Reflection - Need Vision and Call

by Rev Dr Clive W Ayre

The old Methodist Covenant Service required us to say some difficult words, such as, ‘put me to doing, put me to suffering’; but the key is in the opening line, ‘I am no longer my own, but yours.’ Yet inextricably interwoven in the fabric of challenge is the thread of divine grace. What is the vision that inspires us? For if there is no vision, then there is no future.

Think, for example, of the call of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-8). We cannot know for certain what happened; but it was at the end of the reign of a good king. Isaiah was in the temple in his official capacity as a prophet, and clearly was in a meditative mood as he watched the priests at the altar. He drifted into what can only be described as a mystical experience, in which he had a powerful sense of the holiness of God, and of God’s presence filling the place.

The vision that caught the attention of Peter was in some ways different. It was not in the context of worship, but in the setting of his daily work that he saw the Lord. Peter was a fisherman; and fishing was rough and hard work. Luke 5:1-11 invites us to see Jesus by the Sea of Galilee, with the crowds “pressing in on him to hear the word of God.” Peter was busy, but aware of what was happening. His awareness became more acute when Jesus commandeered his boat to use as a floating pulpit.

Within the setting of his daily work, Peter witnessed the action of God in Jesus the Christ, in a truly life-changing way. Isaiah’s life setting was different, and so his experiences were different. Yet in both cases, God met them in the circumstances of their life and lifted them to a new level of spiritual awareness, to the vision of a God who is not only holy, but also wholly involved. We today have our different experiences, yet we are invited to look beyond those differences to the vision that inspires and unites us. Unless we have some kind of vision of a God who comes to meet us, there is little else to talk about.

In the call that beckons, there is always a choice. As we reflect on that call, Peter and his friends had not obviously done anything that might warrant Jesus’ attention. As Alan Culpepper says, “The fishermen were not called because of their qualifications, character, or potential. God’s call is as unpredictable as it is unmerited.” From a human point of view, my own call to ministry made very little sense. Yet it came in such a way that it would not be denied. I know that many of you also, when faced with a call to a particular task, have thought that God had turned comedian.

Whenever we are invited to recognize God’s claim on our lives, and to recommit ourselves to God, we can look back and see the pattern so often repeated in the case of Isaiah, of Peter, and others. There is a vision that inspires in a way that almost defies the power of speech to describe. Then there is the awareness of a call that comes with a most profound sense of unworthiness. But in one way or another, God says “Do not be afraid.” As God deals with our perceptions, we begin to see that we are not called on the basis of what other people may see in us. We are called on the basis of what God sees deep inside us. We are called by God, and God does not have to provide a logically satisfactory rationale.