In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

A fourteen year old boy walked into his minister’s study one day and said, “I’ve received a call.” The minister said that was nice and asked him who he had received a call from. “No, you don’t understand,” said the teenager, “I have received a call from God.” The minister was taken aback by this but being very interested he asked the young man how this call came about.

“Well, a girl in my ninth grade history class asked me to go to church with her on Christmas Eve. We sat up in the balcony, and when the minister began to pray, she reached over and held my hand. And I’ve never felt like that before!”

How mysterious and awesome are the words “a call”? They conjure up biblical images of burning bushes, angel messengers and still small voices. The word “call” literally means summons, and God chooses and calls or summons each of us to be in relationship. It is the nature of our God to reach out, to reach in, and to choose people, to choose us for divine business. And this divine reaching out and reaching in is all “grace”. We possess nothing nor do nothing to merit being chosen. It is the grace of God who is the electing God.

But when we speak of God’s grace we have to recognize there is cheap grace and there is costly grace. Cheap grace is accepting the love and forgiveness of God without commitment to discipleship, without understanding the cross.

It is the grace that we bestow upon ourselves. Costly grace, on the other hand, is the call to follow our Lord Jesus Christ. It is costly because it cost God the life of his Son. We were bought at a price and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.

We also need to recognize that there is not just one call or summons. Rather there are a series of calls in each of our lives. The first call is the call to be a Christian – to follow and to serve our Lord Jesus Christ. Now when God through Christ chooses and calls, people respond in a variety of ways.
We have that freedom.

If we recall for a moment some of the various Gospel call stories some heard but did not follow the summons. The rich young man is a good example. He had it all but couldn’t give it all and so was unable to accept being chosen and called. Others had graves to dig or property to see. But there were others as we know who acknowledged God’s choosing and accepted the divine summons to have their lives changed forever, responding to the movement of God’s grace in their lives.

And one place where we see this grace made visible is in baptism. Through water and Spirit we share symbolically in the dying and rising of Christ. The old is cast off and we become a new creation through grace. Our baptism then is not the end of our journey but rather the beginning of our pilgrimage with Christ.
And we see this notion of beginning in Christ’s own baptism for it marks the start of his public ministry. The story of Jesus baptism is found in all four of our Gospels. But Luke’s version is the most succinct, lacking in any sort of detail. Luke does not mention the place of baptism or the name of the one who baptized Jesus.

However, Luke does tell us that something extraordinary happened after Jesus was baptized. The voice of God told him that he had made the right decision, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Out of the waters of the Jordan, Jesus emerges to begin his ministry.

This brings us to the second call. The first call is the call to be a Christian. The second call is how we are to change living our more or less ordinary lives. Because each of us by virtue of baptism is summoned to serve as minister for Christ. Martin Luther said it best when he referred to all of us as “priesthood of all believers.” The church has never understood this concept very well. I am not the only minister in this congregation. You are a minister as well. I bet you thought it would take more schooling.

But this means deciding what we are called for. This can be a frustrating experience because first of all it means deciding what it means to be a Christian in a post-Christian society. Is it a matter of changing who you are – becoming humble or kinder or a more spiritual person?
Or is it matter of changing what you do – looking for a new job, becoming more involved at church? What does God want from us and how do we comply? I had someone in my study this week trying to figure out these very questions.
 In many ways by pursuing ordination I have chosen the easy way out. I have chosen what still a fairly prescribed role is even in this post Christian society. You have the more difficult task of straddling two different worlds. Immersed in the field of business or education, or the worlds of household and family it may at times be hard for you to see how your lives have anything to do with the divine business of God.  But because of your baptism you are ministers for Christ. You are chosen and called by God through grace.

Maybe this news is something that you do not want to hear at this point in your lives. It sounds like more responsibility at a time when many of you are staggering under loads that are already too heavy. You hear me call you ministers for Christ; you hear the invitation to ministry as an invitation to do more in the church, to be more generous, kinder etc. And inwardly you groan and declare that you cannot do anymore. But have you ever stopped to consider that what God is calling you for might be exactly what you are doing right now or who you are right now in this moment. Perhaps it is simply a change in understanding in which you are. Like me you are a minister of Christ by virtue of your baptism. My ministry is not more important than yours it is simply different. God has chosen and called each of us through the grace found in Jesus Christ our Lord. We are witnesses of God’s grace in and for the world.
THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.