Called To Belong to Jesus
Later this week on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, many of us will call family members and friends we will not be able to see in person to wish them a Merry Christmas and to catch up on life. Being able to call people on the phone is something we take for granted, but it has been a part of human communication and interaction for a relatively short time. Young people probably find it hard to imagine that not long ago texting was unheard of and Facebook was what you did with your book when you were lying outside in the sun and wanted to take a nap. If you wanted to talk with someone on the phone you had to talk on a phone that was connected by a cord like a leash to an outlet in the wall and that phone was usually in a very public place like the kitchen.
December 19, 2010: Romans 1:1-7, Called to Belong to Jesus
Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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When I was a boy in maybe third grade we had a phone in the kitchen next to the cookie jar. One of my failures was that I was not good at taking phone messages. This was back in the days before we had an answering machine or caller ID. One time when my parents weren’t home I was playing and the phone rang and I got up and answered it. The person on the other end wanted to talk with my dad and when I said he wasn’t home he told me his name and phone number and I said, “Okay.” Then I hung up and I went back to whatever I was doing. I don’t remember exactly how much later it was, it might even have been a couple days when my dad said to me, “Do you remember Mr. so and so calling?” I had totally forgotten about it. I had never told my dad he called. My father told me I didn’t have to answer the phone, but if I did I had to write down who called because obviously if I didn’t write it down I didn’t remember. If the call had been about something important like a person going to the hospital or asking about a funeral it would have been really bad if they had called and my dad never responded. So I said I understood. And I hardly ever answered the phone after that, I just let it ring.
That memory came to me while I was thinking about the next scripture. In the first century Paul couldn’t call or videoconference or Skype with the church in Rome, so he did the best thing he could at the time, he wrote them a letter. Three times in the opening verses of his letter Paul uses the word “called.” He is “called to be an apostle,” the recipients of the letter are “called to belong to Jesus Christ,” and “called to be saints.” Listen to Romans 1:1-7,
“ Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
We have a pretty good understanding of what someone means when she says. “Your friend called.” We may not be quite as clear on what it means in a biblical sense when Paul says he was called to be an apostle or that God’s people are called to belong to Jesus Christ and called to be saints. Let’s look at a few of those words.
Call is a word in the Bible that has special significance when God or Christ is the one who calls. Sometimes individuals are called to special vocations in God’s plan of salvation: God called Moses (Exodus 3:4), the judges (Judges 3:9), the prophets (Jeremiah 1:5), and Jesus (Matt. 2:15), and Jesus called the apostles (Matthew 4:21; Romans 1:1). When the call is a general summons to repentance and salvation, every Israelite or Christian is viewed as its recipient and Israel and the church are collectively designated God’s ‘called’ (Isaiah 41:9; Hebrew 3:1). So to be called is to be summoned or invited to be someone special or to do something for God. In Roman 1:1-7, the Paul uses the word “called” three times. The first use of “called” refers to God’s call on Paul’s life and the fact that he was “a servant of Jesus Christ, set apart for the gospel of God.”
Paul says he is called to be an apostle. Apostle comes from Greek word meaning ‘one who is sent out.’ An apostle is a personal messenger or envoy, commissioned to transmit the message or otherwise carry out the instructions of the commissioning agent. So an apostle is like an ambassador for Christ. Paul is called and sent out by God to communicate the good news of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ.
Paul makes a couple key statements about Jesus – he is a descendent of David as far as his human family tree, he is the Son of God as demonstrated by his resurrection from the dead, and he is our Lord – the one we are to follow and obey. That is the message we remember at Christmas. Jesus the Son of God has come and we are invited to belong to him.
The second use of the word “called” is each of us is called or invited to belong to Jesus. This call speaks to our identity; it is an invitation to belong, to be part of a significant relationship. It describes whose we are, we are Christ’s. We belong to him. The need to belong is deep inside every human being. Young people get a healthy sense of belonging and self from their relationships with family and friends. If we don’t receive this from family, friends, and church then people will find more self destructive means to feel a sense of belonging.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer knows all about the importance of belonging. Rudolph’s father was embarrassed by his son’s appearance. Rather than appreciating his son’s uniqueness Rudolph’s parents didn’t express the belief and encouragement that all children need from their parents. Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Bob Feller died this week at the age of 92. He was one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball and he said the most important thing in his entire life was how much his father believed in him. Poor Rudolph didn’t get that and to make matters worse, rather than being helped by strong, loyal friends, all of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names. They never let Rudolph join in any reindeer games. The coach of those reindeer games didn’t help Rudolph either but made him even feel even more excluded and sent him away. Left on his own Rudolph starts a gang hanging out with Hermie the Elf another loner who doesn’t belong because he’d rather be a dentist than make toys. Then they pick up a third gang member, the boisterous Yukon Cornelius and go cruising for trouble in his sled looking to make an easy score in silver and gold. Things can go bad in a hurry without a healthy sense of belonging and understanding who we are and whose we are. Living on the road they end up on the Island of Misfit toys that is populated by toys with self-esteem issues who don’t belong to any kids. Even among misfits Rudolph and Hermie are misfits and they can’t stay because they don’t belong. Rudolph really is an epic story about the importance of belonging that fortunately turns out well for everyone.
The hunger to belong goes far beyond people and animated characters. We see it in many animals as well. To be part of the herd, the school, the flock is vital to survival. The writer Rudyard Kipling put it this way in a poem:
“Now this is the law of the jungle –
As old and as true as the sky;
And the wolf that keep it may prosper,
But the wolf that shall break it may die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk,
The law runneth forward and back –
And the strength of the pack is the wolf
And the strength of the wolf is the pack.”
Our strength comes from belonging to Christ and Christ belonging to us.
There is a sense in which Joseph and Mary are the first people who are called to belong to Jesus. Parents belong to their children as much as children belong to their parents. Mary and Joseph were asked to trust God, to have courage in the face of questioning and hostility, to be patient with one another and God’s plan, to have faith that what they were told would come to be, and to love one another and their baby son not only for their own sake as a family, but for the sake of the world. In families today, I think that dynamic is still true. Parents are asked to do all those same things for our children, as are grandparents.
Paul is called to be an apostle. We are called to belong to Jesus and thirdly we’re “called” to live as saints. We often think of saints as being those all-time great Christians who are in the Spiritual Hall of Fame, but that isn’t true. Saints are people who are distinct and different from nonbelievers simply because of their relationship with God, not because we live our life in the slums of Calcutta serving the poorest of the poor. Carlo Carretto, in Letters from the Desert talks about who saints are and how they’re formed. “Everyday things, relationships with other people, daily work, love of our family – these may breed saints. Jesus at Nazareth taught us to live every hour of the day as saints. Every hour of the day is useful and may lead to divine inspiration, the will of the Father, the prayer of contemplation – holiness. Every hour of the day is holy. What matters is to live it as Jesus taught us.
And for this one does not have to shut oneself in a monastery or fix strange and inhumane regimes for one’s life. It is enough to accept the realities of life. Work is one of these realities; motherhood, the rearing of children, family life with all its obligations are others.”
God calls all of us and sometimes like with cell phones we either don’t hear the call or get connected and we miss the message. We don’t realize who we’re called to be. Once God’s call gets through to us and we realize we’re called to be saints – it changes who we are, what we do, the choices we make and how we view each day of our life. God is always trying to communicate with us even more than we call, text, email, or instant message anyone else.
Albert Edward Day wrote in his book The Captivating Presence, God “is forever trying to establish communication;
forever aware of the wrong directions we are taking and wishing to warn us; forever offering solutions to the problems that baffle us;
forever standing at the door of our loneliness, eager to bring us such comradeship as the most intelligent living mortal could not supply;
forever clinging to our indifference in the hope that someday our needs, or at least our tragedies will waken us to his advances. The Real Presence is just that, real and life-transforming. Nor are the conditions for the manifestations out of the reach of any of us! Here they are; otherness, openness, obedience, obsession.”
That means God’s presence will become more real to us as we focus on others, are open to God’s call on our lives each day, obey Jesus’ Word, and focus first and foremost on being God’s people.
As we approach Christmas we are reminded of what was required of Mary and Joseph – courage, trust, patience, faith and love – were all part of God’s call on their life. We tend to elevate Mary and Joseph for what they did and think of them as Hall of Fame saints, but do we think God’s call on our life is any less?
Who is God calling you to be? What is God calling you to do at this point in your life? What will that require of you?
The good news of Christmas is that we are all invited to belong to Jesus.
None of us is a misfit, all of us are called. You know when our phone rings, we respond in different ways depending on whose name or number we see. Some calls we don’t bother to answer because we don’t want to speak with a telemarketer. If the call is from someone we love – a family member or a friend – then we answer with anticipation and gladness.
God is calling you at Christmas with a message of love, grace, and belonging and I am here to tell you, you’d be a fool not to answer.