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I speak the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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Let's be seated.

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So I was just 18 years old when someone told me for the first time that I should consider

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going to seminary and becoming a priest.

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I had grown up in the church.

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I loved it.

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I loved exploring my faith.

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I loved learning more about God.

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I loved being involved with various ministries.

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And in retrospect, I probably should have known that something was up because there

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are not a lot of teenagers on Ultra-Gild, but that was where I found myself when I was

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18.

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But it wasn't until one Sunday morning in May of 2009 when I heard the first whisper

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of God's call to this particular ministry at the priesthood.

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I had just preached the senior sermon from Youth and Children Sunday, and I was standing

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at the back door shaking hands with people as they were leaving, and a retired priest

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from Nativity came up to me and put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye and

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said with such conviction and such earnestness that he had clearly heard God tell him to

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tell me that I should be a priest.

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And it terrified me.

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But it also changed my life.

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And here I am.

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And this lightning strike, his words were, and from that moment that one minute-long

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conversation, I couldn't shake the feeling that he was right, that I should consider

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becoming a priest.

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Unfortunately or unfortunately, depending on the day, people agreed with that.

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And here I am.

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And all the years and committees later, I'm following this strange and wonderful calling

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from God.

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This is my call story, and it's personal and important to me, but it's not unique.

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Every single person has a call story.

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As many people as have ever lived will have their own call stories.

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You have your own call stories, even if you've never put voice to them or given them words.

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God is constantly breaking into the world, breaking into our very lives and calling each

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and every one of us to use the gifts and the talents and the resources that only we have

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to meet the needs of the people here on earth.

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And how we choose to respond to God's calling not only shapes our lives, but it shapes the

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world around us.

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Our readings today deal quite literally with God's call to us.

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In our Old Testament reading from 1 Samuel, we hear the story of God calling to the young

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Samuel again and again as Samuel is lying in the temple next to the Ark of the Covenant,

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the Holy of Holies, the closest to God that he can get on earth.

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He hears a voice calling for him, Samuel, Samuel.

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And again and again he gets up and goes to Eli, a fellow priest and mentor, and asks if

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it's his voice that he's hearing.

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Eli though is the first to perceive that it is the voice of God that Samuel is hearing.

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And only then after they correctly identify that the voice is from God can they begin

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to hear the message that God delivers to Samuel.

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In John's Gospel, God's call to humanity takes again center stage in the story of Jesus

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calling his first few disciples.

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Today's Gospel reading is a continuation directly from the story of Jesus calling Andrew and

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another unnamed apostle who will then go and call his own brother Peter to follow Jesus.

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But today's Gospel reading, Jesus calls Philip and Philip calls to Nathaniel.

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And likewise we see this similar story playing out, Philip calling to, if you'll find Nathaniel,

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Nathaniel goes and hears from Peter this lovely and bold message that Jesus just might be

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the person who Moses and all the prophets of Israel have been foretelling.

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A prophet whose ministry, whose teachings will eclipse all others, whose works and actions

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will be the very basis for the redemption of the world, the means through which we will

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receive grace and hope and mercy and love and life that lasts the eternity.

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Philip believes.

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Philip spends barely any time with Jesus before he believes.

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Nathaniel on the other hand is a little bit harder to convince because when he hears Philip's

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extolling of Jesus, Nathaniel's snarky responses, can anything good come out of Nazareth?

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Which is really just a biting comment.

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Funny.

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But Nathaniel is eventually won over when he meets Jesus and interacts with him and he

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hears the stories of Jesus firsthand when he sees Jesus' miraculous powers of perception

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for himself.

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These stories from the Bible uncountless others orient us towards a God that is always calling

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to us.

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A God who knows intimately what the world needs and who knows fully what gifts that

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you and all of us have to meet those needs.

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That God is constantly calling us to build up the kingdom of God here on earth.

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That you are called is not in question.

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I can promise you that you are being called by God.

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The true trick for us is figuring out how to answer that call, figuring out how and

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where we hear God calling us.

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What do you feel that persistent pull towards?

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What are the things that you can't let go of?

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What keeps you up at night?

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When and where have you been in your life that it feels 100% right and not just right

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but truly and deeply and spiritually fulfilling where your soul feels like you have been in

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the exact right place at the exact right time.

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That seems like a good place to start listening for the voice of God more fully.

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The miracle in these gospel stories isn't that God calls to us, though it is a miracle

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that God does want to work with us as imperfect as we are.

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The miracle is in our hearing of God's call.

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Our readings today show us people who are confronted with the voice of God and however

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stiltedly they learn to follow.

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So our job in our own time then is to learn how to more fully hear that voice of God calling

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us into all sorts of things.

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Some of them are big and some of them are small.

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Some of them are temporary and some of them are permanent.

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Some of them will consume your life and some of them will last only for a season.

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Perhaps you hear God in that still small voice in your heart like Samuel in those moments

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between waking and sleeping in that liminal space with God.

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Perhaps you hear God when you're sitting in silence.

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Perhaps you hear God here in this space, in this very room, worshiping the Lord together

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with our siblings in Christ.

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Perhaps you are hearing God now in the midst of a very difficult season in your life.

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God is reminding you that hope still remains, that with God the best things are always still

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ahead.

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Perhaps you hear God best when you've come through challenging seasons in your life,

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when you are stronger and more capable and more sure of yourself.

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Perhaps you hear God when you are experiencing joy, when you're with the people and the things

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that make you happiest.

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Perhaps like the priest who told me that I should go to seminary or like Samuel learning

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to listen to God from Eli or like Nathaniel being called by Philip to come and see, you

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will hear the voice of God and the people around you, your fellow human beings who are

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also navigating love and loss and faith and life.

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And finally, all that is left is for us to learn to have the courage to say yes, the

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courage to leave behind the things that we think we want and to follow God into something

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bigger and better and more meaningful than anything we would have planned for ourselves.

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Learning to listen to God is a lifelong process.

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God is always calling us into new things to use our gifts to help build up God's kingdom

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on this side of heaven, to help those in need to speak up for and lift up the oppressed,

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to share love with the people the world has forgotten.

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How we are called and in what ways and in what capacities is up to us to find and we

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can do that discerning together.

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But Philip's words to Nathaniel echo Jesus' own words just a few verses before.

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Come and see.

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God calls to us to come and see.

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Come and see, God says to each of us what we can get up to together.

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Come and see what we can heal together.

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Come and see what we can fix together.

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Come and see who we can love together.

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And I pray that each of us in our own day will have the courage to answer that summons

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like Samuel did.

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Thank you Lord for your servants are listening.

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Amen.