Proper 5A

June 8, 2008

Genesis 12:1-9

Psalm 50:7-13

Romans 4:13-25

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Our five-year-old grandson, Ryan, has learned how to play tricks with words. He tries to catch us off guard (because he knows we’re on to him) and he says "Under there!" and the natural response to that is "Under where?" That tickles him to no end. His little face lights up. He laughs and says, "I just made you say underwear." At five, he is learning there are some things you don’t talk about to everybody and underwear is one of them. (Although that’s pretty mild compared to some other things he has said.) He is learning that we choose words to express ourselves according to context and social location. He is learning boundaries of communication – which words and topics are appropriate for family, which are appropriate for school, and which are appropriate in other settings. Of course, while this learning is going on he has embarrassed his parents in public on more than one occasion which tickles me to no end remembering how his daddy embarrassed us.

Every culture and subculture on the planet has its own language, its own mode of expression. Within the culture of the Church we have our own words, symbols, and stories that are particular to us and truly shape our faith. I remind you of that because in today’s lessons we have words specific to us as Christians that are also common words in our larger social context. We have the calling of Abraham with God’s promise of blessing and the calling of Matthew. Call and bless are very common words. You don’t have to be in church to hear those words. Of course they mean something specific to us and to get to their meaning I have to use another word. That is the word, ‘change.’ As you know, the word ‘change’ has been highly politicized in our larger social context over the past year or so. So I ask you to set all that aside for a minute. I am not about to point to the political freight that the word ‘change’ has carried lately. The word carries a different freight for us that is truly at the heart of our faith.

When Abram was called by God, God’s purpose to call a nation of people into a relationship of mutual love came to pass through Abram’s relationship with God. When Jesus called Matthew, God’s purpose to reveal God’s desire to call even sinners and tax collectors into a mutual relationship of love came to pass when Matthew got up and left the tax booth to follow Jesus. For both Abram and Matthew responding to the call to enter into a lasting relationship with God changed them, their lives and their future in a big way.

A call from God is an invitation to change: to change your mind, which is repentance; to change your heart, which is conversion; finally to change your appearance and likeness to the image of God, which is transformation. By the way, transformation is our ultimate goal, individually as Christians and collectively as the Church. And transformation only comes through constant, continual change.

To be called by God is only an invitation to change. We can say ‘no’ if we want to. To be blessed by God is to have God’s favor. That means God has already begun to change those who have been chosen for God’s blessing.

The angel Gabriel said to Mary "Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God." God had already chosen her as the one to bear the Son of God. She said, "Yes. Let it be to me as you have said. From now on all generations will call me blessed." That blessing meant change for Mary. Not only for her and those close to her, but for the whole world. The change didn’t look good either. Not by the social standards of her day. She was a young woman engaged to be married and turned up pregnant not by her soon-to-be-husband. As if that wasn’t enough for Mary to endure, the blessing of being used by God for God’s purpose meant that she would watch her son be mocked and ridiculed throughout his life, not just at the end, and finally die a cruel death for the sake of us all. I suspect Mary didn’t feel blessed until she saw her Son alive again on the other side of death. How could she have known how it would feel to be blessed when she first used that word to describe herself. How could she have known what she would have to endure through her blessedness.

We don’t need any particular qualifications to be called or blessed by God. God did not call Abram because he was so righteous. He was anything but…if you read on in Genesis you learn how he passed his wife off as his sister to keep himself safe. But God was patient with Abram as is God’s way. Though it took a number of years, over time Abram was changed through his relationship with God. And through him many more entered into relationship with God. They were blessed as he was blessed.

You and I said yes to the call of Christians in baptism (or else someone said it on our behalf.) Through the sacrament of baptism, we said yes to the invitation to enter an eternal relationship with God and to a lifelong process of change. None of us was called for our own sake. Nor were we called because we’re so wonderful and flawless that being in relationship with us makes God look good. On the contrary it makes God look flagrantly accepting, sometimes without discretion to even want to be in relationship with the likes of us. That’s exactly why we are called. Who could possibly be better to invite other flawed, not-so-wonderful people into relationship with God than us?

What we learn about God from these stories of call and blessing is that God’s grace and presence on the earth is mediated by ordinary people like Abram and Matthew and you and me. It is a ‘holy’ calling for us. As we live into this holy calling our relationship with God changes us ever so slowly, one repentance, one conversion at a time, until finally we are transformed into the likeness and image of God. And God’s purpose to restore and renew the whole earth comes to pass through ordinary people like us.