Where would the church be without sheep?  Sermon 29/04/07: Vocation Sunday: St Mary's: Susannah Underwood

Where would the church be without sheep? For example there is a lot with Christianity that can appear difficult to explain to a child, but every struggling Sunday School teacher knows, that when all else fails, you can always reach for the glue and endlessly stick cotton wool balls onto outlines of sheep - for children it’s a winner every time! And I know from working at school that when all the parts of Joseph, wisemen and shepherd are taken and you can‘t convince the left-over boys that actually the angels in the gospels were men, it’s OK because you can always have endless sheep.

But then as a mother there’s that moment when you find the crumpled letter at the bottom of a child’s school bag that is requesting a costume, 48 hours, 24 hours before the grand performance… well if it ever happens to you and you do need to come up with a sheep costume at the last minute, then here’s a top tip for you. The most inspired sheep’s head dress that I have seen, that I suspect was made in pretty similar circumstances, that is pretty simple to make, was a pair of pants with socks sewn over the leg holes. Don’t mock, they made very realistic drooping ears. You may very well thank me for the advice.. Of course why boys won’t be persuaded to wear a bit of tinsel and a pair of wings, but are more than happy to put pants on their head is beyond me.

Today is vocations Sunday - you may be rather worried by now that the church is encouraging me to follow mine - and the gospel reading we have this morning gives us a wonderful, reassuring image, that we can hold on to as we explore the idea of vocation - “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me”.

Before we move any further, I think it is wise to spend a little time sorting out what precisely we may mean by vocation. The term in the New Testament simply means “calling”. The calling of Christ to claim our lives as his own. The calling of God for us to live as members of his community and to express our belonging though the way we live our lives. This, above all else, is our primary calling, our primary vocation.  If this is the only sense that you have of God’s call, for you to be a Christian, a follower of Christ, then don’t believe that this is second best to any other type of calling that another may have.  Archbishop to tiny child, our vocation, in this sense, is the same.

Yet there are also particular tasks at particular times, that God may be calling a community or an individual towards. The challenge is often to discern what this might be and then, perhaps equally difficult, is to trust God so that we give ourselves generously to it, and to Him.

I want to affirm now, that we must not assume that the tasks that God calls us to, necessarily have to be based within the church. On the contrary, the church is called to be a partner in Christ’s mission to the world, and by that very fact it follows that there will be places, very much in the secular, that God desires for his people to go. And we hesitate anyway with the term secular, which suggests that there is a definite divide between those things spiritual and those things secular.

God is God of all things and so there are many among us who are already responding to God’s call by being in a particular place of work, or a member of a certain group, by caring, or speaking truth wherever we may be.  And there are also those who by using the gifts that God has given, in art, in music, in film or literature, that, too, may be living out their vocation by stirring the souls of others, by pointing to the mystery and beautiful in life. What is God, if he is not mystery and beauty? To creative and practical things, performing tasks that are ordinary and extraordinary, God has and continues to call his people.

Yet I think it would be wrong today, as we are part of the church family, not to mention something particular about the possibility of God calling members of this congregation to his work in the church.  Of course, that can mean a variety of things. As members of this church congregation, there may well be a role that perhaps someone has suggested you take on, or a need that you have identified that perhaps is just what God is asking you to do. There are also, within the Church of England a number of different ministries available, lay and ordained, that God calls ordinary people to be part of. If you would like to know more, then an easy way for many would perhaps be to 'Google' 'Church of England Vocations' and you will get to a very useful page explaining many of the different options and routes.

But sometimes, when God is calling us to something very different, whatever that may be, within the church or outside, to something that may take us out of our comfort zone, we can find it hard to believe that God could really mean us.  Perhaps there may have been signs, or suggestions that you should be opening up to a new horizon. Perhaps you have had a niggly feeling that refuses to be pushed aside, despite your best efforts to ignore it. But you think you must be mistaken because God couldn’t really want you?

I want to share with you something that is very precious to me about my training course. I am training for Ordination but to balance it with work and family I am training with the Eastern Region Ministerial Course, which is a part time, ecumenical course whose catchment area you may have guessed covers the eastern region, but so east that it also includes the diocese of Europe.  Perhaps, because we are all training there because more for convenience, rather than choosing a theological college that would suit our niche, we are such a right jumble of people. My friends, and a lot of them are now dear friends, range from people in their twenties, to people who have retired, a number among us have disabilities or long standing illness, we are women and men of evangelical to very high Anglo-Catholic traditions, extraverts and introverts of different nationalities and sexualities, some are academically very able, some of us have only a basic education and haven’t studied for years.

When we all meet together I feel a real sense of - isn’t God good. That he appreciates and uses us all as he made us. That he calls such a diversity of people, because his world and his work is so diverse. I tell you this in case there may be one or two seated here today who feel that God maybe calling you in a different direction, but that you think he couldn’t possibly mean you - because you are too old, young, busy, committed, not gifted enough, then the reality is as I have seen it, that all those things that you feel are barriers, may well be the very things that God wants you for.

Some of us may not quite match up to Rowan Williams when it comes to brain power, but for some people that might make you a more approachable person. (Some would also argue it would make for more readable book should you ever choose to write one). You may feel too old, but perhaps that is where God sees wisdom, you may feel too young, but God knows the potential within, that he has planted. You may feel you’re not good enough, well, none of us are, and God needs people who are certainly aware of that. I would really suggest to anyone who can think of a multitude of reasons why God could not be calling you to something, because of who you see yourself to be, to look at the calling of the Old Testament heroes and prophets - you might be surprised that their concerns may have been similar to yours. Make it your Sunday afternoon reading today - start with Isaiah “ I am a man with unclean lips!”, or Jeremiah “I am only a boy” or Moses “they won’t listen to me!” .

But I want to go back now to sheep and the Good Shepherd. “My sheep hear my voice” says Jesus “I know them and they follow me”. There, in those words, we see amazing trust that God has for us, that despite all the other voices in this world that may say you’re too old, too busy, it’s not practical, you’re not good enough, that this is a ridiculous idea, that God trusts us to listen to Him. To listen and to follow Him. He trusts us and he asks us to trust Him. That as he says he knows us, and because of this we can be assured that he asks of us, only that which he has or will equip us to do.

In the gospel reading Jesus continues to say “I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand.” Eternal life, in John, is inextricably linked to life in all it’s fullness. Although it is not promised that it will always be easy, we do know that by following Jesus, we will be doing what we were made for and ultimately we cannot live a life that will be more satisfying or blessed than that.

Yet it is not easy to always discern the Good Shepherd’s voice. It may well be that you need to talk to friends or colleagues, to Alan, or others within the church for advice. There are people within the diocese trained to help discern vocation, or it might be by having someone like a Spiritual Director, that is someone to talk to about your faith journey, may well help to sort out those things that are important.

But also always we must pray. Pray, that you, that others in the church, may live up to the calling that God has laid upon each one of us, that we will learn to discern his voice and that we, will learn to trust and follow faithfully our Good Shepherd, remembering that he goes before us and will never let us go.

Let us pray…..Loving Shepherd, let your will be done in our lives and give us the wisdom to know, the strength to accept and the courage to do it. In your name, Amen