Is there anyone who has not at one time or another asked a young person what they want to be when they grow up? Zack’s responses beginning at about age three included among other things: truck driver, heavy equipment operator, professional skate boarder, crabber on the Bering Sea, professional basketball player, and by age 12, a teacher and coach. Happily that’s the one that stuck. I honestly don’t know what my responses might have been early on, though I have vague memories from when I was a little girl of imagining myself as a doctor. However, I vividly remember the moment in eighth grade when someone asked me what I wanted to be and I instantly responded, I’m going to be a chemistry teacher. How did I know that? I hadn't even taken chemistry. I can only attribute that answer to the fact that I had spent years watching Mr. Wizard on television. Indeed, as a chemistry teacher at Sheldon I had the opportunity, along with everyone else in the science department, to attend the National Science Teachers” Convention when it was held in Seattle. One of the featured speakers was Don Herbert - Mr. Wizard. There were hundreds of us in the huge hall where he spoke, and at one point he asked how many of us had watched Mr. Wizard. Easily 80% of the hands went up. I have no idea if he set out to do so, but Don Herbert, Mr. Wizard, clearly shaped an entire generation of science teachers. So was I called by Mr. Wizard to be a chemistry teacher? Was Zack called by one or more of his teachers to become one himself? What exactly does it mean to be called?
Our Old Testament reading this morning recounts one of the most well known stories of call in the Bible. A young boy hears a voice calling his name in the night. Thinking it’s Eli, the person under whom he was serving God, Samuel went to Eli and said here I am for you called me, to which Eli said no I didn’t. Go back to bed. This happened three times, at which point Eli realized what was happening, that God was calling Samuel, so he instructed Samuel to respond, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Now not very many of us have had the experience of hearing an unknown voice calling our name in the night. Or maybe we have. You’ve heard me preach and write multiple times about the fact that I know God speaks to me in my dreams. That’s only one possibility. My dad felt called to the priesthood at an early age, but then had a change of heart and decided to go into business. However, during his time in the navy during World War II he had lots of time while at sea, especially I suspect when he was alone on watch during the night, to listen to that still small voice that over time some of us come to recognize as the voice of God. He came home from the war having decided to resign from the Sun Oil Company in order to go to seminary.
While sometimes it can seem as though God has called us directly, as often as not God speaks through those around us, as in the Gospel reading this morning in the conversation between Philip and Nathaniel. And as often as not, we’re initially rather skeptical of what someone suggests we ought to do. Nathaniel certainly was. Jesus of Nazareth?!? Are you kidding me? Has anything good every come out of Nazareth? For his part, Philip didn’t try to browbeat Nathaniel into doing anything. He simply responded, Come and see. Nathaniel did, and his life was never the same again.
Nowadays it seems as though we most often speak of someone being called when it refers to ordained ministry. However, God calls people to all sorts of ministries that don’t involve ordination. Moreover call doesn’t only refer to being called to one’s life’s work. There are plenty of people who become exactly what they believe they were meant to be, have very successful and fulfilling careers performing their chosen line of work, but at the same time feel called to do something more, something besides their “day job” so to speak, because they see a need that they believe they can meet. Consider for example, Lynn and Dave Frohnmayer. In 1983 their two daughters Kirsten, then ten and Katie four, were diagnosed with Fanconi anemia, a rare and life-threatening recessive genetic illness. Two years after they received that news Lynn and Dave founded an FA Family Support Group to help share disease and treatment information with other families afflicted by the same illness. Their third daughter, Amy, born two years after that in 1987, also inherited the disease. So two years following Amy’s birth they founded the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund. It was soon after that, I believe, that Dave Frohnmayer spoke at Sheldon. I have no idea what his topic was, but at some point I know he mentioned the research fund and how passionate he and Lynn were about the research happening because of it. Later, over lunch in the science office, the members of our department decided we wanted to contribute to the fund, and did so. I’ve been giving annually ever since. I was terribly sad when Katie died in 1991 at age 12, followed by Kirsten in 1997 at 24. At the same time I’ve been extremely impressed over the years with the progress that has been made in treating this illness, leading to longer and longer lives for those afflicted with it. Indeed Amy, the youngest Frohnmayer daughter, outlived her father, who died suddenly in 2015, living herself until 2016 when she died at age 29.
Today, eight years after losing her last daughter, Lynn Frohnmayer continues to be actively involved with the organization that she and Dave founded. For years I’ve received a hand written message from her on the thank you slash tax donation letter I receive in response to my donations. Bear in mind I’m not a major donor, so I’ve found it amazing over the years that Lynn would take the time to do that. Now I should mention there wasn’t such a note this year, a little card with the letter explained, because while playing soccer on cement last summer, at age 81, this is clearly my kind of woman! Lynn fell and dislocated bones in her hand, and hasn’t yet regained the ability to write legibly. While I’ve never had the privilege of meeting Lynn Frohnmayer, I feel in a way like I know her. Her cause has become my cause, which I believe is often how call works. When we’re passionate about something, our enthusiasm can be contagious, directly or indirectly inviting others to come and see. Very few of us ever manage to do anything on the scale of founding something like the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund. That doesn’t mean that what we’re doing with our lives is unimportant, nor does it mean we can ignore what is at once an opportunity and a responsibility to share with others the gifts God has given us when such an opportunity arises.
The paradox of saying yes to God is that it can be at once deeply fulfilling and utterly terrifying. Think of poor Samuel who was faced with sharing some really bad news with Eli first thing the next morning, before he had had a chance to even begin to internalize what it meant that God had spoken to him. But God was with him that first morning, and throughout his life. I truly believe if we are responding to a call from God, then God will help us do what needs to be done. I remember well the summer of 2009 when I was struggling to lead the Standing Committee, who was in turn leading the diocese, because we were without a diocesan bishop. +Neff Powell was in town visiting at the time, and when I said something about my self doubts at being able to handle everything I was faced with managing +Neff replied that sometimes God calls those who are equipped, and sometimes God equips those who are called. Either way, God’s will gets done.
Beyond being frightening, saying yes to God can also be wildly inconvenient, if not utterly life changing. The men whom Jesus called to follow him gave up everything, their homes, their families, their livelihoods in order to take off with a man who appeared to be at the outset a pretty ordinary person. Yet somehow they knew that this was not an ordinary person, and they knew they were meant to follow him. My dad gave up a promising career in business in order to go to seminary, and he was a very lucky man that my mom stuck with him when he did so because I absolutely do not believe she would have married him had she known beforehand that he wanted to be a priest. The last thing on earth my mother wanted to be was the rector’s wife. But that’s part of who she was indirectly called to be, and in her own way she filled the role well.
So how do we know that the call we’re responding to is from God? There are a lot of voices out there after all, calling us to follow them. It can seem at times like there are a lot of voices in here calling us as well. I believe that if a call is truly from God, it will draw us outside ourselves, it will make us better people because it will deepen our understanding of who and whose we are as we respond to that call. My father taught me that when we’re baptized each of us is set aside to be a saint. That doesn’t mean we’re going to show up in a stained glass window or have a church named for us. It means we’ve become one of the countless people down through time who have been committed by virtue of the promises we made, or that were made on our behalf, to following Jesus, to being part of the Jesus movement. We are people committed to looking for ways we can make a difference in the lives of those around us. That could be something as simple as smiling at someone we pass on the street. It could be as all encompassing as choosing a profession, a vocation that allows us to serve others throughout our lives. Saying Yes to God means responding as we will sing [as we sang] during the offertory, Here I am, Lord. It is I, Lord. I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart. Amen.
