“[Gideon] responded, ‘But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.’”  “For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”
“When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.’”

Have you ever felt that you were inadequate, ill-equipped, unworthy to do something God was calling you to do? If so, then this is the Sunday for you, and I must welcome you into the company of God’s prophets, apostles and saints. Three such personalities have their stories of call and divine commission told in today’s readings: Gideon, a farmer; Paul, a persecutor and enemy of the church; and Peter, a fisherman. Their first response, when invited to join in the work of God, was not, “Here am I, Lord. Send me,” but “Not me, Lord. I am too inadequate. I don’t have what it takes. I am too unworthy. You better find somebody without my sins and weaknesses. I am not equipped. I am too young. I am too old.”

All of today’s stories of call and commission to God’s service are presented as dramatic and life-changing experiences for the one being called. Gideon, a farmer, is beating wheat when an angel of the Lord gives him the commission to save Israel from the raids of the Midianites - a farmer called to be a warrior. Paul has his Damascus road experience. He is en route to have Christians killed when Jesus puts his finger upon him to preach the Christian gospel. Peter is returning from an all-night fishing excursion when he is called to become a peripatetic teacher and preacher.

It is easy for us to disassociate ourselves from these stories and put God’s prophets, apostles, and saints in a separate and usually “higher” category from ourselves if we’ve had no such dramatic and life-changing experience. But when we do that, when we put ourselves in a different and “lower” category from Gideon and Paul and Peter, we are, in a subtle way, exempting ourselves from recognizing and discerning God’s call to us to be his messengers, his partners, his apostles now in the work he is doing in Covington, Mandeville, Madisonville and St. Tammany Parish.

I am speaking for myself here, but I suspect it may also be true for many of you; it is overwhelming, daunting, and frightening to think of myself as an apostle - to put myself in the same category as Peter and Paul. Yet, the truth of the matter is this: The word, “apostle” literally means, “one who is sent.” And today, February 8, 2004, we are the ones God is sending in St. Tammany Parish to do his work of bringing good news to the poor; proclaiming release to those who are captive and recovery of sight to the blind; letting the oppressed go free and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor - his mercy - his grace - his forgiveness.

Some people do have dramatic and life-changing experiences of God’s call and claim upon their lives. Some of you have had these experiences because you have told me of them. But we do not have to have had the experience of a Gideon or a Paul or a Peter for God to be calling us to his work.

Being in this church this morning means that God is acting in your life to bring you to him, to make you his friend, and to engage you in his work.

How do I know this? Because this is how God acts. He chooses ordinary people and speaks to them through the events and people in their lives to foster his friendship with them and guide and lead them into the work he has chosen for them.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. I recently had a conversation with a funeral director, and I asked him how he became engaged in this work. I asked had he always done this. This was his response.

He said that he started his life’s career as a disc jockey. Then he had served as a police officer. After several years, he went back to being a disc jockey. Then his youngest brother died of a massive heart attack at the age of 35, four days after his mother had come home from the hospital following surgery for colon cancer. He said the funeral director who had worked with his family had been so compassionate and caring that it had touched him deeply. In reflecting on that experience, he realized this was his calling - to be a compassionate and caring presence with people in grief. He began working part-time in a funeral home for minimum wage and began taking classes to make this his life’s work. It was not a Damascus road experience that led him to discover the ministry to which God was calling him, but it was his attention to and reflection upon the events and people of his life. Through those events and people, God led him to be engaged in a ministry of compassion and care to those oppressed by grief.

How do we know the ministry to which God is calling us? Just as for this man, it requires careful attention to and reflection upon the events and the people in our lives. In the Christian faith, we call this process of attention and reflection “discernment.” Discernment means that we do not think of the events in our lives as “accidents,” but we believe those events to be means by which God is leading us and guiding us to the work he has in mind for us. Neither do we understand the people in our lives to be accidents. We believe our spouses, our children, our parents, our friends, our fellow Christians, even chance encounters, to be the people God uses to help us be engaged in his work. These people can be both messengers of God, pointing us to the work God has in mind for us by seeing gifts and abilities we do not see in ourselves, and inviting us into some kind of work or ministry - or they themselves - our spouses, children, parents, friends, fellow Christians, chance encounters - can be the people God has sent us to minister to, to serve.

We do not have to wait for a Damascus road experience. We do not even have to wait for an experience like my friend, the funeral director.

The raw material, the daily “stuff” of our lives is the way God leads us and guides us to the work he is giving us to do.

What we do know is that God is courting all of us to be his friend; and that he is inviting all of us to be partners in his work. None of us are excepted. God is acting in every one of our lives to send us as his agents and his representatives to proclaim and to show his favor-his love-his mercy-his forgiveness to those whom we meet every day. He does not give us just one call, just one life direction, but he speaks to us daily, calls us daily, gives us a ministry daily in the people, the events, the circumstances of our lives.

If you perchance have had, or are having, feelings of inadequacy, unfitness, unworthiness to be one who is sent by God as a partner in his work, then welcome to the company of God’s prophets, apostles, and saints. God calls people like you and like me, like Gideon, Paul, and Peter, who consider themselves inadequate, ill-equipped, and unworthy; because if he had waited for them or for us to become perfect, he would have had no one to send. Yes, when we respond to God’s call, he begins the work of healing and mending us. But he does not wait until we are completely healed or mended to enlist us in his work as his agents. Because work in his service is quite often a means of our healing.

If you have had or are having feelings of inadequacy, unfitness or unworthiness to be one who is sent by God as a partner in his work, then listen carefully and take to heart the Word of God which is addressed to all of us today: “Do not be afraid…I will be with you…Peace be to you…do not fear.”

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