January 15, 2012

Clay Nelson

Epiphany 2     1 Samuel 3:1-20     John 1:43-51

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Today we have heard two stories about people being called. I’d like to share another not in scripture. It’s a true story. I know. I was there.

It was a beautiful fall day in the Appalachians. We had gathered at a large rustic lodge for the weekend. In the main room along one wall was a large window giving a panoramic view of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Along the other was an immense fireplace constructed of river stone. In the room was a circle of 15 wooden stairs that looked like they been there long before Lee surrendered to Grant at nearby Appomattox. In the chairs were a couple of bishops and their staff members, seminary faculty, clergy and laity from the Diocesan Standing Committee and a young man who was at the end of a long road. It was supposed to be an easy interview to approve his ordination. He had been in the top of his class academically, was considered a leader by his peers and faculty, and had completed his clinical training with high marks. But appearances are not always what they seem. A lay member of the Standing Committee asked him the first question: “How do you know you are called to the ordained ministry?”

It shouldn’t have been a trick question. He had been asked it repeatedly over the last five years, but the young man had become exasperated by it. And perhaps feeling a little cocky, he replied cheekily, “I have never heard God call my name in a dream. I’ve never had a vision of God writing my name in the heavens. Frankly I don’t know what God thinks about my becoming a priest.” 

At that precise moment his rickety chair gave way and collapsed, landing the young man unceremoniously on the floor in a heap. 

No, I wasn’t hurt, just chagrined and more than a little concerned about how the committee would interpret my comeuppance or perhaps more precisely, my downfall.

Now everyone has a calling, not just clergy. But clergy seem to be the only ones anyone asks to describe or defend what theirs is. 

Thirty years later, discerning my calling, where it comes from or how best to follow it has not gotten any easier with age and experience. 

I find myself envious of Samuel. He had three pretty definitive and repetitive occasions of being called. He also had a mentor in Eli to affirm that he wasn’t just having nightmares. Philip and Nathanael had it even easier. Jesus spoke to them personally, commanding them to follow. Yes, Nathanael was sceptical before his encounter, but all doubt disappeared after meeting him. I can only hope it went well for Nathanael after his precipitous, love-at-first sight commitment to Jesus. We will never know. This is the first and only time he is mentioned in any of the Gospels.

One of my many problems with call stories is that they make it sound like the call is a fixed point usually at the end of the story instead of at the beginning: God called. Good. That’s done and dusted.

My experience is that a sense of call doesn’t have a beginning and an end. Rarely does it happen in a blazing clarifying moment. Rather it sneaks up on us. Once aware of it though, we never stopped grappling with it. It becomes life’s occupation.

At its core, I have come to believe it is about responding to Socrate’s admonition to “Know Thyself.” To know our selves is at the heart of many faith traditions. In China, the sage Lao Tze said, “He who knows others is wise, but he who knows himself is enlightened.” Rabby Susya told his Jewish followers that on the Day of Judgement, he expected the following enquiry – not “Why were you not like Moses?” but rather, “Why were you not more like Susya?” And Jesus also, according to the recently discover Gospel of Thomas, advised his disciples that “When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realise that it is you who are the [children] of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty.”

To hear and respond to a calling is the subject of many fairy tales and fables. You know the motif. A boy or girl somehow misplaces the knowledge of her true identity. The beggar turns out to be a prince. The stepchild who’s been told she’s plain looking is actually the most beautiful of all. Discovering who you really are, the stories suggest, is like uncovering an unsuspected treasure—something you didn’t know you had that bestows value and meaning on the rest of life, and which you possessed all along.

However, these moments of self-discovery don’t mean we then live happily ever after. Sometimes the chair still collapses underneath us. Discerning and living out a call is a lifelong endeavour, made more challenging by our own evolution. Whether we want to or not we keep changing as we discern and confront our sense of self. We keep having to ask who are we today? Author May Sarton wrote of her own quest for selfhood and authenticity in her journals and her poetry.

Now I become myself. It’s taken

Time, many years and places;

I have dissolved and shaken,

Worn other people’s face.

If we return to that moment when I sheepishly got off the floor dusting off my behind, I frankly had no idea what I was getting myself into, although I’m sure I thought otherwise. I expect there is a reason why I can’t recollect my thoughts at the time. My naïve understanding of who I was and what I was seeking to become would be too embarrassing to recall. I had no clue where this road would take me. I could not have imagined who I am today or the price paid to be that person. I was just beginning to know myself. I still am. The only difference between me then and me now is I know it. While there were successes and achievements on that journey from then to now, it was the innumerable times I landed on my butt that were most informative and formative. I suspect that pattern will continue.

So dealing with the question of what my calling is today is no less exasperating that it was on that Virginia hilltop. I would often prefer to ignore or make light of the question. For if my efforts to know myself lead me in an inconvenient or even risky direction, I’d rather not know. But then it is too late. You either go down that road or you live with knowing you are not being true to yourself. Forsaking forever the opportunity to learn who you were to become.

The Gospels don’t tell us much about how Jesus discerned his call. I guess no one ever asked him. I would love to know how it sneaked up on him. What brought him to leave Nazareth and seek out John to be baptised? We tend to jump to the conclusion that he knew how the next three years were going to play out as he left the wilderness and began calling his disciples. I would argue that he probably knew it was a risky endeavour but little more. All he seemed to know is he had to be himself. He had to teach and heal. He had to give hope and show compassion. He didn’t let power intimidate him. He didn’t let society’s conventions bind him. He didn’t let his friends or family protect him. He didn’t stop seeking understanding or being willing to make adjustments when new insights came to him as he did after meeting the Syro-phoenecian woman. Ultimately he didn’t even let certain death compromise him. Before Pilate he remained silent letting who he had become speak for him.

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus does give his call voice, “That which you have will save you if you bring it forth from yourselves.”

For me that is the ultimate call story for each of us that we might bring our own inimitable and luminous self to life. That is the reason I keep trying to answer the question. I’ve got to know where it leads. 

What is your calling?