Noah and God's Call

I'm going to use Noah as a jumping off point, because to be honest, Noah's story isn't necessarily focused on call.  We don't see Noah argue or struggle - that comes after the flood.   Like the rest of the book, especially the first 11 chapters, the Noah story is weird.  The story raises all kinds of questions about God, sin, judgment - not to mention questions about the mythic nature of the story and the correlation between the Biblical flood narrative and stories we find in other Near Eastern traditions.  I'm not going to get into that here.  But, I do think that in the Noah we've got a starting point in talking about the concept of "call". 

The "Call" is Ecclesiological

I learned a lot of interesting little Biblical or theological "tidbits" in seminary.  These are fun to drop into Bible studies or sermons on occasion.  I guess you could see these as little sound bites that occasionally help when you reference them in a sermon or lesson.  One of my favorites is the meaning of the word ekklesia, the Greek word we translate as "church".   The word is a combination of two Greek words: "ek" which means "out of" and a form of the verb "kaleo" which means "to call".  "Ekklesia" literally means "the ones called out".  The word originally referred to the assembly of ancient Athens, basically a council of leaders chosen from among the people.  These would be people called out by their fellow citizens in order to lead.  The church are those who are called out of the world.  These are people called out of the world by God in order to serve. 

We can also bring the Hebrew word "kadash" into the conversation.  "Kadash" can be translated as holy, set apart, sanctified.  There's this idea of separateness  or set-apartness that's at work here.  The word at times refers to God, to places of worship, things consecrated as sacred, persons connected to those sacred places, times of worship, etc.  I think that it might be beneficial for Christians if we recognized that one aspect of holiness is being weird.  I love Flannery O'Connor's quote: "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd."

God's call is not just for ministers or leaders or missionaries or any particular individuals.  God does indeed call specific people to specific tasks.  But God's call is primarily for the entire Church.  All are called.  Pastors cannot claim any exclusive privilege here.  God calls all of us to serve.  I have seen pastors use their supposed status as "called" as a way to abuse their power and position.  Yeah, if you're doing that, get over yourself and repent.  While God indeed calls and equips some to leadership, God's call is not the exclusive possession of a privileged few.  And for Christians, God calls us to humility and service - not dominance and arrogance.  *Hops off soapbox*

Back to Noah…

It's a common feature of our re-tellings of the Noah story to picture him in the middle of the desert, surrounded by incredulous and mocking neighbors.  My first exposure to this little editorial insertion was Bill Cosby's bit about Noah (btw, I love Noah's response at the 5:30 mark).  It's also a central feature of Bruce Almighty 2 and any number of Children's Bibles that I've read to my kids at bedtime.  While I like this little bit of interpretive license, the Bible doesn't tell us anything about Noah's neighbors, aside from them being wicked.  We see Noah separated, called out from the rest of the population because he was "a righteous man, blameless in his generation."  Noah was given the tremendous responsibility to be the head of the only surviving family on earth.  After the flood recedes, we see what is possibly the fallout of his set-apartness.  Noah is suddenly not so blameless and righteous when his son finds him passed out drunk and naked in his tent. 

Anyway, we might learn a couple of things about the concept of "call" from Noah:

1. God calls people out of the world to serve and to be set apart.  This does not simply apply to individuals, but to the Church.  The Church is God's called community of saints who, through the redemption given through Christ, are made righteous and blameless by God's grace.

2. The "call" costs the called.  Noah had to do something that radically changed his life.  It cost him a great deal, if we judge by his state following the flood.  God doesn't call us to complacency or remaining where we are.  We've got work to do.

3. God calls us to be servants and followers of Christ.  This makes us fundamentally different from those who do not follow after Jesus Christ.  Our task is not to judge or use our separateness as an opportunity for self-righteousness, but to lead others away from the floods of sin, apathy, addictions, anger, despair, etc. 
4. I'm stretching for this one - but it's ok to be weird.  It's ok if what we do doesn't fit into any of the boxes our culture(s) provide for us.  Even if the culture in question is a church culture.  Noah did not come from a long line of ark-builders. 

Ok guys - next week I'm going to look at Abraham, which I think will have a little more to chew on as it relates to call.  I hope that God's grace and peace will be with all of you!

Wes