This is the sermon that Father George would have preached on January 30. He was unable to be at the service. In place of a regular service we had a Morning Prayer service.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Today we pick up the theme of calling, or vocation, and we will be spending the next couple of Sundays looking at how God calls us to his purpose and work.\u00a0 The idea of vocation, or calling, is misunderstood by many people of faith \u2013 especially some Christians.\u00a0 The common misconception is that vocation is limited to persons being called to a religious life (as a monk or nun) or to become a part of the clergy.\u00a0 When I was in the ordination process, I was often asked to describe my \u201ccall\u201d to become a priest.\u00a0 This limited view of vocation diminishes the holiness of the lay or \u201csecular\u201d callings.\u00a0 Doing this attempts to place limits on the work of the Holy Spirit in fulfilling the whole purpose of God\u2019s work in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeremiah was wrapped in God\u2019s love. \u201cBefore I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you \u2026\u201d God tells the prophet. Even before he ever drew a breath, God knew Jeremiah \u2014 even before we took a breath, God knew us, God loved us. God didn\u2019t let Jeremiah diminish himself in God\u2019s eyes. \u201cDo not say, \u2018I am only \u2026\u201d says God to the prophet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can we hear God say the same to us? That\u2019s love \u2014 speaking words that uplift; words that don\u2019t allow the diminishment of the other; words that build confidence and trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul goes into great depth in a description of love. His Corinthian congregation had begun falling out with each other, the community fracturing, losing relationship. He reminds them of the very earthly laws and expectations of that day; but then he pours out the binding, rebuilding, sustaining power of love. Love rejoices, bears all things, believes, hopes, endures. We learn to love this way by remembering it\u2019s how God loves us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we lose sight of the inclusiveness and the giftedness of love, we join those who\u2019d throw Jesus off the cliff because: \u201cIsn\u2019t this only Joseph\u2019s son?\u201d Today we might hear: It\u2019s only a woman; it\u2019s only an immigrant; it\u2019s only a group of teenaged students. Those words diminish our grasp of love \u2014 devalue our relationship with each other. God knows each of us. God consecrates each of us. God offers us words of love to share. None of us is only in God\u2019s eyes; all of us are called to proclaim love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Good News Jesus was proclaiming was the gracious announcement that a whole new narrative of God\u2019s dealing with us is breaking into our world.\u00a0 Jesus was reminding his listeners, and us, that God was still at work in the world unfolding new narratives \u2013 new stories \u2013 intended to draw us more deeply into the larger story of God\u2019s unconditional love for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of us, by virtue of our baptism, have a vocation \u2013 a calling to live fully and deeply into God\u2019s love for humanity.\u00a0 Our Baptismal Covenant outlines our common vocation.\u00a0 How we live out that vocation is a reflection of how we have individually heard that call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is at the heart of our common vocation?\u00a0 Our Presiding Bishop would put it this way, that we are called to live into and reflect the unconditional love of God in every aspect of our lives.\u00a0 In other words, we are called to love and in that love we, and all others, catch a glimpse of God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our Calling This is the sermon that Father George would have preached on January 30. He was unable to be at the service. In place of a regular service we had a Morning Prayer service. Today we pick up the theme of calling, or vocation, and we will be spending the next couple of Sundays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homily","tag-sermon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":663,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions\/663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}