The Call of the Wild Goose

The Wild Goose
The Way of the Wild Goose - Part 3
June 2, 2024
Acts 16:6- 15. Philemon 1:15-16, Galatians 4:6-7, Exodus 20:2

Paul and his companions traveled throughout the regions of Phrygia and Galatia because the Holy Spirit kept them from speaking the word in the province of Asia.  When they approached the province of Mysia, they tried to enter the province of Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus wouldn’t let them.  Passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas instead.  A vision of a man from Macedonia came to Paul during the night. He stood urging Paul, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!” 

 Acts 16:6-9 (CEB)

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Too often we act like believing in Jesus and following Jesus are entirely different things.  Following or answering God’s call is for church leaders or ministers.  That’s not for me.  I’m just a regular person, not some “super-Christian.”  The sheer number of people in churches, even among the leadership, who say, for example, that “Bible study is just not their thing,” speaks to this artificial distinction between “believer” and “follower”. 

If belief is about trust, then there is no difference between believing and following.  When Jesus says, “Believe in me,” it is the same as saying, “Come, follow me.”  Belief requires trust.  Trust requires action.  Action requires stepping out in faith.  I once heard faith defined as “risk with direction.”  Faith always requires risk, and it always requires us to move in a particular direction.  Remaining content with the status quo is not an act of faith.  Being comfortable with our “beliefs” and unwilling to be challenged or grow beyond our present stage of faith does not demonstrate genuine trust in the God who says, “Go to the land I will show you” (Gen. 12:1).

While God’s call in Genesis 12 was specifically to Abram, it is also the call of the Wild Goose to every person who puts their faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  It was the call Jesus gave to his disciples when he said, “Come, follow me” (Matt. 4:19).  It was the call Saul received when he was blinded on the road to Damascus that set his life on a radically different path (Acts 9:1-19) and the call he later followed over and over again on his missionary journeys as the Spirit continually redirects his path the places where God was already at work (i.e. Acts 16:6-9).  It was the call of St. Patrick who saw a man from Ireland bearing letters that summoned him to return and proclaim the love of Christ to the very people who had enslaved him as a boy.

These calls, along with many others in scripture and throughout history, are not calls to comfort and ease.  They do not lull us to sleep or to a false sense of peace and security like the sound of a dove.  On the contrary, these calls startle us, awaken us from sleep in a cold sweat, blind us along the road, and tell us to leave our nets behind and take nothing with us for the journey. 

The Spirit calls us to wake up and stay alert to God’s work in the world.  The Spirit calls us together as one body with one hope, one Lord, one faith, and one Baptism (Ephesians 4:5).  The Spirit calls to give us clear direction and to help us know which way to go.  The Spirit calls to protect us and keep us from danger.  And the Spirit calls to attract or draw others into the flock where they can find love, peace, and rest.  The Wild Goose calls when we least expect it for all sorts of reasons.  Remember, geese tend to bite those who try to put them in cages. 

How is the Wild Goose calling you this week?

~ excerpts from The Wild Goose: Embracing the Untambed Beauty of the Holy Spirit

An Impossible Call

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An Impossible Call
A God Who Weeps - Part 1
Sunday, September 4, 2022
Jeremiah 1:1-10

The Lord’s word came to Jeremiah in the thirteenth year of Judah’s King Josiah, Amon’s son,  and throughout the rule of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Josiah’s son, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah, Josiah’s son, when the people of Jerusalem were taken into exile.

The Lord’s word came to me:

“Before I created you in the womb I knew you;
    before you were born I set you apart;
    I made you a prophet to the nations.”
“Ah, Lord God,” I said, “I don’t know how to speak
    because I’m only a child.”
The Lord responded,
    “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a child.’
        Where I send you, you must go;
        what I tell you, you must say.

 Jeremiah 1:2-7 (CEB)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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God calls pastors.  God calls missionaries.  God calls chaplains.  God calls prophets.  Maybe God even calls seminary professors or Sunday School teachers.  But what if I were to tell you that God has called you, that God is calling you, and that God will continue to call you until you breathe your final breath on earth?

The point of Jeremiah’s call story is not, as so many argue, to make a scientific claim about when life technically begins.  The point is to show Jeremiah, and all of us, that God has been intimately involved in our lives from the very beginning, and even before the beginning. 

This is not to say that God predetermines some to be born into riches and others to grow up as slaves or that God’s plan requires some to live healthy lives while others suffer and die as infants or children.  God’s so-called “plan” for our lives is not a mystery to solve or a puzzle that can only be put together one way and requires that we somehow find all the right pieces hidden somewhere throughout our lives by making the right choices along the way. 

What it does say, however, is that God knows and loves each and every one of us before we are born, and that God invites us to participate in God’s redemptive purposes for the world long before we could even hear or process such an invitation.

The question for us, as it was for Jeremiah, is how do our lives, our gifts and abilities, our heritage, our circumstances, our geographical and socio-economic position, our choices, and so much more shape us in ways that God can use for the sake of the world.

Jeremiah was not waiting as a baby soul in heaven for the right body to come along to be placed into on earth so that he could become a prophet.  But Jeremiah’s location in life, as a member of a priestly family during a time of tremendous social, political, and religious upheaval and renewal in Jerusalem, prepared him well to proclaim God’s good news to the exiles in Babylon and to the remnant left behind in the ruins under foreign control. 

• What have you learned from your own experience that can help others? 

• Where do your gifts and passions intersect with the needs of the world? 

Perhaps these questions are the beginning of hearing God’s call for yourself? 

If we listen close enough, maybe even a child or teenager like Jeremiah will lead the way.

Just Your Boy

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Just Your Boy
Let the Children Come - Part 4
Sunday, August 28, 2022
1 Samuel 16:1-23, 1 Timothy 4:12

Then Samuel asked Jesse, “Is that all of your boys?”

“There is still the youngest one,” Jesse answered, “but he’s out keeping the sheep.”

“Send for him,” Samuel told Jesse, “because we can’t proceed until he gets here.”

 1 Samuel 16:11 (CEB)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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Though he didn’t become king until around the age of 30, David was most likely between 8 and 15 when Samuel first called him in from the fields and anointed him as Saul’s successor to the throne of Israel.  He was quite literally “just a boy”.  He was so young and insignificant, in fact, that his father didn’t even see the point in bringing him along when Samuel invited his family to the sacrifice.  While his father and older brothers were going through the ritual purification to be cleansed before God for worship, young David was out in the fields with the sheep composing psalms of praise. 

How appropriate that God would use Samuel, himself called as a child, to anoint another child king over all Israel.  We know the stories of David’s heroism, how he defeated Goliath and the Philistine army with just a sling and a stone, and how he united the tribes of Israel and strengthened the whole nation with its most expansive borders ever from Dan to Beersheba.  We know how he spent so much of his life on the run from King Saul who sought to kill him because he was a threat to his own dynasty, despite God’s clear ruling that Saul’s family would no longer reign in Israel due to his own sin.  And we see David at his lowest point, committing adultery and murder to attain what he couldn’t have.  We read and sing his psalms of praise and lament, of joy and of repentance.  Yet despite all his accomplishments and all his mistakes, in the end only one thing mattered… He was just God’s beloved child singing praises in the field.

As you look at your own life, your highs and lows, what matters most to you?  What matters most to God?