“Duck Calls”
Rev. Dr. David E. Gray
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
August 30, 2009
Colossians 3: 12-17; Ephesians 4: 1-6
Our 10 month son, Brendan, is at an age where he is communicating largely by quaking. Or at least that is what it sounds like to Bridget and me. As I was writing this message, I had his duck calls ringing in my ears much of the week.
Today we begin a new sermon series on faith and work in the world. How we push our faith past the boundaries of Sunday. We do so as we approach Labor Day and the return of a focus on work in the D.C. area, and as our church nominating committee encourages us to begin considering how we might serve in positions of leadership in the church. Recently, I have had conversations with several of you about the stirrings you are feeling concerning how to spend your time and energy during the week in relation to your faith. For some people that means our employment. The economic challenges of the past year have caused many of us to think about career choices. And for some who have retired from work, we are thinking about how best to use our time and gifts. In what you have shared I heard you asking over and over the crucial question, “What is God calling me to do?”
That question is crucial because is shows you realize that you all called, that you care about God’s direction and that you care about doing what glorifies God. In our second lesson we read about Paul’s response to the actions of the Ephesians. The Book of Ephesians, like many of Paul’s writings, focuses on faith in God through Christ and how Christians should act in response to God’s grace. Paul was concerned about how many people were acting and so wanted to implore them to take seriously their calling as Christians. For he knew that everything else they were looking for would flow from that. Reading now from Ephesians chapter 4 and God’s holy word.
Let us pray. Almighty God, illuminate your word for us this morning and help us to always to seek your call in our lives, your guidance in our decisions and your loving kindness in our hearts. Amen.
When I was growing up in Ohio, my family had a variety of different pets: a rabbit, a dog. One day my parents came home with a duck. I can remember some evenings, watching the duck sitting in its pen slouching its head as if it were sleeping. Yet one quick movement by me, even quietly, and the duck would immediately move to the other side of the pen. And I didn’t need to make some loud duck call either, even the silent movements that I made caused the duck to react.
I realized that while the duck may have been partially napping, it really wasn’t sleeping too soundly. It turns out that many types of ducks have the ability to sleep with one eye open. So I read up on it and discovered that researchers have found that ducks can engage in uni-hemispheric sleep. While sleeping with one eye open, one hemisphere of the bird's brain is awake while the other is sleeping. The awake half allows ducks to keep an eye open for friends, foes and food, even while getting some needed rest.
This type of multitasking doesn’t come easily to human beings. Nor should it, we all need our sleep. But there is something we can learn from the ducks about staying alert, that we actually can use when we are making decisions about our future. That is, the value of not getting so caught up inside ourselves that we miss the calls that are coming to us from the outside.
I find that one of the greatest challenges of the Christian life is making decisions about the future. Whether it’s what career path to follow, where to volunteer our talents, or how to spend our money, Christians have a general sense that our faith should be involved somehow in our decision making during the week, but we don’t always know where or how. In our tradition, we often hear about the idea of “calling” – that we don’t just have to make all our decisions on our own, sometimes we are called to them. God does initiate calls that can help guide our decisions. Because those calls can come at any time, our work is to strive to live with one ear open, open to God’s calls to us.
Now, this is more easily said than done. While ducks have evolved to sleep with one eye open, most of us have learned the habits of keeping our heads down and plowing ahead on our work and lives. Our tendency is to concentrate on the matters presented immediately to us. The “focus like a laser” mentality coined during the ‘92 presidential campaign can allow us to get things done. The problem is that when we focus to get things done we sometimes lack the perspective to figure out if all our efforts are moving us where God wants us to go.
Everyone has a different experience of being called to certain actions. Sometimes, like the Apostle Paul, a person is presented with a clear call and knows quickly what they are to do. Sometime, like Moses, a person needs to be pushed or needs to think through their calling a lot. I speak from my own wanders in law, business, teaching, policy, before ministry. I know both my own joys and challenges in trying to discern calling. In talking with mentors. In praying. In making lists. And in trying to be open to God’s direction for my own life. One summer I was trying to decide whether to go to law school or seminary, and I went to law school first. My own sense of professional calling to professional ministry took time to develop.
One of you mentioned to me this week that before the summer goes, you’d like to hear a bit more about Calvin before we lose the summer of the great theologian of our tradition who the broader church is celebrating so much this summer. While predestination gets most of the attention, the topic where I think Calvin may have made his greatest contribution is that of calling. Before Calvin, the prevailing thought in the church was that God calls people to serve in the church, but not to more secular jobs. However, Calvin emphasized the potential in all vocations. Calvin thought that all work had inherent dignity if given by God.
Calvin wrote:
“(God) has appointed duties for everyone in their particular way of life. And that no one may thoughtlessly transgress his limits; he has named these various kinds of livings ‘callings.’”
Calvin argued that God calls each of us.
As we think about what to do and how to spend our time, we should be aware that what matters most is not what we do but what kind of person we are. It’s what Paul means when he begs the Ephesians to “lead a life worthy of your calling.”
Paul writes two very interesting letters in our lessons today. Two letters, to the Colossians and to the Ephesians, about being called by God. Paul’s readers would be aware of the idea of calling as coming out of the Hebrew tradition of being God’s chosen people.
Paul offers the same advice to both the Ephesians and the Colossians – what matters most is the type of person we are. When he tells the Ephesians to live a life, “worthy of your calling” he says live with humility, gentleness and patience. Bearing one another with love and living in peace, for they are part of one body in Christ.
To the Colossians, Paul offers that they should live with humility, gentleness and patience. Bearing each other, putting on love and living in peace as part of the one body.
What matters most is that we act for the glory of God.
Bridget and I have a version of that statement from Colossians hanging in our kitchen, “whatever you do, do for glory of God.”
Caring about acting for the glory of God is the critical piece, for the answer to our questions of what we are called to do flows from that. But there is some practical Christian guidance about discovering and following our calling. How do we live with one ear open to God’s calls?
Let me suggest that focusing on prayer, priorities, gifts and gladness can help.
When we pray, we open ourselves to hear the clarity of God. Prayer can calm our bodies and clear our minds in order for us to be able to discern those nudges, those encouragements, those messages we hear again and again from God through the Spirit when we are still. Prayer can allow us to empty our minds of the clutter of life so the spirit can fill the space.
I know how much prayer went into my own decision about what would be the next call for me. I wasn’t ready to go just anywhere and was happy to spend some years out of ministry if it wasn’t the right call. But I had a very clear sense in prayer that this was.
Then we prioritize. Prioritizing the things in our lives is important. Deciding what are priorities are allows us to free up time, energy and room in our lives to hear God’s call and to have the energy to respond. This is related to our living for God. As Oswald Chambers said: “Consecration is not the giving over of the calling in life to God, but the separation from all other callings and the giving over of ourselves to God, letting His providence place us where He will.”
I have given more and more of my own thought to prioritizing. As some of you know, I turned 40 years old this weekend. Someone told me yesterday that “you don’t look a day over 40.” But I am now literally a day over 40. This rite of passage has me thinking more and more about how I prioritize my life so that I am open to where God wants me to be.
Third, we can have a sense of our callings from our gifts. One of the great tests for figuring out what we are called to do is thinking about what we are good at. What gifts has God given us as sentry-posts, as Calvin called them, for what we are meant to do.
Each one of us has been given gifts. We have different skills and interests for us to use for the betterment of the world. We aren’t all meant to pursue the same activities. If God wanted us to make the same decisions and act in the same way, we would have all been made to be the same. Instead, we have a diversity of gifts and we are good at different things.
Sometimes we feel a mismatch between our daily actions and our gifts, like being square pegs in round holes. I had one women tell me how hard it was for her to realize she would not make it as an actress - she felt drawn to acting by the accounts of the lives of actors, but simply could not find a niche and gave it up. While recovering from a broken bone, she had the time to reflect on her gifts. After thinking through her gifts for languages, instructing and working with children, she saw her life more clearly and realized that her true calling was to be a French teacher.
Finally, we look to our gladness - At the end of the day, we must follow the signals of our hearts. I think about Julia Child, who just followed what made her happy. In the new movie that is getting much attention, Julie and Julia, Julia Child is asked by her husband, “What is it you really like to do?” She replies joyfully, “to eat!” To which he replies, “And you are so good at it.”
There is an innate gladness within us when we make a decision that is in line with God’s calls. Sometimes when we think through decisions, there is a constant pulling within us. Despite the doubts, the pulling gets stronger and we begin to hear the call. There is something very satisfying when we prepare to do something that is in line with what we know of God.
When that gladness lines up with where there is a need in the world, there can be real joy. Frederick Buechner, once said, “The vocation for you is the one in which your deep gladness and the world’s deep need meet.” That applies to work, volunteer activities and retirement time.
Living with one ear open is not easy. It means getting our ducks in a row to be open to God. But it’s really not all up to us. The good news is that God is interested in initiating that guidance. The Biblical nature of calling is all about God’s action. In the Old Testament as well, the word “calling” signifies an active role by the caller. For instance, in the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis, “God called the light day and the darkness night.” In the New Testament, Jesus called his disciples to Him. The very root of the Greek word for church, ecclesia, means “called out ones.”
Discovering our callings can take time. In the Bible, God doesn’t just call everything into being in the world in one day; God’s creative calling tends to be a process. Our calling is not a matter of being something new today, it’s the opportunity and promise of our becoming over time what we are called by God to be.
As humans, our attention will always be focused largely on our daily activities, looking at what is right in front of us and on the pressures of this world. But let us listen as well. Let us take seriously our calling as children of God and take seriously a God who does and will call us. And let us strive to live with one ear listening to the world’s cries, and one open listening for God’s calls. To God be all glory and honor, forever. Amen.
