Kate Prowd
28 August 2025
On September 7 our Diocese will observe Vocations Sunday. Across parishes, conversations and sermons will explore God’s call to lay and ordained ministry. When pondering “Why me?” or “Why not me?”, remember Jesus’ words: “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16).
In his book Truly Called?, Bishop Bradly Billings writes: “In order to respond to a call from God, you must first be called. That is, God must speak your name, somehow and in some way.” He recalls Mary Magdalene’s experience in the garden after Jesus’ crucifixion. In her grief she mistakes the risen Jesus for the gardener—until he speaks her name: “Mary” (John 20:16). At once she knows who he is and runs to tell the others, announcing those five words changes everything: “I have seen the Lord!” She now knows who she is—an apostle of the risen Lord.
Each of us is called. At baptism we are commissioned: “Go and make disciples, confess Christ crucified, shine as a light.” For most of us, our ministry will not include headline moments in salvation history. But, as St James Old Cathedral vicar the Reverend Matt Williams says, all are “ordinary parts of an extraordinary story.” That story is the gospel itself: God, in Jesus, showing how far love will go—even to the cross—so that we can be in relationship with him.
Read more: What ordained ministry means to me
As with Mary Magdalene, so it is for us. God speaks our name and calls us into this story. For some, it comes dramatically; for others, slowly. When I was twenty years old, on a youth pilgrimage to Walsingham in Norfolk, UK, I had no clarity about my future. Yet in that place, surrounded by prayer and in community, I heard God calling my name. It was the beginning of a journey: deacon, priest and, much later, bishop. Looking back, it was a moment of conversion—aligning my life with God’s pattern.
Our ordinary part in that extraordinary story is to let others know, by word and action, that we, too, have seen the Lord. Some are called as deacons—ambassadors of service, carrying Christ’s love into every corner. Some as priests—to preach and teach the gospel, offer forgiveness, and share bread and wine. Others as lay people—in workplaces, schools, homes and communities—living signs of Christ’s compassion.
Peter reminds us: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood… God’s own people” (1 Peter 2:9). Each of us has been given hands, feet, eyes and voices to serve as Christ’s body in the world. God is always saying “yes” to us about something.
Like Mary Magdalene, listen out for his voice, and be ready to say in word and deed: I have seen the Lord.
For more faith news, follow The Melbourne Anglican on Facebook, Instagram, X, or subscribe to our weekly emails.
