Hearing God's Call

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”  At once they left their nets and followed him. (Matt 4:18-20)

I love walking round lakes. The noises of the world are further away. It's easy to see, hear and feel God's wonders - the way the wind stirs up the water, the cries of a skein of geese, the amazing way a swan will seem almost too heavy for its wings as it rises from the surface of the water. The wash of the waves or the rain dripping from the trees round the shore.

Neither Galilee nor Husborne Crawley but still pretty nice don't you think?

It's out by a lake that Jesus calls those first few disciples. Simon and Andrew, James and John. To them, no doubt, the Sea of Galilee was a place of wonder. But to them it was also a workplace, and if the storms blew in sometimes a cause of concern or terror.

We live in a world of constant electronic fog, of TV and traffic and social media. Sometimes it's hard to hear God's call, that still small voice of Elijah. We don't give ourselves enough time to be, in between getting outraged and reacting and sympathising and wondering what's going to happen next in a world where every crisis is live streamed into our living rooms.

Sometimes for our good we have to get away. Doesn't have to be a lake. Can be a garden, a quiet room, a conservatory, a jog round the park, a sit in an empty church. But we need to re-set. To listen. To, as the modern jargon has it, "decompress". To hear what God has to say to us.

Though sometimes God's call will come from someone else, from a situation. God's like that. Moves in mysterious ways.

And we also need to consider what that call is. Simon and Andrew were told they would be fishing for people. Evangelists, preachers and church founders. And we can focus on churchy callings, and immediate ones. Great prophets, great church planters, being a priest or a missionary.

But consider. Anna and Simeon served quietly, obscurely in the Temple for decades - pottering about and praying and fasting and no doubt doing a bit of tidying up and dusting and carrying things around - before for 15 minutes they saw the Lord and fulfilled their callings as prophets.

And our callings can be to offices; to be those who sit beside the ones who weep; to ensure a church is open or a roof's kept waterproof; to spread a hint of God's joy as you go around your daily round as a mother, a father, a shop worker or a someone who depends on others.

I'm enjoying reading Fergus Butler-Gallie's "A Field Guide to the English Clergy" - a guide to some of the biggest misfits, rogues and eccentrics you ever heard of - and if it tells me anything at all about calling, it tells me that any kind of clerical calling is not necessarily as important or special as any other.

But God is calling each of us to a journey. To walk alongside Jesus, as the first to travel with him did. And it may be that he leads us in green pastures, or through the valley of the shadow of death - to a quiet office or a cross. But we're called to walk alongside. And whatever we're called to, we're not promised it will be easy. But we're promised the infinite love of the Spirit of God, upon us and within us, and the knowledge that Jesus is treading our journey with us.

So whatever we are doing today - whether we're Pope or Archdruid or cat-sitter or farmer - stop and listen, to hear Jesus's call. It's always "follow me". And he will lead us through whatever adventures he has planned for us, until the day it is time to follow him home.

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