What was I a made for? A sermon for the second Sunday of epiphany

This is my sermon for this Sunday (the second after epiphany), which changed shape halfway through the week… Readings were: Isaiah 49.1-7, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42.

“What was I made for?”

I wonder if this is a question you’ve ever asked yourself. Perhaps in frustration; perhaps in curiosity.

It also a line that recurs in a song by the pop star Billie Eilish, written for the movie Barbie—which some of you might have seen. A song whose lyrics sum up the journey that the characters Barbie and Ken go on over the course of the movie; that opens with the lines,

“I used to float, now I just fall down / I used to know, but I'm not sure now / What I was made for? What was I made for?”

And if you’ve seen Barbie you’ll know that, at the star.t Barbie is one of many Barbies, who are able to do anything and everything; and that Ken, well, he’s just Ken and his job is beach. But actually, underneath, neither of them are satisfied with this—and the plot of the film—essentially—is what happens as Barbie and Ken trying to work out who they are and how their lives might be more satisfying and fulfilling. What they were made for.

***

What was I made for is a question that can become a little plaintive at the beginning of a new year, if we are in the habit of reflecting on ourselves and our lives. “New Year, New You!” screams the language of self-improvement. But what new you? We might feel, like Barbie, that the world is telling us we could be anything—but we don’t quite know what our thing is. Or, like Ken, we might feel that the world is telling us that we have to be one thing—but know that this thing isn’t satisfying in our souls. Questions of who we are and who we are becoming can be stressful and make us miserable, and it’s hardly surprising that many of us swear off New Year’s Resolutions as a result.

But I think our readings today might be able to help us think about this question, what was I made for, in a deeper, richer way, as we think about ourselves as people made and formed by God and of our lives as lives of discipleship. For in our gospel reading today, our post-epiphany story begins to turn from the recognition of who Jesus is, as the light of the whole world, to a consideration of who we are, in the light of this light and its salvation. Here we see Jesus meet a young fisherman, named Simon—whose brother Andrew has been hanging out with John the Baptist. And when Jesus meets Simon, he looks at him, and says,

“You are Simon, son of John. You are to be called Cephas (which is translated Peter).”

Jesus sees and knows that Simon is made to be not just ‘Simon the fisherman’ but Cephas, Peter, the rock on which the church of Christ will be built. He names it, and he encourages it (even when, I imagine, he might have been tempted to sit with his head in his hands and rock gently). There is a stubbornness and a sturdy determination to Peter, as we see him in the gospel stories. He is someone with a good heart, who wants to do the right thing for Jesus, even though he so often gets it wrong. He is a good rock. But I wonder what it felt like to be seen like that straight away. What it felt like to experience Jesus’ faithfulness to him.

Within the Christian tradition, we call the answer to the question ‘what was I made for’ vocation, and our Old and New Testament readings today give us some insight into our vocation, as humans, at its deepest and broadest.

In Isaiah, we hear the narrative of the calling of a servant:

The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me… And he said to me, you are my servant Israel in whom I will be glorified.

It is easy to see why the Christian tradition has often read these words of Isaiah as a description of Jesus and what Jesus was ‘made for’, in his incarnation. Even if they were not an exact prediction, when we look at Jesus’ life and death, this passage describes it and explains it beautifully. For a fundamental point of this passage is a reminder that God intends God’s faithfulness, healing and liberation are experienced through humanity in human history[1]—and we believe that that the human Jesus who comes to save is also God. This servant’s purpose or vocation is to glorify the Lord and to be a light to all the nations, that salvation may reach the end of the earth.

In the letter to Corinthians Paul gives us a sense of how we, as humans, are made to share in this vocation.  He is writing to a community of those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the basis of our vocation and the fundamental answer to the question what was I made for.  We are made to be in relationship with God through Christ, to know and be known: and our first, deepest vocation is to worship him, to glorify him, and to become more like Christ—being sanctified. The grace of God that Paul talks about enriches and equips us to make Jesus known in the world.  

And within this, we will each have our own particular vocations: the things we were made for.  Just like Simon Peter.

Discerning what these are is the journey of exploring what we were each made for, as distinctive people. It’s not a matter of finding the one right answer to the question ‘what was I made for’—though some of us may find that we have some quite distinctive vocations. The wheres, whens and hows of their unfolding in our lives will be full of variety.[2]

More frequently, I think our working out of what was I made for is more like finding the recipe in which our skills and passions, talents and joys can be used to make Christ known, as well as for the business of building our own lives. It is like seeing where the seeds that God has planted in us are growing and sprouting in our lives at this time, and where they might bring joy or be helpful. And by making Christ known, I don’t just mean preaching or inviting people to church: I mean being like Christ in the world, helping to reveal the good news of God’s faithfulness. Revealing God’s kingdom as one of love, justice and peace, by seeking the growth of these things in the world—something that we do together, as the church, the ‘saints’ in St Paul’s language, Christ’s body on earth.

When I started writing this sermon, I was thinking about discernment and this exploration of the question of what was I made for in terms of our participation in the life and ministry of the church. And I do want to encourage us all, as we think about who we are and what we were made for, to consider how our participation in the life of the church might be a part of this, a place in which we find satisfaction, fulfilment, and meaning in contributing to the church’s worship and ministry in making Christ’s love known in the world. And in particular to consider how we might give our time and our skills and wisdom to the church and to the world through the church—and through our church, specifically.  

However, in the light of the house of bishops’ decision this week to bring an end to the living in love and faith journey (a process that many of us hoped would enable the blessing of same-sex unions, perhaps even same-sex marriages, in church) I think it’s important to recognise how many people don’t feel that the church sees and loves them and makes space for who they were made to be and what they were made for. Not in the way that Jesus sees and names Peter and what he was made for. The scriptures promise us that the God who made us, forms us, and calls us is faithful—to all of us. And as the institutional church we all too often do a pretty rubbish job of sharing this promise, damaging so many people’s discernment and pursuit of the things they were made for, and their worship of and relationship with God. I wanted to name this today, though it is not something that we talk about massively often, and to sit with it, and acknowledge that it is often incredibly hard to be faithful to our God, even when we want to be. But I hope and believe that in this benefice, our churches want to be an expression of the body of Christ that makes space for and loves everyone in who they are. One that seeks to see everyone as Jesus sees Peter, made and called by and for God. And one that enables us all to find  and fulfil our answers to the question: what was I made for, and to glorify God together.

Amen.

[1] See Walter Brueggemann’s commentary on Isaiah.

[2] I like the word float in Billie Eilish’s song – not because it’s lightweight, but because it suggests the possibilities of movement and change over time, as we seek to follow God in and through the world.