2nd Sunday after Epiphany
God Calls us All to Vocation.
Preached at Saint John the Evangelist, Cold Lake, Morning Prayer
20 January 2002
Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 40:1-12, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42
Collect:
Almighty God, your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world. May your people illuminated by your word and sacraments, shine with the radiance of His glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Sermon:
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Jehovah, my rock, and my redeemer. Amen.
There is a theme that runs through all of the readings today, a theme that is near and dear to my heart and soul, and a theme that involves every single one of us in this community of believers – that theme is vocation. Vocation is defined as what we in our lives as Christians are called to do, called by God to serve Him as members of the Bride of Christ on earth, the holy church. The particular vocation that came to me through these readings this day was not our major vocation – the primary task that we are drawn to – but the vocation that all Christians are called to, the vocation of prayer. First, a little discussion on the readings to draw out the themes of vocation.
The text of Isaiah was written to the Jews in exile in Assyria who, in many ways, believed that their world had ended. This particular part of the book of Isaiah is called second Isaiah, or Isaiah of the Exile. Isaiah does not offer the Jews simple comfort, but tells them that God is calling them to something much greater, listen to what God has said through the Prophet: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel.” What God is telling the Jews is that he has far more in store for them then simply restoring what was lost, more than simply bringing them home and back to the temple of Jerusalem that they had lost. Indeed what He promises is something much grander, “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6) Israel will not be simply the mode of their own salvation, but the mode of salvation for all the nations of the world. What a wonderful call to vocation – a call to action and the promise of a wonderful future. Note what context it was given in – Israel was in exile and life as they knew it was over, and yet God called them out of that tragedy into an even greater vocation.
Even in tragedy, horror and sorrow, God calls out to us. That call is to pull ourselves into an even greater vocation than we had experienced before. Isaiah says that God defined who he was even as he was being formed in his mother’s womb – and it is here that each of our vocations is imprinted upon us, before we are even born.
In John’s testimony about Christ’s baptism we hear his confirmation that this was indeed the Son of God that had been promised. What interests me the most in this passage is the reaction of the disciples of John who follow Jesus. John was standing with two of his followers as Jesus walked by and said to them “Look, here is the Lamb of God.” The disciples heard him say this, and turned and followed Jesus. Now here is the exchange that is so fascinating to me:
“When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to Him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means teacher), ‘Where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with Him that day.” (John 1:35-39). Listen to that sequence again:
They came…they saw where He was staying…they remained with Him.
This is a wonderful retelling of our own story, the cycle that is our life as a Christian – we come to church, we learn where Jesus is, and we stay with Him. We are born and baptized (we come), we grow and learn about Jesus (we see where He is staying), and eventually we die (we remain with Him). We wake in the morning (we come) and dedicate our day to the Lord, we go out into the world into His creation (we see where He is staying), and we act as Christ’s worker in the midst of His creation (we remain with Him).
So we see in the readings today vocation – first for Israel, for John the Baptist, and confirmation of Christ’s vocation in God. We are all called to our own vocations – some to vocations in the church as Priests, Deacons, Lay Readers, greeters, readers, sides people – some to our vocations in life – plumbers, pilots, farmers, ranchers, engineers, shop keepers, Wal-Mart greeters – what ever the form it is in, we need to be assured that we are where God wants us to be. Beyond this sense of vocation, there is a vocation that we are all called to, and that is the vocation of prayer. Vocation is defined as ‘ a call or summons to perform a certain function or to enter a certain career.’ We are, as believers and followers of Christ, called to the vocation of prayer – and it is this vocation that we all experience – that I want to focus on today, using a historical approach out of Ireland.
The Celts were the people who lived in present-day Ireland. Sometime after the first century they became a Christian culture, which was strongly centered around monastic Christianity as their mode of worship. In monastic practice, every moment of the day is given over to prayer – nine times per day the church bell would toll calling the monks to each of the daily offices, which we still celebrate today as Morning and Evening prayer and Compline. The idea is that regularly throughout the day the monks would stop whatever they were doing and gather to offer praise to God. In between these sessions the monks would offer up their individual labours to God, so that each moment of their day became a living prayer.
Many of the Celtic communities were near by Christian monasteries. This meant that as the monks were called to their daily offices nine times a day, the laypeople in the community would also hear the call to prayer. This would be an occasion to pause in your work and to offer praise to God for a moment. It also let them know that the monks were on about their Godly business.
The Celt’s concept of prayer was very close to this monastic model, and we see that every aspect of the Celtic layperson’s life was given over in prayer as an offering to God. I think there is a lesson in this for us. I know that I many times fall into the trap of thinking – this is work, God is not interested in what I am doing at work. It ignores the truth that all of creation is indivisible, and all that we have and do is first Gods, entrusted to us to do His will. As the offering prayer states ‘all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.’ This is the element of vocation I would like to leave with everyone today – the concept of making our lives, lives of continuous prayer to the greater glory of God. This means that each of us is called to a life of prayer, and the easiest way to do that is not to start with the morning and evening offices but perhaps to give over everything we do throughout the day to God.
Since all of creation is of God, I believe that there is nothing in creation that we do or touch that should not be offered up to God. Listen to some of the things that the Celtic family would pray for – we may think some of them unworthy to be voices as prayer. Given that everything is part of God’s creation, is there anything wrong with offering it back to God?
The Celt saw in everything the cycle of salvation: the birth of Christ, his death on the cross, his resurrection. They saw this in the daily cycle: waking up was the rebirth of each day, going to sleep at night in the dark was the death of life, with the promise of resurrection the following morn. This was seen in all aspects of their life: cooking, travelling, spinning.
Here is the morning ritual: “The day starts with three palmfuls of water splashed on the face in the name of the three members of the Trinity…The day will end with the ritual of smooring the fire at night. The embers were spread evenly on the hearth in the middle of the floor and formed into a circle with a small raised heap left in the middle. This circle was then divided into three equal sections with a peat laid between each section, each peat touching the heap – which was called the Hearth of the Three. The first peat was laid down in the name of the God of Life, the second the God of Peace and the third the God of Grace. The circle would then be covered over with ashes sufficient to subdue but not extinguish the flame. Then the woman would close her eyes, stretch out her hand and intone the following prayer, which opens,
“The sacred Three, to save, to shield, to surround the heart,
The house, the household, this eve, this night,
Oh! This eve, this night, and every night, each single night, Amen.”
(Esther De Waal, The Celtic Way of Prayer, p. 47)
And so we see that the first moments of the day, and the last moments of the day were consecrated in the name of the Trinity. This continued in other areas of their lives as well. What about this one for one of the most menial of tasks:
“I make this bed
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
In the name of the night we were conceived,
In the name of the night we were born,
In the name of the day we were baptized,
In the name of each night, each day,
Each angel that is in the heavens.”
(EDW, The Celtic Way of Prayer, p. 78)
The making of the bed formed not only an opportunity for prayer, but also for thanking God for all aspects of one’s life – conception, birth and baptism. For the Celts, there was no concept of possible division within any aspect of their lives – no ‘this is something I do at church and not at home’. They saw all of creation involved in their only important task – the worship of their creator.
They also had prayers asking for the blessing of their hands, so that all that was handled throughout the day would be handled with an awareness of God. What about this wonderful (and my favourite) milking prayer:
“Bless, O God, my little cow, Bless, O God, my desire;
Bless Thou my partnership and the milking of my hands, O God.
Bless, O God, each teat, Bless, O God, each finger;
Bless Thou each drop that goes into my pitcher, O God!”
(Esther De Waal, The Celtic Way of Prayer, p 81)
Seems almost silly somehow to give this level of effort and prayer for the act of milking, but it reflected their belief of continuous prayer and continuous worship and their sense of ease with all of God’s creation. This is seen in a second prayer for milking, this one invoking the aid of Mary, Saint Brigit and Saint Columba to hold the cow still during milking:
“Come, Mary, and milk my cow
Come Bride, and encompass her,
Come Columba the benign, and twine thine arms around my cow.
Come, Mary Virgin, to my cow,
Come, great Bride, the beauteous,
Come, thou milkmaid of Jesus Christ,
And place thine arms beneath my cow.”
(Esther De Waal, The Celtic Vision, p. 9)
What about this appeal for aid in churning? “Here the aid of Saint Brigit is sought because the woman sees the disciples standing outside her house waiting for her to finish so they can enjoy her butter on her baking. She works to do her best, not to be congratulated, but because work done well is a blessing and a thanksgiving in itself,
Come, thou Brigit, handmaid calm, Hasten the butter on the cream;
Seest thou impatient Peter yonder,
Waiting the buttered bannock white and yellow.
Come thou Mary Mother mild, Hasten the butter on the cream;
Seest thou Paul and John and Jesus
Waiting the gracious butter yonder.”
(Esther De Waal, The Celtic Way of Prayer, pp. 82-83)
The Celts saw the cycle of life and death in everything, and this was seen very clearly in their bedtime rituals. I opened with a prayer for smooring or banking the fire for the night, and here is an account of one woman’s nighttime ritual:
“I do now as my mother was doing when I was a child. Before going to my bed I place the bar…on the door, and I make the cross of Christ on the bar and on the door, and I supplicate the great God of life, the Father of all living, to protect and comfort me this night…After that I put out my light, and then I go to bed, and when I lie down on my pillow I make the cross of Christ upon my breast, over the tablet of my hard heart, and I beseech the living God of the universe –
May the Light of lights come to my dark heart from Thy place;
May the Spirit’s wisdom come, to my heart’s tablet from my Saviour.”
(Esther De Waal, The Celtic Way of Prayer, p. 93)
There are lessons here for us. Our Lord calls us as a people to many vocations. The one that we can all answer to is the vocation of prayer modelled here for us from the Celts. For them, there was no division between things of humans and things of God, for all things were a part of His creation. Their answer was to make every moment of each day a moment of prayer, and to consecrate each task to the greater glory of God. Using their approach, we can meet God’s call to us all to the vocation of prayer, and make our lives a living service of worship to God’s greater glory. Amen.
