Let us pray: O God, may my words echo the challenge you place before us to be your people. May passion for your kin_dom be expressed in them. Guide us to hear your call, guide us to respond. Amen.

As worship began this morning, we heard these words: Listen, God is calling, through the word inviting, offering forgiveness, comfort and joy. Let's consider for a moment, a little more deeply, what this says to us:

The idea of being called by God is an enigmatic concept, especially for people who are part of the liberal Christian tradition. It seems a bit easier for people who profess a more personal relationship with Jesus and God to speak of being directly addressed by God. In the mainstream tradition, we are a bit more reluctant to make direct statements about the ways in which God has called us. I think we want to check our audience out a bit before we are willing to launch into a description of just how we may have experienced the call of God. Even then, our explanations are often nuanced and qualified, as we hope to get our point across without sounding too wacky, too religious or too pious. I don't offer this perspective in any kind of critical way. In fact, as being part of the liberal tradition myself, I appreciate the desire to add nuance and qualification. There are numerous stories of people who have done wild and evil things under the guise of having heard the voice of God. There are important elements of discernment to consider whenever we or anyone else claim to act upon a call from God. At the same time, for anyone involved in ministry – ordered ministry for sure, but almost as surely any kind of professional or designated ministry, our vocational journey has been punctuated with questions designed to have us articulate the way in which we have felt called by God.

So, we walk this kind of tightrope of discernment – meeting skepticism on one side if we can talk about our journey into ministry without any story of how we have experienced God's call, but also meeting skepticism on the other side if we can name a specific day, date and time when we heard the voice of God speaking to us. Perhaps in our tradition the tightrope is too narrow a path for us to navigate. It is likely more freeing and authentic to consider at least a sidewalk- allowing us a certain margin of error and a certain wider path of experience in order to both speak of and discern the ways in which we are called.

I speak in this instance of those who are engaged in “accountable” ministry. I use the word “accountable” with reluctance, because I think that all ministry is and should be accountable whether it is being done by a lay person or someone trained and “called” into ministry. That statement alone leaves me in a quandary of terminology. In The United Church of Canada we often use the phrase “paid accountable” ministry to describe people like me – those who work in a pastoral charge doing pastoral ministry, but as I say I believe that each of us – regardless of whether we are paid or whether we are doing the work as volunteers within the church or even if we are doing something outside of the church community because it is the “right” thing to do should be accountable. But I am also have the terminological dilemma because of my use of the word “called”. I was called by Yellowknife United Church to serve here as the minister of Yellowknife United Church. Who experienced that call? Was it me, or was it the members of the Search Committee and ultimately the congregation when they voted to issue the call. Without digging too deeply into all of this I want to hold up the idea that we can all be “called” into ministry and it is all accountable – accountable to the way that God would have us serve.

I hope it is quite clear to you that of all of this discussion comes about because of the readings we heard this morning. First we heard the story of the call of Samuel – a remarkable story for a number of reasons. As was described when we heard the reading – this is a wonderful exposition of the important ministry of children. The young boy Samuel, in the dark of night, hears a message which he mistakes for the word of Eli, his mentor. As important as the message that God's call is not reserved for people who have achieved a certain age, is the message that God is persistent and that it is good to allow the message to sink in through repetition. Suspicion is allayed when the message comes again, again and again.

The gospel passage of course was also about being called. This is also a rather remarkable exchange, especially the one between Jesus and Nathanael. As the story describes, Jesus has picked up something about Nathanael, even though he has only observed him from a distance. But Nathanael, expressing surprise that Jesus even knows who he is, reacts with pretty the much same quick judgement about Jesus, once he hears of how Jesus first encountered him.

Two questions come to mind from this exchange. Did Jesus discern something special about Nathanael even though he says he only saw him from a distance, as Nathanael sat under a fig tree? Or is this about a universal call – could any of us put ourselves in the position of Nathanael and be summoned to become a follower of God's way as lived and taught by Jesus.

I would paradoxically answer “yes” to both questions. I believe that we can find ourselves in circumstances like Nathanael, where someone with little background or prior knowledge, recognizes a gift and/or a passion in us and makes invitation to use that gift and live out that passion in serving God. But I also believe that all of us have a calling – a God given ability, a God-given opportunity, to further God's purpose in the world.

I want to return for a moment to the introit – with which I began this reflection. Listen, God is calling, through the Word inviting. At first we might assume that the word referred to is Holy scripture, the bible. Certainly, stories like the ones we heard today, have an important role to play in our understanding of what it means to be called. The story of Samuel, as I have mentioned, alerts us to the notion that God's call is not age specific and that God can be persistent in making God's purpose known. The story of the call of Philip and Nathanael offers a different take – the idea that each of us has a calling, but also that there can be a right time and place for us to live out and respond to the call of God. However, if we were to dig a bit deeper into the topic of being called that we understand in the liberal Christian tradition, we would find many people describing their call not as much by hearing a voice in the middle of the night, or by having someone issuing a one-time summons to join them, but as a low-key, perhaps many years old, often expressed as being articulated by others, sense that God has something more or specific for us to do. That describes my expression of how I heard the call – the voice of people around me wondering if I was a minister already, the questions and explorations that led me to the study of theology, the passions and interest in creating a more just world. This is also the Word – the Word of God being lived out in the struggle for justice, the contemplation of creation, the wonderfully complicated web of relationship of which we are a part in creation.

So far I've barely touched on the issue of call. I could become a kind of talk-show host and walk with a microphone among you and hear many wonderful stories about the ways that each of you have been called in your life's journey. While I am not going to do that, I would like to invite you to consider how you would answer that question if I did put the microphone in front of you and ask.

That could lead us in any number of directions, all of them edifying and revealing and it would likely lead us to consider what the rest of that Introit music says – namely the purpose to which we are called. What are we about as we answer the call of God in and with our lives? The song says it is a three-fold purpose: forgiveness, comfort and joy.

I could probably add a few more, some of them would be deeper explorations of those three, while others would I believe add to our understand of the purpose to which we are called as God's people, but all in all, those three are a pretty good summary of what it means to be church. We come together as a community of God's people to hear words of forgiveness – words that tell of God's unconditional love for us, God is a god of grace, and grace is a promise of forgiveness. We come together as a community of God's people to be comforted by God's presence – through the reassuring words that come to us from the faith stories told in our bible, through words that remind us that we are people of the covenant, through the comforting words of Jesus that tell us of the surprising and unexpected nature of God's love and which explain to us that the last and the least are first and foremost in God's way of valuing.

Forgiveness and comfort are what we receive from God. Joy is our response. Joy is the logical conclusion when are able to embrace God's assurance of forgiveness. Joy is the natural conclusion of being comforted by God. Joy is the expression of God's presence in our lives. Joy is what we are called to live through radical welcome, through justice for all people, for a levelling of the disparity that exists between people and nations in the world.

Listen, God is calling. Listen, can you hear God calling – in the stories of scripture, in the word being lived out by those around you, in the passions and abilities that have been placed or nurtured within you. Listen, God if calling, offering forgiveness – wiping clean the thoughts and actions, the regrets and decisions that way you down and keep you from being what you can be. Listen, God is calling - offering comfort. Comfort for the anxieties, worries and concerns that weigh us down. Listen, God is calling – inviting us to live in joy – as people of God who delight in the surprising, upside down and exciting message expressed by Jesus.

Listen, God is calling – don't be afraid to let yourself be open to what God is saying. Amen.