BIBLE STUDY: A God Call
A. INTRODUCTION... Vocation. What does it mean? In Catholicism it refers to priests and nuns. In education it refers to “trade schools”, often called “vocational school.” Truth is, it means “calling.” It is the idea that God has called you to a certain task, that God has created you with certain gifts/talents/interests that align with a specific need or opportunity. It can be a one-off event, or a life-time work. And it is not confined to clergy. We all are called by God to some purpose. The challenge is to find it... and meet it.
C. SUMMARY. A. In the Genesis scripture God calls Abraham out of his daily life, urging him to leave behind his home country in ancient Iraq, and all familiarity. God’s offer is to establish through Abraham “a great nation” that ultimately will be a “blessing to the whole world.” In the Isaiah scripture, Isaiah has an experience of the great majesty of God when he gets a glimpse of the “Inner Sanctum (or Holy of Holies)” of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is an overwhelming experience of God through sight and sound and smell, leaving Isaiah spiritually humbled (“woe is me; I am unclean and come from an unclean nation”). After hearing God wonder out loud whom God could count on, Isaiah answers the “call” saying, “Here am I, send me.”
D. KEY POINTS
1. Wrong!! Most people limit “the call” to religious people doing religious things. To be ordained, clergy actually have to explain how/when/where God “called” them to be a pastor. Missionaries almost always tell how God “called” them to go to a specific place. And often members of a church will say they “feel called” to do a specific kind of ministry in the church – teaching, choir, visiting, etc. Let’s expand our definition of calling to include any person doing any thing God needs done. I know people “called” to be a fire fighter, a baker, a teacher, a plumber, an entrepreneur, a nurse, and on and on. When God gives you a talent and an opportunity, consider yourself “called,” ordained to do what you can.
2. How high? In a disciplined setting (military, team, etc.) it is said that when you’re told to jump the only appropriate answer is “how high?” When God “calls” it is because there is an opportunity and a need and an urgency. There is a certain “Uncle Sam Needs You” quality to this; and if you remember the Uncle Sam poster it was painted to be looking and pointing directly at you. In today’s scriptures, God needed Abraham, someone willing to leave everything behind to start something new. That something eventually becomes the Jewish people and the religion of Judaism that eventually gives us Jesus who becomes that promised blessing to the whole world. With Isaiah, God needed someone with the clout and the gumption to speak to the nation with an urgent message: shape up, get with the program, follow God’s ways, change, repent, repair, do better. You get the picture. And you get the picture because Isaiah lays it out clearly.
3. Go DEEPER. The call of Isaiah is particularly interesting because he was already a priest serving in the Temple. He was already literally serving God. Then God gives him a new assignment, tougher, deeper. As a priest he guided the people through their religious rituals of prayer and sacrifice and worship. A fairly routine, non-controversial job. But with this “call” God wants Isaiah to confront his nation with its glaring shortcomings. It wouldn’t be easy, popular, or routine. FYI, God did the same with Mother Teresa. She was already a nun, teaching in old Calcutta, India, giving us a lot. Then God called her to go deeper, to use every ounce of her life to help the suffering poor all around her. Is God calling you deeper?
