Sermon: Easter 4

 Acts 9:36-43 John 10: 22-30    

"Tabitha, rise." Two simple words that help us to think about what vocation is on this Vocation Sunday. And there are five words from the gospel to go with them: "My sheep hear my voice". I want to think, for a few moments, about what vocation is and how we live with it.

"Tabitha, rise." I presume Luke, the writer, had these words either from the Apostle Peter or more likely from Tabitha herself, because there was no-one else in the room. Peter put all the grieving women out of the room, and addressed a dead body. Luke could have said that Peter addressed ‘her', or ‘the woman', but deliberately he says "he turned to the body and said, ‘Tabitha, rise'". Tabitha had caught some kind of illness, it seems, and had lost the battle. She could not fight it off, and nor could her friends help her though they clearly loved her. Death had won. But wherever Tabitha was, in the sleep of death, she heard her own name, "'Tabitha, rise'. Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up". Not even death put her beyond the possibility of hearing her name; and this call brought with it the capacity to respond. Like Lazarus walking out of his tomb when Jesus called him by name, "Lazarus, come forth!" I can imagine Tabitha telling her story afterwards to all those friends and relatives and anyone who would listen, of how, out of the darkness, she heard her own name, and found herself called back into life with these two simple words.

Tabitha's return to life may seem a strange introduction to the idea of vocation, which many people associate with the call to ordination. Francis Dewar, for twenty years a priest in this Diocese, is one of our most quoted writers about vocation and the clever title of his seminal book is Called or Collared?  God's call is not normally about a collar. Whereas every single one of us is called: the young, the elderly, the beautiful, the unlovely, the sick, the healthy, activists and quiet people, regardless of intellect or education, race or class. No matter how sinful we are or have been, no matter how reluctant, or grudging or dead we feel. As with Tabitha, the call is personal. As with Zaccheus Jesus stops beneath the tree where you're trying to be a spectator and he says, ‘I've spotted you - I'd like to come to your house today'. As with the fishermen at their nets or Matthew collecting the taxes, Jesus stops right by you and says ‘Follow me'.

This kind of vocation is threefold. The Archbishop of Canterbury says, "In the most general sense, vocation is God's summons into existence itself. God calls creation into being; every thing that is made is called and named; its identity lies in the purposive call of God." (I might try to put it simply as ‘God's call in creation'. We don't just exist: we exist because God willed us to exist, and goes on willing us, calling us into existence because he just loves having us exist. Amazing.) Then the Archbishop goes on "But for the Christian, this vocation is more specific again: human beings are called to grow in community into the likeness of Jesus Christ." So our vocation is not just to exist, but to exist with the existence that Christ has. We are not just created, we are re-created; we are not just born, we are born again; we are not just alive, but like Tabitha, we have died, but we have heard our name being called and we have come to life again with the same life that was in Christ Jesus, risen from the grave, nevermore to die. So we are called into existence by God, then we are called to share the life of Jesus; and thirdly, we are called to live for others: in the Archbishop's words "The Church's very name (ekklesia) means ‘a community that is called together'; but the Church is not only a called community, it is a community that represents God's call and invitation to all humanity." In your baptism you said ‘yes' to this threefold call. And in the Eucharist every time you stretch out your hands and receive the bread of life you say ‘yes' again, ‘yes please', to this calling whose name and nature is love.

But besides this ‘shared vocation' which makes us the people of God Francis Dewar talks also of ‘personal vocation'. "This too is for everyone (but it tends to be the least understood and the least recognised by the Church, because it will usually be something you do beyond the confines of the church). God invites everyone to make some contribution to the life of the world, some piece of gift-work or service to others, that only you can do because of the particular person you are, your gifts, your wounds, your personal background and history. It will be something that expresses the unique essence of what you are, which God calls out from you to be a gift to others. This may be something you do in your spare time. Or it may be at your place of work: if it is, it probably won't be in the job description. It may, for example, be the way you do some part of your work." This is something that brings together who you are in creation and who you are in Christ.

Paul expresses a similar thing when he talks about the body being made of many parts, each of which has its peculiar function. There's a story which relates to this picture told by Anthony de Mello. "Once upon a time the members of the body were annoyed with the stomach. They were resentful that they had to procure food and bring it to the stomach while the stomach itself did nothing but devour the fruit of their labour. So they decided they would no longer bring the stomach food. The hands would not lift it to the mouth. The teeth would not chew it. The throat would not swallow it. That would force the stomach to do something. But they only succeeded in making the whole body weak to the point where they were threatened with death. So it was finally they who learned the lesson that in doing their own work and in helping one another they were making themselves strong." So too perhaps as we play our own particular part in the life of the church and the purposes of God in the world, the health of the body is enhanced. There is only one you - by design - and this kind of vocation is to come to see yourself as God sees you and to let his intentions in you flourish.

But besides ‘Christian vocation' and ‘personal vocation' there is what Francis Dewar calls ‘institutional' vocation. This is the calling to a role or job, defined by others, requiring certain duties and obligations. Ordination is an example of institutional vocation; so is Churchwarden, or Reader. Here the calling of God comes in and through the Church. To be ordained you have to go through a selection process and others, the accredited representatives of the Church, decide prayerfully whether you have the right qualities for the work. In effect God's call comes through the Church. It begins not with self but with the job that needs to be done. As we look ahead at what vocations the Church will need in coming years, ordained and lay, I wonder if any of the following give you that jolt of recognition and could be part of your ‘yes' to God? We shall need missionaries not to other countries but to vast tracks of our own country where people have not had a chance to respond to the call of God because they have never heard it in a language they can relate to; we shall need people able to teach others how to pray and how to follow Jesus once they have heard the call; we shall need caring people able to show the love of God without words; we shall need conductors who can get all the parts of the orchestra to play together; we shall need prophets to do battle with the injustices of the world; and we shall need people able to lead worship that is a foretaste of the glory of heaven. 

These callings may involve ordination, but not necessarily so. They may be offered in your spare time as you earn your living in other ways; they may be offered as your contribution to a little team who between them put the various gifts together into a whole. We don't all have to be good at everything and there isn't enough money in the church plate to pay for everything. But just as the body has many different parts so God has given his body the Church all the gifts it needs for his work in the world. We just have to listen to the call, to hear our name, and to trust the one who calls us out of the darkness, calls us back into life, and light, and friendship, and service. Get those muscles working again, for Christ's sake. "Tabitha, rise".

Vocation is God's call to each of us , uniquely using our own names, to be more fully what he has made us in creation and in Christ, and to fulfil that calling in the church and the world for which no-one else is suited. It is ultimately a calling into the loving heart of God for all eternity. In this service it is held out afresh to us in the body and blood of Christ, to which we say ‘Amen'.