Called & Equipped
Periodically, my husband Benji and I rehash a well-rehearsed debate over how often is too often to rewatch The Lord of the Rings films. Usually my stance is that they should be viewed once a year, but lately I’ve been rethinking that stance and considering watching them again “early.” That’s because reading the news and looking ahead to the future feels increasingly resonant with the angst of Tolkien’s characters as the dark cloud of Sauron’s destruction creeps across the sky and they realize the scope of the struggle ahead.
One of the most poignant expressions of this angst happens towards the beginning of the trilogy, as the wizard Gandalf explains to young Frodo the difficult task they face if they stand against evil: “‘I wish [this] need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’”
“ wish it needn’t have happened in my time.” Frodo’s lament is a poetic way of voicing the thoughts I think many of us have when we look at the conflict and destruction brewing on the horizon—when we consider this world in which we’re tasked with proclaiming the Gospel: “Why me? Why us? Why now?”
Last week we reflected on the opposition we’ll face as we press on in our witness to God’s love. But we might reasonably ask why we have to provide that witness at all. Why does God call us to make that proclamation? After all, we aren’t great prophets or the descendants of prophets. Most of us have no innate power to persuade people around us (or over us) to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God.
Yet God has called us to take up this role in the divine mission of healing division and making all things new. God has called us to follow in the steps of Amos & John—to proclaim that good (but terribly uncomfortable) news: that God is doing a new thing. We’re called to be a prophetic witness—that exposes the inequity and injustice of a world in which the rich and powerful exploit the poor and destroy the earth. We’re called to live a life that lays bare the hypocrisy of those who claim the Cross as their standard but then turn around and crucify the lowest and least—the very people at the margins that Jesus commends to our care.
There is real danger in proclaiming this Good News of Christ—in living out the Year of the Lord’s favor and working to accomplish God’s will on earth: welcoming the stranger, redeeming the captives, feeding the hungry, and healing the sick. Proclaiming that kind of Gospel is disruptive to a world that worships in the sanctuary of power and wealth.
And as the fate of John the Baptist puts on full display, there is real danger in that disruption. Announcing the coming kingdom of Jesus, John calls for Herod to remember that God rules the universe, not him. He calls for Herod to repent and to stop elevating himself above God’s law and God’s people. And because of this proclamation, John gets his head chopped off. We can’t sugarcoat this. Having our pride flag ripped down from the porch is one thing, but John the Baptist serves as a startling reminder that there can be real danger in answering our call to proclaim God’s kingdom of justice and love.
Why us? Why now? I wish this needn’t have happened in our time. Why has God called us, of all people, to take up this task?
The good news (though maybe also bad for our egos) is that God hasn’t called us because of anything special about us that we have to live up to in order to be worthy of the call. God hasn’t called us because we’re particularly powerful or uniquely well-suited to the task of healing a world as divided as ours. On the contrary, if anything, we’re probably weaker today than Christians have been in the face of this darkness in quite a long time. Christendom is well and truly over, and we don’t even have the semblance of cultural clout that Bonhoeffer had when he stood up to the Nazis. Quite frankly, very few people in the world care what the Episcopal Church has to say on issues of social justice or any other topic for that matter. So God certainly hasn’t called us because we’re actually well-positioned to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven and convince the world of the need to repent.
So… Why have we been called? Why us? Why now?
We have been called because from the beginning, God has had a plan for the fullness of time: to gather up all things in Christ—things in heaven and things on earth. And as Mary the Mother of God proclaimed when Gabriel announced the Incarnation to her, this plan of God for the fullness of time involves casting down the mighty and lifting up the lowly. God’s plan puts the powerful to shame by calling the weak to taste and see that the Lord is good, and that what may be impossible for us is indeed possible for God.
According to the good pleasure of God’s will, God has called us, first and foremost, to experience new life in Jesus Christ—to receive God’s grace and be transformed in order to live our whole lives for the praise of God’s glory. We haven’t been called because we’re particularly well-equipped, in and of ourselves, for the difficult task of calling the world to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. God doesn’t call the equipped. God equips the called.
As we were reminded last week, Christ’s power is made perfect, not in strength but in weakness. God’s glory is made known in taking the poor, the lowly, the weak, and the unequipped and giving them an inheritance that is higher than the heavens. And receiving that inheritance changes us. We may not be the children of prophets, but we have been adopted as children of God. In Baptism we become co-heirs with Christ, and share the same inheritance poured out on him. God freely chooses to bless us and mark us irrevocably with the seal of the Holy Spirit.
It is through that inheritance of God’s Holy Spirit that we receive true power to answer the call—power not from ourselves, but from God transforming us. By the Spirit, God equips us to proclaim God’s reign of justice and peace in the midst of a polarized, power-obsessed world. By the Spirit, God equips us to call humanity back to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. And by the Spirit, God equips us to face the danger that comes when we live our lives as a witness to God’s love.
We were not great prophets or descendants of prophets when God called us. But because we have received adoption in Christ and our inheritance with him, we are no longer what we once were. We are being transformed and equipped by the Spirit. As St. Gregory the Great once put it: “The Spirit changes the human heart in a moment, filling it with light. Suddenly we are no longer what we were; suddenly we are something we never used to be.”
I wish this all weren’t happening in our times. And I wish there weren’t real danger in answering God’s call. But when you look at the dark clouds on the horizon and you feel ill-equipped to answer that call to proclaim the Gospel of love in the midst of the storm: Return to your Baptism. Remember the inheritance that you have received. And rely on the Holy Spirit that is at work in you. You aren’t equipped in and of yourself. But God doesn’t call the equipped. God equips the called.
Thanks be to God.