money went into the pockets of their Roman occupiers. The Romans also often chose (or forced) Jewish people for the job in order to pit oppressed people against one another.

The gospel tells us that “as Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And [Matthew] got up and followed him.”

What I love about so many of the call stories is that the person being called had no idea what they were being called into. They just said, “Yes.” I’m guessing a lot of us can relate from our own lives. From deciding to partner with someone to having children, from finding our way into a career of some sort to caretaking for someone – we often have no idea where the yes will lead but we try to do it faithfully. No matter what the world might say.

Which is where we find Jesus. The crowds see the company he is keeping – “tax collectors and sinners” – and they are beside themselves. These are not chosen people. These are not holy people.

And Matthew, for his part, needs to put any shame and unworthiness behind him as he decides that he, too, has a place alongside Jesus and in God’s kin-dom.

So Jesus needs to remind the crowds why God came into the world. To seek out the lost and to welcome the excluded. He’s not calling the righteous but instead calls the sinners. And he ends by saying his famous line (quoting Hosea 6:6) about God desiring “mercy, not sacrifice.”

As we sit with what these readings might reveal to us, I might try to sum it up as follows:

You need not be perfect for God to use you
You need not know what you are doing for God to use you
You need not have the approval of others for God to use you
You need not do anything dramatic for God to use you
You need only say, “Yes…”
Believing in your own goodness and worthiness
Leaving your customs post behind
Living in a manner worthy of the call you have received
Relying on the grace that is given us
To do what is ours to do

I always love the old Jewish story told by Martin Buber about Rabbi Zusya. Buber said, “Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said “In the coming world, God  will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ God will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?”

May we all be who we are called to be and encourage others to do the same.