Have you ever wondered why so many people that we meet in the Bible are such a mess? Think about it: Moses was a chronic complainer and had very low self-esteem. Elijah was constantly depressed and was convinced that nobody could match his level of faithfulness and commitment. David was lousy father, a philanderer, and died and cold and tired man. Cain was a murderer-as was Moses. Joseph, in a turn we can sympathize with, but is not terribly noble, made his brothers twist in the wind before helping them when they came to Egypt because famine had gripped their land. Abraham twice tried to palm off his wife as his sister in order to encourage a king to sleep with her and thus take a more kindly posture toward him. Isaac, a chip off the old block, tried the same thing with his wife Rebecca. Jacob was a conniving cheat. Rachel, one of Jacob's wives, was a thief and a liar. And these are just some of the so-called mothers and fathers of our faith. So what gives with this less than impressive gallery of forbearers? Why are they held up as models of the faith, when they modeled the faith so unevenly?

I believe that scripture allows these very human, very real people to be lifted up because they are so much like us; or perhaps I should say that we are so much like them. Their lives were a jumble of good and bad, of strengths and weaknesses. Some of them were strong in some areas of their lives (David was the great singer of Israel and courageous as the day was long), but he presided over a family that was as dysfunctional as any family I can think of. (If you aren't familiar with the back story, here it is in a nutshell: David's son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar. This so infuriated Tamar's full brother Absalom that he killed Amnon and then fled the country. Recognizing his growing popularity and his father's weakness, Absalom declared war on David in order to take the throne by force. David had no choice but to fight his son who eventually met his untimely death when his long luxurious hair got caught in a tree and he was run through by David's top general Joab.) Others of saints wrestled with contradictions in one area of their life. Peter, Jesus' right hand man, was capable of both tremendous faith and insight (When the Jesus asked the disciples whom they thought he was, Peter was the one who came up with the right answer: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God"), but also of great cowardice and self-preservation. This Peter, who confessed Jesus as the Son of God, was the same one, who on the night of Jesus' greatest need, denied even knowing him.

So again, we must ask ourselves, why are the stories of these halfwits, cowards, and troubled people included in God's story? They are there, I believe, so that we might also find ourselves in God's story, too. When we look at our own lives, I suspect many of us see contradictory and discontinuous lines of intentions, actions, and results. None of us are the whole people that we would like to be. None of us act with a purity of intention or are consistently motivated by higher values and purposes. To be sure, we all have our times when we do and when we are. But each of us, I suspect, know that we lack a consistency or a purity throughout our lives. That is not casting aspersions at us; that is a comment on human nature. And the Bible, with its stories of ruffians and rogues, is a powerful reminder that God can and does call people just like us-indeed, God has called each of us.

Let me pause here for a minute and talk about this word "call." We use the word "call" a lot in church, but I am not sure it is one of those words that speaks powerfully to many of us. In one sense, God's call to us is very much like a telephone call. It is one party reaching out to and communicating with another. But when we talk about our call from God, it is not just communication; it is about God's claim on our lives. God calls each of us into a deeper relationship with God; and God calls each of us into service. That call from God is always according to our spiritual gifts and it is always according to God's will for peace, justice and love in the world. Let me say one thing again: each of us is called by God to share God's boundless love and God's redeeming mercy with the world-no exceptions. And in case we are inclined to count ourselves out, because we aren't good at anything or because we aren't good enough, the Bible holds up tongue-tied Moses and emotionally explosive Paul to remind us that, yes, if God can called them, God can certainly call us.

So how do we come to know what our calling is? Some of you may look at me and think, well you are a pastor, you obviously have a call-but what about me? Our calls come to us in many ways, but often in our periphery vision; they have a habit of sneaking up on us. For some of us, our calling is crystal clear-I want to be a teacher-I need to be a teacher; I know I need to be a nurse or a doctor. For a long time, you have known this-it almost feels inevitable. For others, our call comes from the affirmation of others. "You know, you really are a compassionate person; you should think about being a social worker or a counselor." For others, the call comes from trial and error. "I started out thinking I wanted to be an accountant, but then I discovered law and knew where I belonged." Calls come to us in all kinds of ways, but they come to all of us. That is one of the purposes of our new equipping emphasis here at Trinity-to help as many members as possible discover and meaningfully engage in their calling. For some that will begin by taking a spiritual gift inventory. For others, your calling will emerge in conversations in a small group. For others, your call will discerned as you serve in various capacities and then have the opportunity to reflect on your service. We already do this to some degree, but our hope is that we can expand this effort to more and more people who are connected with this congregation. Our new Director of Equipping Ministry will lead us in that effort-he or she won't do it by him or herself, but with help us create patterns of congregational life that enable every member and friend of this congregation who wants to to discover and rediscover God's calling for them.

So we have these stories of uneven, unworthy, unfocused people in the Bible, in part to remind us that God calls everyone-even us-even those of us who more than suspect that we are uneven, unworthy, and unfocused. But these stories still leave me with a question-why is so much time in the Bible spent on the less admirable parts of their lives. Why not, with David, for example, just tell about the fight with Goliath, and the writing of the psalms, and the building of the palace? Did we really need to hear about Bath-sheba and David's treachery that resulted in the killing of her innocent and virtuous husband Uriah? Did we really need the soap opera that was his family? Was the palace intrigue and the scheming by David and by his henchmen really necessary? The answer to those questions is, I believe, yes. They are necessary; we do need to hear about all of David's, or Abraham's, or Paul's or Peter's life because God is interested in whole persons, not just what God can get out of us. God deeply cares about our whole lives, our thoughts, our feelings, our relationships, our hang-ups, our prejudices, our struggles-and if we had any doubt about that, we only need to read the Bible. God calls whole persons to ministry-with all of our flaws and strengths, with all of our fears and hopes. There is no part of our lives that is outside of God's love or interest.

This is not to say that God is content that we remain stuck where we are stuck; that we remain troubled where we are troubled; that God is content with the contradictions of our lives so long as God is getting from us what God wants. Jesus said that I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly-that sounds to me like a concern about every part of our lives. If we are struggling with our parents, we are missing out on some of that abundance. If we live with a high degree of anxiety, we are missing out on some of that abundance. If we feel cut off from others, we are missing out on some of that abundance. God cares about every aspect of our lives and desires that our lives be integrated-that our relationship with God inform and shape every part of our life. Indeed, when we talk about our calling from God we run the risk of becoming too narrow in our thinking. For many of us, and this is certainly true for me, I think of my calling in terms of my service in the church-and that is certainly part of my calling and all of our calling. But God is not simply concerned with our lives when we are here, or when we are doing Trinity things. God cares for our whole lives-our physical, our mental, our emotional, and our spiritual well-being. And these are lived out across the spectrum of our lives, not just when we are at church.

Again, here is where our new equipping emphasis comes into play. When we talk about equipping we run the risk of implying that the real reason for doing this is to have better committees and more effective ministry. Not that there's anything wrong with that! To be sure, better committees and more effective ministry are a likely almost necessary outgrowth of an equipping ministry. But the purpose of an equipping ministry is to strengthen members in their own faith so as to build up the body of Christ. As I have said in nearly every sermon in this equipping series, the starting point of an equipping ministry is you. God doesn't call us to one thing-God calls us to whole life. And our equipping ministry emphasis will not simply focus on church life-but on our entire lives. Sue Mallory, the Presbyterian elder who developed this approach to congregational ministry, said this about equipping ministry: Equipping ministry prepares people to understand their gifts and live out their calling in every area of their lives-church, community, family, marketplace, and mission.

So that is the second part our equipping emphasis. It is not only to help every member discover their calling (or perhaps I should say callings); it is to help every member live out those calling. We are called by God to be faithful spouses or partners, to be loving and guiding parents, to be loving friends, to be responsible citizens. Our callings are lived out in our homes, in our places of work, in the public square, with close friends, as well as at and in and through our church. And equipping ministry is concerned with all of that-so that all of the parts of our lives might be shaped by and infused with God's love.

There is no part of our lives that is outside of God's care and outside of God's call. God calls us, like God called Abraham and Sarah, like God called Moses and Miriam, like God called David and Ruth, like God called Prisca and Aquila. And in their calls, was not only the command to fulfill God's purposes, but an invitation, to live more fully in God's grace-to allow all of the parts of their lives to be touched and redeemed. In our passage from Titus, we hear that invitation: Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone. We can read this passage as a command not make waves-but something deeper is going on here: in this passage is that gracious invitation to allow God's love and mercy to shine through us in every moment of every day of every one of our lives. God calls us as whole persons and we are invited to allow God to shape our whole being until, in words of Ephesians all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.