Week 7: The On Calling Scripture Meditation Series asks the question: “Who are you, really?” Rest, listen, and deepen your desire for “something more.”
“The idea of a call implies an agent outside of the one who is subject to the call. One does not simply “choose” a course of action, but one responds to a summons.” – A.J. Conyers, Contemporary author and professor of theology.
Let’s expand our concept of calling and vocation beyond merely a task or job. Imagine receiving your calling in life as a visceral, tangible experience. Not something you choose or even know but something that happens to you. Something of a coming alive to a reality you may not have known existed.
John 11:38-40; 43-44 NIV
38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.
It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.
39 “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,”
said Martha, the sister of the dead man,
“by this time there is a bad odor, for he
has been there four days.”
40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you
will see the glory of God?” 43 When he had said this,
Jesus called in a loud voice,
“Lazarus, come out!”
44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped
with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave
clothes and let him go.”
In The Meaning of Vocation AJ Conyors writes:
“We might think of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus as a rich image of the deepest meaning of vocation. Lazarus is not merely healed, but raised from the dead. From the isolation of death, he is called by Christ’s powerful voice to the community of the living. His grave clothes, in which he is bound, are loosed and he is made free to respond as one living before God and in the power of God. Each of us is so called. Vocation, vocatio, is about being raised from the dead, made alive to the reality that we do not merely exist, but we are “called forth” to a divine purpose.”
“You are made free to respond as one living before God and in the power of God.”
Let’s breathe deeply as we pause to listen to the story again through the lens of call.
38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.
It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.
39 “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,”
said Martha, the sister of the dead man,
“by this time there is a bad odor, for he
has been there four days.”
40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you
will see the glory of God?” 43 When he had said this,
Jesus called in a loud voice,
“Lazarus, come out!”
44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped
with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave
clothes and let him go.”
John 11:38-40; 43-44 NIV
And now, inspired by Augustine’s words I pray – “Loving Jesus, Word Made Flesh, tune my ears to hear your call. You are my end, it is to you that I am journeying. And it is only when I have arrived there that my desire will be fulfilled. You are my home. Help me to hear and know your voice as you call out to my restless heart – “I am the way and to me you come.”
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