No caller is more persistent Rachel from ‘Vehicle Services.’   She has been trying to reach you.   She wants to speak to your vehicle’s owner with critical information about the warranty.   And no anti-spam strategy dulls her enthusiasm or tenacity.  

If you ignore her, she barrages you with even more calls.  If you attempt to speak to Paul, her associate, to explain that you have no warranty and need no warranty, she continues to call.   If you register her number with donotcall.gov, she uses another of her 10,000 listings.   She is unstoppable.   And despite her bold claims, even Attorney General, Leslie Rutledge cannot impede the indefatigable Rachel or her friend Veronica who calls about your student loans.

Most calls these days are from spammers and scammers, suspicious characters who are up to no good.   So, we don’t answer numbers not in our contact lists.  Our phones routinely report incoming calls as ‘Spam-Risk’ or ‘Telemarketer.’   Even familiar numbers are often spoofed by anonymizing software to give numbers in the Caribbean a local area code and exchange.   I have even gotten spam calls from my own number!   This intrusion of suspicious callers makes us suspicious of any calling.  And of every calling.

In a recent interview with NPR, Adam Smith, editor of the Nobel Prize’s official notification website, NobelPrize.org, laughed that often Nobel Laureates are suspicious when he calls.  And they often hang up on him, thinking he is a crank caller.  Especially since he calls them late at night or in the wee hours of the morning to preempt the flood of calls that inevitably follow once the announcement becomes public.  

How many calls have we ignored or hung up because we suspected a crank caller or spam-risk?  We all want to pursue our calling — to fulfill the great purpose for which we exist.  But every calling begins with a caller.  And while some callers cannot be trusted, there are calls we need to take.  Are you able to distinguish the spam-risk from the life-changing call?

Moses felt as sense of calling.  But he ran ahead of the God’s call.  He did things his own way in his own time.  As a result, Israelites rejected him and Egyptians sought to kill him.  He fled to Midian and settled into mid-life in the obscurity of life as a shepherd. Hardly the mighty hero, he grew into old age with the sheep, while Egyptian oppression continued unchecked.  But God was at work. He was not through with Moses.  At just the right time, God calls him into action.   Out of a burning bush at the foot of a desolate mountain at the far reaches of Moses’ pasturage, God spoke and called Moses to deliver his people.

Moses receives the call he always wanted. But why now? Why him? Why not someone else?  Perhaps this is a divine spam-risk? A scam? A crank call? Moses fears the caller and repeatedly attempts to hang up on the calling.   But for all Rachel’s persistence as a caller, God is more so — tenacious and effective.  His gifts and his calling are irrevocable.  His calling cannot be dodged or declined.  And the calling of Moses has important things to teach each of us about our own calling. 

Every Christian has a vocation.  Every follower of Christ is gifted and called to serve the Lord, the Body of Christ, and the world.  What is your calling?  Have you heard?  Have you heeded?   Or did you hang up, thinking God’s call was a spam-risk, a scam, or a crank-call? Join us as we examine Exodus 3:1-10 and consider how the call of Moses is unique, but also an important pattern for God’s call in every Christian’s life.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.