First UCC Tucson

May 4, 2008
Matthew 4: 18-22

 Today marks our 3rd week out of 4 in our Buyin’ In Series. The First week we explored what it means to be Open Always All Ways Open to the Divine. Last week we explored what it means to be Open Always All Ways Open to the Marginalized and Oppressed. And today we are gathered together to explore what it means to be Open always All Ways Open to our call. He grew up in the church. His parents sang in the choir, he grew up lighting the candles. Church was central in their lives and holidays revolved around them. As he grew up and left his parent’s house, he still looked for other churches. He liked the rhythm of the year from the religious calendar, he liked the people at church, he felt like he had something to contribute. He is passionate about technology and kept wondering about ways to include technology in church…in the office, with the youth and kids, in worship. When he talked about it with the ministers over the years he was often told to leave such things alone, he didn’t know what he was talking about. When he was younger, of course, he was too young and irresponsible to have input on such important matters. He came across the country to worship at First and be a part of this community. He heard you were open and affirming and he was drawn, somewhere within himself, to be a part of these ideas. If you were open to those things, maybe you would be open to what it was he was called to do and be…Digital Minister, a person called out of his ordinary life in NY to a small community of faith in the desert, to tell the stories of faith, with technology as the means. This is part of the call story of our own Chuck Ballard.

When I first came to Tucson, I went to a lot of parties, gatherings, organizing events to meet people who might have similar ideas and be looking for a progressive community of faith. Pretty regularly, I would run into him. He would talk to the people I came with, he just wouldn’t talk to me. Everyone kept telling me, “Did you talk to him? He’s so funny, you’d really like him.” But, every time I would run into him, it was so weird, I couldn’t get close. It was like I had one of those invisible fences buried around me and he wouldn’t come within five feet of me. He had heard that I was the pastor of a church. What kind of church had a woman for a pastor? Not to mention a lesbian woman with a partner! It was impossible. It was some sort of a joke. He had been cast out of more than one church for these same ideals. And yet, the community drew him, the Spirit pulled him, and finally he came to worship when we were meeting at the Odd Fellows Hall. This thing we were doing was very different than where he had come from, no guilt, no shame, no mandatory attendance and he couldn’t not come. It didn’t take long before he was offering to do things. This idea that you could be who you were called out of your ordinary life in Tucson, AZ to be. This idea of Scripture as metaphor. This idea that you help people think through what they believe and give them the tools to understand what they believe and develop what they believe. This idea of God loving us so much that we could be enough, as disciples from wherever we were on the journey. This idea that we would recognize, name and celebrate the his call into the ministry celebrating his many gifts. This is part of the call story of our own Davin Franklin Hicks.

 In the last couple of years he came to be in our community of faith. He had been thinking about music his whole life. He had been thinking for many years about the spirituality of music. Not necessarily religious music but instead the spirituality of music, the thing that happens to people when they are listening or playing music. That magic that opens them, allows them to go to another place. The music that transports them and allows the listener to move through their own grief, frustration, brokenness wherever it is they find themselves being. One of his friends started talking about the work she was doing as musician in a church. How the music was a blend of the sacred and secular. How the everyday music that we love had to be the everyday music of worship. His heart began to beat. This is exactly what he had been thinking about for all these years. He reached out. And, we have been grooving to the beat ever since. This is part of the call story of our own Fletch.

 Every person here has a call story. Often times I find we have lots of different call stories, so I know that you all have at least one.

The Greek word for church is ekklesia which in secular terms meant town meeting. This word ekklesia comes from the root kaleo the verb meaning to call. The early followers of Jesus, church was neither a place nor a people, Ekklesia was a symbolic form through which they came to understand an experience of being called out from their ordinary lives. In ancient times, during times of war, the men were called out of their villages to create an army…they were called out for a special kind of service for their people. People can be called out or assembled for a variety of purposes the nature of the calling depends on the person doing the calling. The Jesus followers had this experience, of being called out of their ordinary lives to serve God. In describing themselves as the called out ones, the Jesus followers were making a statement. They did not just get together. That is what happens in a club. They felt that they had been assembled for a purpose—to follow a new way and a new life, to continue the work begun by Jesus.

Each one of us is part of this story of what it means to be Christian. What it means to be part of this Jesus movement. We aren’t just here. This isn’t just a club, we are assembled for a purpose. Our purpose is to see the face of God in the marginalized and oppressed. This means we gather together to know more about who the Divine is and how we will celebrate the divine through our own unique calls. To be called out does not require skill, it only requires to be open. The men in our Scripture passage and the men in our own community who shared their stories today, all are known as disciples. They picked themselves up and left those old identities behind, today begins a new chapter in their lives, in understanding the Divine, in seeing the world with God’s eyes.

Each one of you has a call story, and those stories begin to link together creating our mission and purpose of being Always Open and Open All Ways to the marginalized and oppressed, carrying the Presence of the Divine from our own sense of what God is calling us out of our lives to do. Hallelujah!

We are all called, we are all named, it is possible for each of us to be plucked out of our every day lives to immediately, do something else that will transform our own lives, the lives of one another and the guests we serve. Thank you for answering your own call to be here today. Let us pray.

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