There are many occasions when I go to visit the sick or just make friendly visits to folks. Sometimes they are ill in the hospital, and I come upon them sleeping. It is my habit to leave a card with my name, my church, and a telephone number on the bedside table. I will also pen a short note of best wishes on it as well. At residences, I have often left a card in the mailbox or doorframe, if my call is unfortunately unanswered. Perhaps, a minister is one of the few remaining occupations that still use the social custom of calling cards for purposes other that business. This past week I decided to try to find out the origins of this custom.
Calling cards appear to have risen in popularity during the 1800’s. The emerging middle class sought social access to the upper class society, and a protocol of “calling’ was developed to facilitate the process.  A person would call at the door of a particular person, and they would be told that they were not “in”. A card would then be left by the caller. Now, here comes the deception. A person might be physically “in” the house, but they might not be socially “in” to make the acquaintance of a new person. Thus, the calling card gave the person time to decide whether or not they wished to pursue the social contact of the caller. Confusing isn’t it?
The custom gets even more bewildering when you hear that these social visits were termed “morning calls” despite the fact that they were all carried out in the afternoon.  I guess that the rich and privileged ran on a different clock that the rest of us. Indeed, if the caller was a stranger, they were to call between three and four o’clock in the afternoon. If the visitor was somewhat better known, you called between four and five o’clock. Lastly, if you were friends, the time allotted was between five and six o’clock. I am not really sure how the custom of four o’clock tea worked into this pattern, but it is obvious that the stranger expected nothing to eat or drink. My assumption is that cards must have been left all over town, as they were given out to friends when one arrived in town and when one departed from town. I wonder what they did with them all.
Unlike our nineteenth century ancestors, God does not operate under such silly customs. God left his calling card to the world within the very creation that we all share. That introduction is in the stars we see at night and in the sun that illumines our day. It is in all the creatures of the sea and the birds in the air. Yes, it’s even in the people we meet daily. About two thousand years ago, God left us a unique calling card in Jesus. In Christ, we had a new way to foster our relationship with one another. After Jesus, the Holy Spirit still seeks our social contact. The problem is whether we will act positively upon God’s calling card, or whether like the Victorian aristocracy, we will shun or spurn the divine attempt at forming a relationship with us. Remember, we cannot deceive God. We are “in”, and God knows it. Moreover, God makes actual “morning” calls. These certainly happen every Sunday morning at a church of your preference. Will you answer, or leave that calling card on the mantelpiece with all the others?