Forty days had passed since Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Of course it was 40 days. Couldn’t have been 39 or 41. Things happen in 40s in the Bible, over and over again.

Forty numbers times of preparation. It rained for forty days and forty nights while Noah and his floating zoo prepared for a new world. The children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years, learning how to be the people of God, finding their way and losing their way on the their way to the Promised Land. They would not be ready to call a new place home until they learned to make the commandments of God at home within them and among them. After showing up the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, the prophet Elijah heard that the wicked Queen Jezebel had his blood on her mind. He ran away and brooded under a broom tree. God fed and comforted him, and then he traveled on that comfort food for forty days and forty nights to a cave. There God whispered sweet somethings in his ear in a still small voice, after God was not to be heard in the earth, wind and fire—despite the great music, don’t you know?! And then Jesus himself spent forty days and forty nights in the desert being tempted by the devil, preparing for his public ministry.

These are training days, times of trial that teach. Boot camp for the soul, you might say. Dr. Luke tells Theophilus—whose name means “friend of God”—(and all of us theophilae) that Jesus spent forty days instructing his disciples to be apostles to carry on his work after he was gone from them. Having giving them a charge to keep, he ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead, as the lovely old language of the Apostle’s Creed puts it. Jesus leaves his disciples so that they can become apostles. He removes himself physically from their presence so that in his absence they can come to themselves and become what they are meant to be by his continuing grace.

Some of us will soon be taking our children off to college and dropping them off there. (A moment ,please, for tears.) We would like to keep them home with us ,or we would like to go to school with them, anything to stay near to them. But to do so would only hinder their development as the persons they must become. We had a rightful role to play in their lives up till now that required our presence; we have a rightful role to play now that involves our absence. It reminds me of teaching my kids to ride a bicycle. Training wheels first, then adjusting them upward until they come off altogether. Finally—every mom or dad knows the routine—you run along behind her, holding gently to the seat of the bike, giving your baby confidence until she is ready to go on her own. She may crash now and then, but she and you know she can’t keep you behind her forever, and so she takes her place among the two-wheelers of the world.

Like parents who will stay close by through prayers prayed and cell phones charged and charge cards handy, Jesus knows his disciples will need a new kind of presence in his absence to empower their future. So he sends his Holy Spirit to fill their hearts with courage and guide their steps as they follow still in his steps.

But today we look at the question of what these would-be apostles—literally, “sent ones,” are to do. Certainly not whatever they want to do, as if their lives are their own to do with as they please. Luke says that Jesus gave instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. In other words, while they in theory could do in whatever they would choose to do with their lives, they would always have to reckon with what they would feel deep in their bones—namely, that they were chosen. For their lives to matter to the highest degree, they would always have to go back to the sense that they were chosen before they could choose, and only if they chose to agree with their chosenness could they have the life that matters most.

We talk a lot about vocation around here. “What will you do with your life?” is not the vocational question. “What are you called to do with your life?” is. “What is it you feel chosen to do?” is another way of putting it.

If you ask me how I came to know I should be a minister, I could give a testimony in more than one way. On any given day—depending on what I had for lunch or how my prayers had gone that morning—I might tell you either that I enlisted in the Lord’s army or that I was drafted. In the last few years I have used the language of enlistment more and more in order to balance out the draft analogy. Like many of you, I grew up with people talking about “surrendering to preach,” as if God had finally tracked me down and put a gun to my head until I threw up my arms and realized I had no choice in the matter but to serve the Lord or die. Obviously, God is not in the habit of putting up WANTED posters in the post office in order to track down fugitives from the ministry. When we use that kind of language, we often make it seem like ministry is something no one should want to do, and the only way you do it is that you give in against your will.

When I look back at my life and consider the things I both love and have been good at, things sporting and things spiritual have risen to the top. As a kid I loved the scent of athletic competition and the smell of the pew. I even liked practicing: shooting hoops and beating golf balls and throwing passes to my father on the side yard that he caught with a first baseman’s mitt. I also liked memorizing scripture and talking about the Bible and going to church. Strange kid, huh? I liked playing even more, and still do, in the fields of the Lord. So to say that I was a willing volunteer for the Lord’s team is not far from true. It felt then and still today feels true to who I am and how I am made.

But in that statement is hidden the deeper truth: the One who made me that way has called me that way. Before I could choose, I was chosen. Before enlisting, I was drafted.

This is Memorial Day Weekend, a time in our country when we pause to give thanks for those who have literally given their lives in service to the country. They died carrying out their mission, most of them on fields far from home, where no one was playing for fun and everyone was playing for keeps. We wonder about them, these young men mostly, who gave their last best gift for purposes they hoped would prove worthy in ages to come. We think about those who have lost loved ones in this time of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we groan with sorrow over what might have been for them and their families and for all of us if they had lived to serve the world in peaceful ways. As Christians we also groan and sorrow over those on the other side. We mourn the loss of life that happens when any child of God dies, because every person is precious to God and every one is a person for whom Christ died.

We hope that those who died in war did so in the ultimate service of peace. As long as we have a say about it, we must pledge ourselves to see to it that the cause of war is peace with justice and nothing else, or else we must spend ourselves seeking their return from such conflicts before it is too late. Many of us are praying for just that today for our sons and daughters and friends in harm’s way who nobly fight. We want their fight to be as noble as they. We want none to die in service to country for anything less, and we want no death in service to country to be dishonored by the cause for which they fought.

But this brings us to the point of being drafted and the consequences of it. Some of you veterans enlisted, and some were drafted. If you enlisted, you did so no doubt because you felt a call that didn’t need to come from Uncle Sam; it came from your prior sense of duty. And those of you who were drafted and served did so because once the call came, you answered it faithfully, knowing that to do so might take your last breath.

Jesus said to his disciples, You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. You will be. Whether you like it or not, you will be. You have been drafted. You have been chosen. The matter is not whether you will represent me in the world, but how you will. You will be my witnesses.

What was true for them is true for us, whether we are called into church ministry or into the ministry of the church. By virtue of accepting the Lordship of Jesus Christ, you accept the charge to be his witnesses. We try to make that plain in the baptistery with all the language of salt and light and commissioning for service in Jesus’ name.

The other connection to Memorial Day, to the fallen faithful of the country, is that to be faithful witnesses for Christ in the world may take the last breath we have in service to the Christian flag. The Greek word for witness is martures, from which we get the word martyr. Martyrs don’t volunteer to die for Christ; they accept their calling to live for him—even if the cost is their lives.

We talk about how we can best honor the dead who gave themselves for purposes we deemed so important that even their death would not deter them. The best response, I think, is not just gratitude but commitment. Committing ourselves to some common sacrifice, in order that we will not let their sacrifice be in vain. That we will not let them stand in for us, but rather that we will join them in standing up for values that may cost us our lives.

And if that is true for service to our country, how much more so for service to our Christ? We are witnesses to a Savior who suffered and died in order to bring salvation to the world. What kind of witnesses are we? Have you accepted the truth that you have been drafted into the service of Christ and not merely into the salvation of Christ? Do you understand that Christ has given you his Spirit to strengthen you for that task? “Can others see Jesus in you?” as the hymn puts it.

It’s not easy to be a witness for Christ. It makes you vulnerable to hurt and misunderstanding. You put yourself out there and say what you believe is true in the face of those might not agree. There is no witness-protection program for witnesses of Christ Jesus. But witnessing always pays off, because the Holy Spirit sees to it.

Sometimes it only takes getting started before you find the strength to go the distance. When Ralph Houk managed the New York Yankees in the 1960s to early ’70s, they played more double-headers than today. Players would sometimes come to him and beg for a day off, especially in the dog days of summer. Houk would sympathize with them. I know how you feel, he would say. Sure, take the day off. But do me a favor. You’re in the starting lineup. Just play one inning. Then skip the rest of the game. The player would honor the manager’s request, but inevitably he would get caught up in the spirit of the game and play it through to the end.

You are chosen. Drafted into service of the Lord. You will be his witness. What kind of witness will you be?