Homily
for the
2d
Sunday of Ordinary Time
Jan.
17, 2021
John
1: 35-42
1
Sam 3: 3-10, 19
St.
Francis Xavier, Bronx, N.Y.
“Jesus
turned and saw them following him and said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’”
(John 1: 38).
In
today’s readings we hear of 2 calls or 2 invitations. The Lord calls young Samuel in the middle of
the nite with what will become his vocation to be a prophet and leader in
Israel. Jesus invites 2 disciples of
John the Baptist to come with him and see where he’s staying. These calls or invitations speak to us, too.
Samuel’s
call from God was completely unexpected.
As the Scripture says, “At that time Samuel was not familiar with the
Lord, because the Lord had not revealed anything to him as yet” (1 Sam 3:7). He was fortunate in that his master, the
priest Eli, discerned what was happening and guided him in how to respond to
the Lord’s call. He was blessed in his
openness to God’s call: “Speak, for your
servant is listening” (3:10). Thus he
became the Lord’s servant, the Lord’s prophet, the Lord’s agent for Israel’s
deliverance from their enemies.
The 2 disciples of John the Baptist of whom we read today were already seeking the ways of God; that’s why they were with John at the Jordan River, listening to his preaching. St. John the Evangelist identifies one of them as “Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter” (1:40). We’d like to know who the other was, but John tells us nothing—not even whether it was a guy and not one of the women who eventually became followers of Jesus. For that matter, he doesn’t tell us even that this 2d person became a follower of Jesus, as we know Andrew did.
But Jesus
calls them both, invites them both, to “come and see” (1:39), and more than
just to “see.” “They stayed with him
that day” (1:39), and you can believe they were talking about John the Baptist,
God, sin and conversion, the spiritual life.
Bp. Robert Barron takes up the verb “stay” or “remain”—2 ways of
translating John’s Greek—and states that Jesus “remains” attached to his
Father’s will. The bishop suggests that
the 2 disciples “stay” with Jesus in seeking God’s will. That’s the Christian vocation, which Andrew
grasps enuf to become an apostle immediately:
“he first found his brother Simon and told him, ‘We’ve found the
Messiah.’ … Then he brought him to Jesus” (1:41-42). A committed Christian doesn’t keep Jesus to
himself but wants others to know Jesus, too.
So the
readings present us with 2 takes on vocation.
The 1st, based on Samuel, is one’s particular calling in life. Most of you perceived a calling to marriage,
to living as signs of Christ’s unbounded love for the Church, and vice
versa—the beautiful sacrament of matrimony.
You didn’t perceive that call thru a mysterious voice in the middle of
the nite. You didn’t, did you? Probably you perceived a pitter-patter of your
heart and a growing perception that this is the one, this person will make my
life complete. Like Samuel, you may have
received some guidance from a wise elder, a parent or older sibling. (Or maybe there were arguments about your
choice, and you listened to your heart and, I hope, your conscience.) You probably didn’t say to yourself, “This
person will help me grow in my relationship with Jesus, will help me become a
saint; and together we’ll journey to heaven.”
But that’s what Christian matrimony means.
I didn’t
hear a voice in the nite, either, that led me to become a Salesian and a
priest. I tested an interior inclination
that was God’s silent way of speaking to me, and over years of formation and
advice was tested by my companions and my superiors, who eventually ratified
God’s call, that God was calling me to be his servant in this fashion.
The 2d
take on vocation, the one of Andrew and his anonymous companion, is the
vocation of following Jesus. All of us
were given that vocation when we were baptized.
Andrew and the other disciple took a cue from John the Baptist and made
a conscious decision to follow Jesus, to stay with him, to listen to him. As baptized people, we took new steps in
discipleship thru our first Communion and Confirmation, and we reaffirm our
discipleship in daily prayer, Sunday Mass, the holy Eucharist, Scripture
reading, ongoing conversion in the sacrament of Penance, and trying to live out
what Jesus teaches us about love of God and neighbor. We also share our faith (like Andrew) with
our family and, as St. Peter writes in his 1st Letter, are to be “always
prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that
is in you,” a hope that he identifies as confidence that Christ is our Lord
(3:15), our master. We owe ultimate
allegiance to no other person, government, political party, fellowship, or to
fame or fortune or anything material.
One
aspect of our calling as disciples of Christ has been highlighted in recent
weeks by numerous commentators. In the
Collect of today’s Mass we asked God to “bestow your peace on our times.” We Christians have a role in making peace in
our times. You know how severely divided
the people of our country are at this time.
Whether we’re Democrats, Republicans, socialists, or independents;
disciples of Trump or Biden-voters—we have to help our country heal. A deacon friend of mine has made the theme of
his homily for today: when something we
love is broken, we want to fix it. It’s
hard enuf to cope with the pandemic and economic woes; demonizing the political
opposition doesn’t help anyone. We have
to see the fundamental human dignity of everyone—not just the unborn or the
immigrant or the person of a different color but also the one we disagree with
in politics, and together with that person seek the common good of all our
people, seek solutions to the grave problems that we have concerning health,
education, the economy, international tensions, and so much else. We often sing the hymn “Make me an instrument
of your peace.” How can Christ use me to
“bestow peace on our times”? What does
it mean to be a disciple of Jesus in America today, not only as a parent, a
spouse, a child, a student, a worker—but as a citizen?
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