“He is Calling You”

Mark 10: 46 – 52

October 15, 2006

Howard Memorial Presbyterian Church

We watch a lot of children’s movies at our home, which I expect is part of the natural order. Just like we wrestle a lot, and we chase a lot of dragons, and hunt for pirates, and keep an eye out for “monstahs” (monsters).

In all the children’s movies we watched I still have not seen a better one that Mary Poppins, the story of this magical nanny, Jane and Michael, and a father’s rediscovery of his love for his children. To be sure the visual effects we have in 2006 beat those available in the late 1960’s. There are probably movies with better acting and movies that hold the attention of children more completely. But there are non sweeter, and none more true to the wonder of childhood and the gulf which sometimes separates children and their parents.

In the film, the one thing which everyone in the family agrees upon is that they need a nanny for the children. Father is a busy banker. Mother is a campaigning suffragette. The children need someone to teach them their lessons, to provide for their basic care, and to keep them intellectually and stimulated. In what is the critical scene of the beginning of the movie, the children approach their father with their request for a nanny – their advertisement to go in the paper.

“If you want this choice position

Have a cheery disposition

Rosy cheeks, no warts

Play games, all sorts”

II.

It goes on several moments like this, with the adorable children singing their song and their Father huffing and puffing and protesting throughout the song. For the Father the Brittish Nanny is the embodiment of the adage, in the words of the poet William Ross Wallace: “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” The Brittish nanny is stern and unyielding – she is the trainer of the next generation and has no time for playthings and games because the future of the Empire (“the sun never sets on the Brittish Isles”) rest under the secure wing of her tutelage.

Rosy Cheeks? He says and he tears Jane and Michael’s composition into pieces throwing them into the fireplace.

If you have seen the film you know that moments later the pieces fly up the fireplace and land in the hands of Mary Poppins, who fits the children’s description “to a T”, and shows up the very next morning to teach and guide and lead the family.

III.

In some ways what happens in the family in the film is a good metaphor for what happens in the church.

Do we go a new way, do we look for a new kind of nanny? Or, do we stick with the tried and true hoping that eventually the wheels will turn and the cylinders will click even though the old way is not serving its fullest purpose any longer?

The back story of the film, of course, is that the children have already run off, gone through many of the traditional nannies. One after another the nannies have quit. The “way its always been done” is not working in their home. The model the father is championing is a broken one – at least for his home. And everyone know it but him.

Churches are always up against this same struggle. The old way may not be broken. But it may also not be working. So what to do?

IV.

Well first off we in the church need to realize that both groups, the “change” crowd and the “maintain” crowd, are still talking about church: the proclamation of the gospel, the maintenance of divine worship, the preservation of the truth, the nurture of the children of God, the promotion of social justice, and the like. Or in the example of the film the children and their father are still talking about nannies. Neither have abandoned the idea. They just think about the type of nanny that is needed in different ways.

In the same way our church, HMPC, has been rethinking how we do youth ministry the past months and years. Not that the old way was broken. But new ways had to be found. And so we expanded our youth staff by hiring Anna Vaughn Creech, brought in a DCE to give support, and did everything we could to bring worship, prayer, music, a rich Christian Spirituality, and a dedication to Christian Mission to the center of all that we do as a Youth Group, in Youth Ministry.

The girls you heard sing this morning are a product of those efforts.

The youth you heard speak today are a product of those efforts.

Just as Batimaeus is blind, just as he needs to have his eyes opened, so too the youth and children of our church are blind to need of the world unless they see the needs of the world around them. Our Youth and children are blind to the reach of the Holy Spirit and its power to change and transform their lives as it has the lives of other young people unless they encounter young people whose lives have been changed. They cannot know how other Christians respond to the call to service, or to the call to worship, unless they see and hear how those calls are heard and enacted.

They are helpless in the face of suffering unless they get their eyes opened as to how a person of faith responds to disaster and reacts in love. They have no knowledge about the true size of their church or the power of God to shape lives from sea to shining sea unless they are able to meet Christians from other places and other locales.

VI.

“Take heart,” they say to Bartimaeus, “get up. He is calling you.” The rest of the world, the crowd in Jericho is telling Barimaeus to be quiet, shut his mouth, and take his place. But Jesus calls. Let me say that again, Jesus calls. And they tell him the finest words any of us might ever hear. “Take heart and get up.”

“He is calling you!”

This is true from Montreat to Mississippi – this is true whether the calling is to sing in joy, testify in song, or to paint and prime until skin turns dusty and white with primer and dry wall “dust-sandings.” This is true on days when everything goes right and days when it was hot and sticky and buggy on the Gulf Coast. Working in a hard place, with a very difficult family in a tough situation, in a house which was cramped and smelled funny to us our Youth worked and worked and complained not once. Not once. Why? Because they lived for one week in the conviction that God had called them there, and being there they began and ended each day in prayer and worship, and dedicated themselves to the task at hand, loving neighbors as much as they could and showing that love by working to the point of exhaustion.

I was so proud to be their minister and to call them my friends. And strangely enough, they were happy doing the work. They were happy performing the tasks for God had called us there, and to God the work was dedicated. And in that we all took heart, and we got up each day, because God was calling us to.

VII.

I was in Richmond this past week at a conference for groups who work with Seminary students who are preparing for ordained ministry of word and sacrament in our denomination.

One of the questions we wrestled with was “what is the role of the church, and specifically the role of leaders in the church?” What is it, in other words, that we should be training these ministers to do as we shepherd them into ministry? There were lots of ideas and definitions – make them preachers of the gospel; teach them to tell the story of Jesus; good pastoral care; and so. All of which are vitally important and all of which I had heard before and none of which should be left off any list for ministerial training.

I did hear one new addition to the list, though which has stayed with me: the role of the church and of leaders in the church is found through empowering people to discover their God-given giftedness. Helping people discover their calling. Letting them know how to get up and walk toward the Lord. To get up and share their lives, and their gifts, with the Lord of the Living, with the Christ who has called them; the God who gifted them; and the neighbors who need them.

VIII.

One of the questions I most often get asked is about Habitat for Humanity and the college students who come here, to Eastern NC, to build houses for the poor, for people who have never been to Atlantic Beach, and the students come here to serve God and neighbor instead of going to South Beach. How is it, I am asked, that those kids do this, and how do we get out kids to do the same once they are in college?

My only answer is that the studies I have run across show that the one common denominator amongst these young people is that they all shared in at least one High School Mission experience. And, true to form, if you speak to the young people who come here, they will tell you the same thing. The overwhelming majority went on trips to help and aid, went places to study Bible and to pray, while in High School, and they are seeking that same experience with God and neighbors once they are in college.

Or, to put this yet another way, their eyes had been opened.

They could see God and the world and the need and their gifts and they understood the claim made on their lives.

That is the rub in the movie, Mary Poppins, you see. The father didn’t know his children. He was blind to who they were, what they loved, and most especially, how much they needed him. Most movies that inspire are either about redemption or restoration, and Mary Poppins, though a children’s movie, is really about the restoration of the father. But he cannot be restored unless his eyes are opened, just as we cannot find the gifts we have to share if we sit in the street, blind to our callings, while the Lord passes on by.

And so we support, here at Howard Memorial, our youth from Montreat to Mississippi, that they might discover their God-giftedness, and that they might here the voice of the Lord calling them. And when they do, their eyes are opened. Yes, they are. Their eyes are opened. And if that means driving 15 hours in a van, then so be it. For the job of the church, at least in some part, is to empower all of God’s children to discover their own giftedness.

Take heart. Get Up. He is calling you. Just as they Lord has gifted and called our youth, so has He gifted and called all of us. Thanks be to the God who calls, who gifts, and who leads into every act and age of ministry.

Amen.