When Called; Answer

Jonah 3:1-5,10; Mark 1:14-20; Psalm 62:5-12

God calls us as God will. We have no authority, control, or real say in the matter. God meets the needs of the world by calling men and women to intervene, minister, and work for the betterment of whatever is within that context.

One issue to keep in mind is the contrast between the call of Jonah and that of the disciples. 

Jonah was called to a task he had no interest in fulfilling. Nineveh was the enemy of Israel. Nineveh was a pagan country. Jonah could think of no redeeming attribute within this city that oversaw the conquest of Israel. Jonah answers, but with flat rebellion. He will not go to Nineveh. God, though, seems completely indifferent to Jonah’s state of being. God wills that Nineveh awaken to God’s presence. That is all that matters; and that is all God centers upon. God works their redemption, no matter what quality the prophet sent to instigate that redemption. God’s will will be done! Even Jonah’s outright rebellion against the call of God matters little. He runs away. God finds him. God corrects him with a couple of nights in a fish. God ends up redeeming both the city and the prophet. Unmerited grace runs all through this text. The storyteller makes the assertion that nothing thwarts God’s intent. Our real lives may well challenge that assertion. Yet, as we proclaim the power of grace to overcome any and all evils, that must include simple human willfulness. Jonah cannot thwart God’s intent, no matter how much he might not like it. We need to remember that when God’s direction becomes contrary to what we want and even what we might believe.

The disciples, contrarily, are a much more positive story of call. Jesus calls, and they follow. It really is that simple, no matter which version of this story one reads. The important realization to make is to note how passive the human players are. They give themselves over to the direction of Jesus. There are no reservations, no conditions, and no caveats. They allow themselves to be claimed by God for the work of God.

Taken together, then, it really makes no difference what attitude human beings take, God will use whatever is presented to achieve the ends God seeks. 

That is an extremely important point to bear in mind as we live within a conflicted moment where leaders are narcissistic bullies who seem to want everything to go their way no matter the cost to the world at large. God is God; we are not. God trumps every human impulse. Always. Forever.

The psalmist reveals how we stay aligned with God and God’s power. We center on God. We open ourselves to God. We silence our own impulsive voices. We wait. Direction will come. A path will open before us. Then, we need to commit to being obedient to that direction no matter how we might feel about whatever work it is that God needs us to do. Part of vocation is noting that God intends to use gifts we possess and to feed our joy in their use. Frederick Buechner wrote, Vocation is where your joy intersects with the needs of the world. God calls us to use our joy for the benefit of all the world. Therefore, if we find ourselves running from God’s call, we need to reexamine where exactly our joy begins, for God calls us only to fulfill our joy. NB: joy may not have anything to do with happiness, but rather with fulfillment of our identity. Although, we can see as we compare Jonah and the disciples, if Jonah had been more willing, he may well have found a good deal more joy in what happened. Perhaps we can take the open-ended nature of the story as hope—maybe Jonah awakened as God explained things to him. The disciples certainly seem to have found their joy.

So—if we take the stance of the psalmist—expectant silence before God—we can know God’s call, opening to it, and finding our way into the path of the disciples. But even if we don’t, know that God will get done what God wants done, with or without us. But why would we ever want to miss our joy?