Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
Acts 9:15&16
Third Sunday of Easter - Confirmation
This is a week of big events. Here, of course, it’s Confirmation Sunday—a special day particularly in the lives of three of Glendale’s young people; but one that’s important for all of us as we consider our own promises made to God, and recommit ourselves to the task of helping one another, especially our three confirmands, to keep the vows that have been made to God and one another. So, today is a big day, here; and this past Wednesday was a big day at the seminary. Most of you know that it was Call Day. That’s the day, of course, when the men who are set to graduate are given their first assignments in the church and told where they will be going to serve God’s people as a pastor. It’s also the day when second year students find out where they will be spending the next year working and learning as a vicar. Our own second year student, Nate, is heading south for a year in Florida. My son will be across the state in the Kansas City area. And one of your former field workers, Joe Leech will be moving east to become the pastor of a congregation in Pennsylvania. Call Day is an exciting time, not only for the men and their families who are learning about their future; but for the whole church. It’s exciting to see how God is at work providing for his church.
We heard about another call day in our first reading from Acts. It was call day for the Apostle Paul. Well, I suppose it was more like call days since the process was spread out over a few days. First, Paul had been knocked off his horse and struck with blindness when Jesus appeared and abruptly ended Paul’s plan to make more trouble for Jesus’ followers. Paul spent the next three days in darkness, fasting, repenting, and contemplating his encounter with Jesus. Then, relief came. Ananias arrived with God’s grace. He laid his hands on Paul, prayed, and everything changed. Literally, the scales fell from Paul’s eyes—but more importantly, he was transformed. No longer on a mission to stamp out Christianity, Paul was now on a mission to spread the news of Jesus as Savior and Lord. He would become the apostle to the Gentiles. His life purpose would be to spread the news of Christ crucified and risen to those outside the Jewish community. Paul did the work. He confirmed to all he met the reality that God had given him grace, and that he was the disciple of Jesus. Trusting God’s promise, and using the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul would have extraordinary success and accomplish remarkable things as he confirmed his faith again and again. And it all began outside of Damascus on Paul’s call day.
Ok, so, you’re not an apostle. And maybe you’re not a pastor or a teacher or church worker and you’ve never gone through a Call Day or received papers declaring that you were called or placed for work in God’s church. It doesn’t matter. You’ve been called as well. In fact, God has called you on many levels at many times in many ways. It began when he called you to faith at the baptismal font. There, in those waters, not only did he wash away the condemnation for the sin you inherited from Adam, along with a lifetime of your own actual sins, but he also claimed you as his own child and gave you his Holy Spirit so that you could follow Jesus as his disciple. At the font, he called you to be his own, to live your life his way. Your call day was the day of your Baptism when you were called to faith. But that was not your last call day.
In your life, in the specificity and the details that define and direct your unique, individual life, God has given you tasks to perform and work to do for the good of the people and the world around you. In theology, we call these individual tasks and responsibilities vocations—literally callings. So, it’s quite right to say that God has not only called you to faith, but also called you to do work in this world. Some of the time, some of that work can be quite exhilarating and exceptional; most of the time, though, the tasks you have been given to do likely seem rather mundane and uninteresting. In fact, you may not even recognize that the work is given to you by God. It’s just too ordinary and too routine. There’s nothing special or spiritual about it. But, the truth is that most of the things that God calls you to do are quite common and unexceptional. Children are called by God to be good students and cheerful and respectful helpers at home. That’s what God wants them to do. Parents are called to raise their children to be lifelong followers of Christ who have upright and noble character. Employees are called to do honest careful work that helps their employers. Employers need to be fair and generous with their workers and their customers. And so it goes. Whatever your position in life, in the context of your relationships and responsibilities, God calls you to do your work his way. God calls you to serve those around you.
There is, though, still another sort of call that God issues. At least, it was part of the call that came to Paul. God called him to serve, he would serve as the apostle to the Gentiles. But, God also called him to suffer. It was part of the arrangement from the very beginning. Suffering was one of the essential elements of God’s call to Paul. God called him to faith, he called him to serve, and he called him to suffer. For Paul, the three calls came all at once. Paul was going to follow Christ in faith. He was going to serve. He was going to suffer. It was all part of God’s plan. It was all part of God’s call. God’s call was definitely fulfilled. For the sake of the Lord who had called him, and for the sake of the work he had been given to do, Paul suffered. He was stoned, whipped, beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, snake-bit, ridiculed, and slandered. Those were the obvious. external afflictions he endured. But his call also caused him to suffer inwardly and spiritually. When people refused the Gospel, rejected God’s truth, fell back into sin, or yielded to Satan’s temptations and lies, Paul grieved and suffered. God’s call was for Paul to suffer—not for the sake of suffering, but simply because suffering always goes hand-in-hand with God’s call. Always. And, you can guess what that means. It means that your call is not different than the call of Paul. You also have been called to suffer.
I know, this is not something you hear often. In fact, there are plenty of Christians around who would have you believe that following Christ means a life that is happy, carefree, and certainly void of sorrow or suffering. It’s not true. God’s word is quite clear. The call is to follow Jesus. The call is to do what Jesus did. God calls you to serve and to suffer. Suffering is always part of the Christian life. Always. It is a recurrent theme throughout the Bible and the church’s teaching. When you determine that you are going to live God’s way and do everything that you do in line with God’s purposes and priorities, it comes at a price. Paul knew it. Every serious follower of Jesus knows it. No one can answer the call of God, and avoid the reality of suffering. God calls you. He calls you to suffer. And, that…is a problem, isn’t it?
It’s a problem because the last thing that any of us ever wants to do is to suffer. In our world, Suffering is probably the single greatest evil that there is. In our culture, in any culture I suppose, suffering is avoided, shunned, and feared. Suffering is the one thing everyone agrees must be eliminated. It is so obvious an assumption that no one would think to question it. Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you that suffering is the worst thing in life. It’s the starting premise for virtually every way of thinking: pleasure is good and encouraged, and suffering is bad and rejected. So, to be called to suffer seems to make no sense at all. But, that is exactly what God calls his people to do. It’s what he calls you to do. It is the shock of the Christian life, a bitter and hard truth. Called to follow Christ, you must follow him all the way—which means being out of step with the world’s values and priorities, which means being rejected by the world, which means suffering. It’s not easy, but it has to be this way. Christians must suffer because Jesus suffered. We should expect nothing other than what he endured. When you experience hostility, difficulty, and pain because of your commitment to follow Christ, you are in league with your Lord. You are joined to him. The worst thing that can happen to you is not that you suffer; no, far worse than that is that you might stop following Christ, or prove faithless. There is something much worse than suffering.
This is a hard reality. But, it is the Christian reality. God’s will is for a church filled with people who have answered his call and who are ready to follow Jesus completely: in the way of faith, the way of service, the way of suffering. There is no higher privilege than to be called by God. Whether you are in grade school, a new confirmand, in the prime of life, or far along in life’s journey, you have been called by God to follow in the way of faith, to serve those around you, and to suffer for his truth. This is the way that Jesus always leads. It is the way of self-denial, it is the way of sacrifice for the sake of God’s will, it is the way of the cross. To answer God’s call is to take your place in the long line of committed disciples all marching purposefully and confidently behind Christ on the way to the cross—on the way to the death of yourself. Do you get it? Do you see how this Christianity thing works? It’s not about what you get. It’s not about the benefits or the perks. It is about what it means to hear and answer the call of Christ. Discipleship is all or it’s nothing. You don’t have faith just most of the time. You don’t serve others only when it’s convenient. You don’t suffer only if the pain is not too bad or too long. You suffer and serve and follow in only one way: all the way. You are joined to Christ completely. You follow him completely. This is the promise that you, three confirmands make today. This is the promise all of you made when you answered the call of Christ.
This truth is powerfully at work every time we celebrate the sacrament of Communion. In the sacrament, you are joined to Christ. In your body, you receive the body and blood of Christ, the vivid marks of his own passion and suffering. In and through the marks of his pain, sorrow, and sacrifice, you are joined to Christ. You are entwined and united with Christ in the agony of his cross. In the Lord’s Supper this all becomes your reality. The way that Jesus goes, you go. He goes through suffering, so do you. He goes through glory, so do you. You are called to follow Christ, to share in all of his lif: so you share in his suffering, his salvation, his resurrection, his everlasting triumph. The call to follow Christ in faith, service and suffering is the call to live a life with the greatest possible significance.
You have been called by God. He has called you to faith. Cling to his promise. He has called you to serve—recognize the vocations he has given you, and do them with zeal. He has called you to suffer—don’t resist this part of the call. Simply trust the way that God leads; and when the suffering for the sake of his truth comes, and it will come, be glad and count it a blessing and gift. However he leads, wherever he leads, God will fulfill his purpose for which he has called you. He did it for Paul. He will do it for you. He has called you; he will keep you…now, and for eternity. Amen.