MINDEKIRKEN
October 21st 2001
by pastor Guðrún Eggertsdóttir
Genesis 12:1-9
Acts 9:1-9
Matt 4:18-22
Let us pray:
Lord, we thank you that you call us to your service. Help us to respond to that
call, trusting that you are with us wherever you want us to go. Amen.
Náð sé með yður og friður frá Guði föður vorum og Drottni Jesú
Kristi. Amen Grace and Peace to you from God our father and from the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Amen
Today’s’ texts all tell us about the calling of people. The calling of
Abraham to go from his home country to the Promised Land. The calling of Paul to
stop persecuting the Christian people and to become one of the most
determent missionaries of all times. And the calling of the first disciples to
follow Jesus.
I wanted to reflect on what it means to be called, what it means to accept God’s
call. Not only to those people the Bible tells us about, but also to us.
Why do we follow the call? Why did Abraham, Peter, Andrew and Paul follow God’s
call? Because it is God who calls us. Not because of a promise of glory, not
because of a sense of duty or out of fear. But out of love. God loved us first;
he calls us to that love. It is his love, his compassion, and his care that
draws us to accept the call, to follow him. The call is an invitation, not an
order. You can decide yourself what your answer is. You can take your time to
decide, you are even free to deny. Whatever your answer is God still loves you,
he doesn’t leave you even if you leave him.
To dare to accept the call is an adventure in itself. What will it mean for me,
for my family? For Abraham, the disciples and Paul it meant major life changes.
Not only did Abraham have to travel for a long time, but also he had to make his
new home in a new country. Away from his friends and extended family. God told
Abraham right away what he had to leave: his country, his people and his father’s
household. But at the same time God promised to show him the land he was to go
to. Promised to bless him and make him into a great nation.
The disciples had to leave their homes and families, the relative security of
the fisherman’s existence, to go on the road with Jesus. With no home, no
income, with nothing but the faith that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
But sometimes we are not called to serve the Lord in a vocation, to become
pastors or missionaries. But to make a better living for ourselves and our
families, even our descendants. To follow Jesus wherever he wants us to go. To
bear witness to our faith in our everyday lives.
I know that most of you are descendants of people who left. People who went to
the new world hoping for a better life. People who had a calling to go to the
promised land, often times with no notion of what to expect there. Most of the
times with nothing but the faith that God would be with them, would keep them
and bless them on the journey and in the new world.
This month we are celebrating the journey of Leif Eirikson to Vineland. He didn’t
stay. Some say that after he found North America he had the good sense to loose
it again.
But centuries later his descendants came here and stayed. You are a proof of
that. This church is a proof of that.
In the spring when pastor Ole Amund and I were discussing this service we talked
about these people, about what drove them here, what it was like for
them. Both of us have left our countries to come here. But our circumstances are
different, so very different. We are here temporarily, we have phones and
e-mails so we can be in touch with our families and friends back home.
The immigrants left knowing that they would probably never come back. Not even
sure that they would ever get here. It took months for letters to be delivered
so news of births and deaths were old when they finally came.
But in spite of different times there are similarities and I now feel I
understand better how they felt, what they had to deal with. As I reflect on my
own experience on having left my country and my people, I want to try to
give you a little insight into what it means in my everyday existence.
I look out of my window and I don’t recognize anything. These are not my
mountains, my trees, my lakes or my ocean. Even the sunset and the moon look
different.
I go for a walk and I don’t have a favorite route or a favorite spot to go to.
The people I meet are friendly, but strangers. I don’t any longer meet
somebody who used to go to school with me. Or the old lady who used to give me
candy when I delivered my family’s Christmas cards to her house. Or the man
who was my grandfather’s friend and used to tease my brother on how much he
looked like our father.
How do we have conversations with people who do not speak our language? How do
we share our worries, our fears and our joys?
If you are on your own you try to fit in; if you come with a group of your
fellow countrymen you try to bring your own culture to the new location, the new
country.
That is what the immigrants did. Their towns had names from their home
countries. But one of the most dominant factors in making the new country their
own, was bringing their religion and building places of worship.
A church was built as soon as a few families had settled in a location. A church
where they could worship in the same way they were used to from home. They knew
that God didn’t change. God was the same here as back home. God had been with
them on the long journey and now they built a church where they could go to give
him thanks, to praise him, to find solitude and to find community. A Bible and a
hymnal might have been the only books they brought to the new country.
For me being an Icelandic Lutheran in Minneapolis I experienced the feeling of
homecoming in a church that worships in a familiar way, even if the language is
different. The liturgy was almost the same. The hymns sounded familiar. The
hymns we sing today here at Mindekirken are also sung in churches in Iceland and
Norway. The sense of familiarity was what I needed
in this different world I had landed in.
I don’t know if the immigrants thought of themselves as missionaries. I doubt
it. But for them their faith was such a matter-of-course part of their lives
that they became missionaries whether they realized it or not, whether they
intended to or not.
Their call to go to the new world and make a better living for themselves and
their children was also a call to serve the Lord. Because God wants us to be
happy and have a good life.
The call, God’s call, is powerful and has powerful effects on our lives,
effects we do not think of in the beginning. The gospels do not use many words
or elaborate descriptions on the disciples’ call, just that Jesus said
to them “Follow me”.
They were just ordinary men, men like you and me. And Jesus’ call changed
their lives, changed not only their future but also their present. Nothing would
ever be the same again.
But how do we hear or see the call? It’s easy to envision Jesus calling the
disciples. He was physically there before their very eyes. His powerful presence
and emission was there. He talked to them like one man to another.
And then there are all the different stories of God calling people to his
service. God calling in the night and Samuel waking up again and again until he
realizes it is God calling and he answers. Of God lighting a bush to get Moses
attention and of God sending an angel to Mary to deliver his message.
As a child and teenager I had often marveled about these stories and how
powerful God’s call must be. I wondered if I would ever be called. And if so
how would I receive the call? Would I see a blinding light or hear a voice when
nobody was around?
But when it came it wasn’t like that at all. It was more a growing need to go
and train to serve the Lord. I didn’t experience a voice in the night, I didn’t
see an angel, and I wasn’t struck by light. And for a long time I wasn’t
even sure if it was God calling me or just my own desire for change that
influenced this longing, this need.
But why do we accept God’s call? My guess is that there are as many answers to
that as the people we would
ask.
There is the anticipation of something new. The hope for something better. The
feeling of being called to follow, to serve.
For me I can only say that I couldn’t do anything else. It is like falling in
love, you follow your heart. And when Jesus fills your heart you follow him. You
don’t any longer have your eyes on the uneven, bumpy road but on
Him who walks in front of you. I also experience doubts. I try to talk God out
of his outrageous suggestions, trying to convince him that I can’t do what he’s
asking of me.
But gradually I have come to realize that it is not I that’s supposed to do it
all. I’m merely a tool. I have been given special gifts and talents that God
is now using for his peoples benefits.
A friend of mine sent me a sentence he had read after we had been talking about
the call, about listening and accepting God’s call. “There is no strain in
doing God’s Will as soon as you recognize that it is also your own.”
And that’s exactly how I have experienced the call. Gradually I grow into it,
I have enjoyed the journey it has taken me on. Even the dark and lonely paths.
And most important to me has been to realize that I’m never left alone. God is
always there with me.
And I always have a choice. My answer doesn’t change his love for me. If I’m
not ready he gives me time and tools to prepare for the next step, for the next
part of the journey.
And you know, I’m no different from you. You are a very special person. A
person God has created in his image to be his disciple, to be his tool here on
earth. To be his presence to your brothers and sisters.
He calls you to service, what is your answer?
Dýrð sé Guði, föður og syni og heilögum anda. Svo sem var í upphafi, er
og verður um aldir alda. Amen.
Glory be to God, father, son and holy spirit. What was in the beginning, is and
will be forever. Amen
