Called to be the Church.
As Christians all of us have received a calling. Initially this means responding to God’s presence, to sense and accept our Creator God’s loving and persistent embrace. As we learn more about God’s grace revealed to us in and through Jesus our call becomes clearer and at times more specific. We may feel called to create, lead, teach, organize, or heal. Figuring out our own individual call is not easy, it requires discernment, which means we need to still our own thoughts and be fully present to God’s leading Spirit.
Our calling to be the church is a little more straightforward and we can read descriptions of this high and holy calling in many of the letters to the first believers. In 1 Peter we hear that Christians are called by God to be a royal priesthood, a chosen race, and a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9-10). As the gathered people of God, we have with a very specific purpose, to proclaim the mighty acts of God. This proclamation of God’s saving grace in and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus can be done through words, actions and service and the specifics of each are almost limitless.
Sometimes this high and lofty calling seems to much for ordinary people like us, people who have issues, and baggage and lots of faults. We may at times consider ourselves too old, too tired, too useless to accept God’s call upon the church but here is the good news, all of us have been made fit for purpose. In 2 Timothy the author describes a household kitchen in which there are shiny flash items, in our modern kitchens that may be a special dinner set or a shiny new Mixmaster but there are also every day, less glamorous things like wooden spoons. The Scripture proclaims that in God’s service we all become special utensils, ready for every good work, yes even the wooden spoon (2Timothy 2:20-22). Wooden spoons in western culture are handed out if you come last in a competition but we know that in God’s kingdom the last come first and the first come last. So,take heart and hear God’s call upon your life, “for we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10).