January 18, 2009 Cycle B
1 Samuel 3:3-10,19 1 Corinthians 6:13-15,17-20
John 1:35-42
The words of our Gospel echo throughout our reflection today, “Come and see.” It is yet another opportunity to revisit our sense of call and vocation. The first lesson speaks of young Samuel sleeping at a local shrine long before the Temple in Jerusalem was built. This took place some eleven hundred years before Christ called His first disciples. Young Sam heard a voice. He was living at the local shrine because his mother, Hannah, was childless at the time and had been praying for a son, and promised that if God gave her one she would have her firstborn child reared near God. Hannah went on to have five children.
Little Samuel was sleeping in the Holy Place where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. He heard the voice that called him. Eventually he recognized whose voice it was and quickly gave the response, old Eli told him to give, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Samuel accepted His call and went on to anoint Israel’s first king, Saul; and it’s next, and greatest king, David, from whose line Jesus would be born.
When Jesus was born and grew up, he in turn called others and that’s today’s Gospel reading. He called His first disciples: John and Andrew, who were at that time hanging around with John the Baptist. They left John and followed Jesus who at one point turned around and asked them what they were looking for. What did they really want? Really want? They said they wanted to know where He stayed. This was not passing fad, they wanted to spend some time with Him and learn what He was all about. And learn they did. They were so captivated that John remembered all the details, even the time of day when he first met Christ.
And Andrew? Andrew proves to be one of the most attractive characters in the New Testament. For one thing, he was always content to play second fiddle to his brother, Peter. For another, Andrew simply couldn’t keep the good news to himself and seemed delighted to introduce people to Jesus. The New Testament mentions Andrew three times, and each time that is what he does. He brings the boy with the five loaves and the two fish to Jesus. He brings inquiring Greeks to see Jesus and in today’s Gospel he runs and gets his brother Simon to meet Jesus. When Simon arrives, Jesus changes his name to Peter. This is a sign that when God looks at people He sees not only what they are, but also what they can become.
I’d like to share a couple of true stories about people who were called in various ways, people who were called and became. Maybe these stories are not as dramatic like that of Samuel, or Peter, Andrew and John, but more subtle and persuasively by example and circumstances more like our own callings.
About ninety years ago a man picked up the morning paper and, to his horror, read his own obituary! The newspaper had reported the death of the wrong man. Like most of us he relished the idea of finding out what people would say about him after he died. He read past the bold caption to himself, which read, “Dynamite King Dies.” He read along until he was taken aback by the description of him as “a merchant of death.”
He was the inventor of dynamite and amassed a great fortune from the manufacturer of weapons of destruction. But he was moved by this description. Did he really want to be known as a “merchant of death?” It was at that moment that a healing power greater than the destructive force of dynamite came over him. It was his hour of conversion. It was his call. From that point on he devoted his energy and money to works of peace and human betterment. Today, of course, he is best remembered not at a “merchant of death,” but rather as the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize. His name, Alfred Nobel.
There are many a story out there of people whose lives have been changed dramatically. Some of which I have recalled for you earlier this month with the CNN heroes.
But finally, let me tell you about a bishop of the last century, and how he got his call, his vocation.
He was a noted evangelizer, making it his special outreach to cynics, unbelievers, and scoffers. He liked to tell the story of a young man who used to stand outside the Cathedral shouting derogatory remarks at the people entering to worship. He would call them fools and all kinds of names. People tried to ignore him, but it was difficult. So finally, the parish priest went outside to confront the young man, who was simply ranting and raving at everything the priest told him. Finally, the priest addressed the young scoffer. “Look, let’s get this over with once and for all. I’m going to make a deal with you. I’m going to put you on a dare, and I bet you cannot do it.”
The young man shouted back, “I can do anything you propose, you black robed wimp!” The priest said, “Fine, all I ask you to do is come into the sanctuary with me and I will want you to stare at the figure of Christ, and I want you to scream at the very top of your lungs as loud as you can, “Christ died on the Cross for me and I don’t care one bit.”
So the young man screamed as loud as he could looking at the figure of Christ and screaming, “Christ died on the Cross for me and I don’t care one bit.” The priest said, “Very good. Now do it again.” Again the young man screamed with a little more hesitancy, “Christ died on the Cross for me and I don’t care one bit.” Then the priest said, “You’re almost done now, one more time.” The young man raised his fist, kept looking at the statue, but the words would not come. He just could not look at the face of Christ and say that anymore. The real punch line came when after he told the story, the bishop said, “I was that young man. That young man, that defiant young man was me. I thought I didn’t need God, but I found out that I did.”
People are called in various ways. The burden on us, my friends, is twofold. First, we must consistently and personally answer the call to a moral, decent, and holy life. Second, our Christ-like lives, by their very nature, ought to be a call to others.
Amen. Amen. Msgr. Tom, Pastor Christ the King