SERMON Cold Calls

Epiphany 2 (B) (2009): 1 Samuel 3:1-10; Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17; I Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51

This morning's first reading and gospel abound with cold calls of all sorts, from the calls to Samuel to the calls to Philip and Nathanael. All very different but cold calls nonetheless.

Cold calls are unsolicited. They can be annoying. Extremely annoying.

I don't know about you, but, until the federal government interned in 2003 with the National Do Not Call Registry, I know I spent a major portion of my waking hours avoiding, deflecting, and defeating cold calls. I especially began to notice this when I opened my own law office in the mid-90s and began staying at home to work on briefs as often as possible because it was so much more convenient than going downtown. Except for the calls.

The calls would start at 10:00 a.m. If by some fluke you are not on the Do Not Call Registry, you know the kind of calls. The mortgage companies. The painting services. The crematoriums (in Evanston). Am-vets. Magazines. Florida real estate. Security brokers. But it wasn't only during the day. At dinner time, we would get calls from the opera. The symphony. Our colleges. The Goodman. Of course, one could not answer the phone, but I found that every time that I did that, the call was from a daughter or a parent or sibling. Murphy's law.

Finally, I learned that when I heard a dead space before anyone came on the line, there was a computer system in place that was dialing the numbers. I was told that if I hung up before a human being came on the line the system would dial the next number and I was off the hook so to speak (until of course, the system re-dialed our number -- which it did when it got to the "W's" because Lee and I have different last names). As for the charities, Lee and I decided early on that we would tell schools and charities that we do not take solicitations over the phone and to take us off their phone lists. For whatever reason, that never worked.

Before the government intervened in 2003, there were devices claiming to detect computer-generated calls. And, of course, if one were willing to pay for it (we never have been), caller id allowed one to screen calls and answer the mother-daughter-sister-brother calls and guess on others. But, until June of 2003, the phone still constantly rang. And disturbed. And, of course, the charities are not covered by the federal registry. And those calls still come.

There can be no doubt that cold calls -- whether they seek to solicit our business or our money or our time -- are invasive, annoying, and off-putting.

So what about the cold calls we hear about this morning? On the surface they share traits of calls that plague us.

Take the cold calls to Samuel. As you will recall, Samuel, like John the Baptist, is the child of a barren mother who, when she became pregnant, dedicated her child to God's service. Which explains why the young boy Samuel is living at the temple with Eli. Samuel is sleeping near the ark of God, in the innermost sanctuary, where a light was kept burning through the night. Presumably he is sleeping there because he has duties to perform during the night. Three times Samuel is called. There is no caller id, so Samuel has to guess at who is calling him. Three times he runs to Eli only to learn that he has guessed wrong. It's only on the third call, that Eli figures out what's happening, and tells Samuel to respond to the call by saying "Speak, for your servant is listening."

Samuel does as he is told, aware now that the Lord God is speaking to him. He answers the fourth call as he has been directed. You may have noticed in your Celebrate insert that we could have ended the reading at this point. That may be because, if the first three calls to Samuel were mere cases of mistaken identity and a lack of caller id, the fourth call -- the call where Samuel is finally listening -- is disturbing beyond measure. Indeed, that call has all the earmarks of those middle of the night cold calls from the police or a hospital or a relative that there has been an accident or death.

In that fourth call, Samuel is told that he -- Samuel -- must tell Eli that the house of Eli will be punished forever because of the behavior of Eli's sons and Eli's failure to restrain their behavior. Normally, a priest like Eli could sacrifice a bull to expiate any sin. But not in this case. The Lord God specifically tells Samuel to tell Eli that "the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever."

One can hardly imagine a more devastating call, especially to a young boy. No wonder Samuel lies in his bed until morning, afraid to tell Eli about the call.

By contrast, in this morning's gospel, Jesus' call to Philip appears to be a cold call that is immediately answered. In contrast to the heavy message conveyed to the boy Samuel, Jesus' message to Philip, is a simple directive, "Follow me." (In fact, Jesus' call is not really such a cold call because Philip is from Bethsaida, the same city as Andrew and Peter. In the gospel of John, Andrew is depicted as a disciple of John the Baptist, and immediately before calling Philip, Andrew is standing with John the Baptist when John sees Jesus and says, "Behold the Lamb of God." And Andrew and another of John's disciples ask Jesus where he is staying, Jesus says, "Come and see." And they do and stay. And then Andrew tells his brother Simon whom Jesus renames Peter.)

So Philip probably already knows about Jesus when Jesus says, "Follow me." But that is not true of Nathanael. Nathanael, we learn later in John, is from Cana in Galilee. Unlike Philip, he does not have the John the Baptist, the Andrew, and the Peter connections.

And here we get an initial response to a truly cold call that is a lot like the kind of response most of us are tempted to give cold calls. Philip tells Nathanael,"We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." To which Nathanael testily replies, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" In other words, "Leave me alone!" Philip ignores him, and Nathanael is amazed both that Jesus has accurately described him and that he had already noticed him under a fig tree before Philip called him.

Nathanael is won over. Later, John even implies that Nathanael becomes one of the twelve even though he is mentioned nowhere else in the other gospels.

So what is it about the cold calls in this morning's readings that makes them more than the annoyance of most cold calls? Why does a Nathanael follow Jesus rather than hangup on Philip? The answer lies in both in the identity of the caller and the nature of the calling.

In the case of Samuel, we know that the Lord God is the caller. The message is for Eli. Both Samuel and Eli are being called -- Samuel to be God's messenger and Eli to bear God's judgment. With Eli's encouragement, Samuel summons his courage to tell Eli what he has been told. And Eli accepts what he is told because it is just. Eli already knows the Lord. The same is not true of Samuel. Our author tells us that, before this, "Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not been revealed to him." And in carrying out that most difficult of assignments, Samuel knows the Lord. In Samuel's doing what is asked of him, a relationship is established. And Samuel becomes God's prophet.

And the same is true in this morning's gospel. The callers are Jesus and Philip. Jesus says nothing more to Philip than "Follow me." And in Philip's doing what is asked of him, a relationship is established -- a relationship that leads Philip to walk up to a total stranger -- a stranger who may well have been a rabbi because rabbis studied under fig trees and who, in John's gospel, seems to represent the true Israel -- a stranger to whom Philip can say, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote." But that isn't what wins Nathanael over, is it? No. It's the invitation to "come and see." It is in Nathanael's doing what is asked of him -- in his coming and seeing -- that Nathanael recognizes the son of God and King of Israel. It is in coming and seeing that a relationship is established.

And isn't that why we are here? We have come. We have seen. We do not believe because we have been told. We believe because we have experienced the gift of God's grace in faith. And the experience of that grace was not one we solicited. It is, rather, the gift and call of a God known to us in Word and Sacrament. In the reality of this community. In worship. Faith is explained -- questions are not left at the door -- but it is first experienced.

In the end, of course, because we have been called, we are being called, just as Philip is called, to tell others. This is something that this church, this community of faith, does so well. Our sign outside says, "Come and see." I cannot begin to tell you how many times I've seen pedestrians stop and read the sign (or stop and ask me about it if I am changing the sign). These are pedestrians whom I later see at services, many of whom are now part of this community of faith. The flip side of "Come and see" is "Go and tell." And that's what we do by being here, by living out our faith with one another, by being a presence in this community, by inviting others to come and see, by welcoming them when they do.

Our call and our calls are anything but computer generated solicitations. Caller id is not needed. There may at times be silence but there is never dead space. Our call and our calls are nothing less than the call of the living God to relationship and action. For that we give God the glory and can only respond, as we are about to sing, "Here am I Lord." Amen.

January 18, 2009

Ruth VanDemark, pastor

Wicker Park Lutheran Church

Chicago, Illinois