Sunday afternoon I participated in the ordination of Pinnacle’s first seminarian to be called as a pastor, the Reverend Emily Beghin. As I listened to the chancel and bell choirs play, the scriptures being read, and the sermon given, I couldn’t help but think about the people, places and ministries she will touch. This day would change her and a small part of the world forever.

While much of the service is powerful and moving, the part that always touches me is the laying on of hands. The pastor-to-be stands in the middle and all other ordained elders, deacons and pastors lay hands on the newly ordained and pray for her. The weight of all the people who love, support you and care for you give you that last little push into ministry. It was as if they were saying “you have done well good and faithful servant; now go out and do what God has called you to do.”

While most professions don’t have the same kind of ordination into their profession, we all have a sending out. It is the moment when you show up on your first day and say and realize today is the real deal. 

What does it mean to be sent out? Jesus says it at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, “Go out and make disciples of all nations…” In this particular case, Jesus was sending us all out as Christians to do His work in the world, and as faithful believers we all are out with this ministry in mind. But what does that look like for the doctor, teacher, fast-food worker, parent, student, retiree, and caregiver? 

No matter what your profession, it means the same thing that it means for Emily. It means listening for God’s voice in your work and going where He calls. Where is He calling you? What new projects, adventures or challenges should you take on? And most importantly, listen for God to tell you who you already are. 

So often we get caught up in the world of possibilities. We look for what comes next, what we need do to get to the next place and working towards a goal. But a call isn’t something that happens next; it is something that happens now. Your very identity, gifts, skills and person make up who God has called you to be. 

Or maybe you feel lost, and wonder if God is calling you at all. Jobs, work and life has changed and you are unsure of where God is calling you now. 

No matter where you are, God is calling you; “Good and faithful servant, listen and go where I call because I love you. I have a unique and special purpose for you.”

I love the story of God calling Samuel. The first time I heard that story, I knew that it was true whether it really happened or not.  Samuel, a young boy, is spending time in the home of his mentor Eli. Eli is old and his eyes are not good and so as Samuel hears a voice calling out in the night, Samuel figures that the old man is in need of his help. So Samuel climbs out of bed and runs over to Eli and says, “I am here for you called me.” But Eli stirs and looks at him in groggy confusion and says, “Samuel, go back to bed. I didn’t call you.”  The process happens two more times and on the third time, Eli’s life experience kicks in and he realizes that God is calling out to Samuel. And so he tells the boy to go to bed but this time to say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”

 Listening for God’s voice is a tricky thing. We post-modern people tend to rely far more on our smart phones for life’s answers than the still small voices of the divine (I am still convinced that just about anything can be learned from a good Google search).  And we think that if God is calling to anyone it is to, “religious professionals,” but that everyone else is simply on their own.

 But call is a central part of scripture, a fundamental concept for Christians and Jews. The idea that God not only created the world and is involved in human affairs, but calls to ordinary everyday people, even ten year old boys sleeping on the floor in the temple, to do God’s work. And that God calls to us not just once or twice but all our lives no matter where we are or what we are doing- at work, at play, where we live, where we love, and where we go to school. And what’s more is that God’s call is not to a set of beliefs but simply a willingness to listen and to respond. “Speak Lord for your servant is listening.”

 This past Monday, the women’s group Conversations Uncorked, spent their gathering time learning and practicing the spiritual disciplines of journaling and meditation.  Paying attention to our inner voices through writing is one way to listen for God’s call; to listen for where God is speaking into difficult situations where we feel lost, or reminding us of our blessings, or where God is summoning us to a larger purpose.

 In an editorial for the NY Times that he wrote several years ago (August 2, 2010), “The Summoned Self,” David Brooks, cited a commencement address by distinguished Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christenson.  Christenson told the graduates that when he was a student at Oxford, he decided to spend an hour a day reading, thinking, and praying about why God had put him on the earth. It was hard and took a tremendous amount of discipline, but he stuck with it and ultimately figured out the purpose of his life at age 23.  Admirable but it is likely a bit more than most of us are ready to sign up for.  

In his article Brooks offered an alternative that sounded pretty biblical to me: the summoned life. “Life isn’t a project to be completed; it’s a landscape to be explored.” You must be able to respond to life situations as they come, asking “What is this situation summoning me to do?”

It is a different approach from thinking that we have it all figured out or that God is going to come to us in a thunderclap or send us an email with instructions for our life’s work. It is a summons to a journey in which we listen and respond to God’s call every day our whole lives long.