2nd Sunday Year B

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B – The Calling

“I have called you by your name. You are mine.” How great it must be to be able to recount when and where we were called to be of service to God; when we were called to join Him in His family.

Last week, our priest asked us to think about when we were baptised; to possibly recollect the time, the place, the occasion and who else was involved in the day – our parents and god-parents, because this was the day when we formally joined Christ in God’s family, this was the day from which we began to grow in connection with the Holy Spirit.

In all truth, while many of us will be able to dig out a copy of our Baptism Certificates, that would probably be the extent of our recollecting. We would have been too small, probably babies, when it happened and have no real-time recollection of it at all.

Samuel was a young man when he heard a voice calling him. He didn’t know who or what it was, in fact he thought it was Eli. But Eli was able to tell him that it was the Lord who was calling him and that, if called again, he should answer, “Speak Lord, Your servant is listening.”

Eli was there as a guide to help Samuel understand that it was the Lord who was calling him and that he should make himself available to whatever the Lord was asking of him.

Similarly so with the apostles. They were called directly by Jesus to come and follow Him. He told them that He would make them, “Fishers of men”. He preached to them and taught them daily in groups, in crowds and individually what the message of God was all about and what they could do to move closer to their Father in heaven.

But it was His earlier calling that opens us, and them, up to so much of what the next few years would be about and how their lives would be changed forever. Jesus said to the two disciples of John who followed after Him, “Come and see.” Come and see.

This was in answer to their question of, “Where do you live?” But it could have been the answer to so much more, in fact almost everything that they could have asked. Come and see.

Come and see where I live and come and see who I am and what I am about. Come and see how your lives  can change and how you can become so much more than you  already are. Come and see how you can alter and improve the lives of the people you meet. Come and see the impact you can have on the world around you.

They received a calling and an offer of so much more, if they wanted to listen to that calling, that offer, that invitation.

As we were reminded last week, our calling can be traced back to our baptism, and this intervening length of time and our age when it happened, may give us an excuse for not remembering it clearly, not recalling specifics and not being able to describe what we saw when we came to see.

But we receive this calling every year, every month, in fact every day and possibly every minute of every day. God is calling  out to us, all of the time, to come and see what He has to offer to us and for us. He is calling us to come and be active and proactive members of His family, seeking ways and means to show His love of humanity through our actions.

Every day when we are faced with a choice of doing good or bad, right or wrong, positive or negative, these are our opportunities to answer with a strong and faithful voice, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” These are our chances to come and see what the Lord wants of us and to demonstrate our understanding of this by doing the next right thing; by making the right choice that shows we have heard His calling; we have understood His calling and have answered it in such a way that He and everyone around us can see that we are doing His work.

We have been in Lockdown for almost a year in some shape or form. We have had the stringent rules of the first lockdown when most of us were confined to our homes. We have lived through the easing of these rules subsequently but are now back again trying to play ‘catch-up’ to manage the second wave. And it has been hard! Really hard for some.

It has been hard to identify the time and place of God speaking to us amidst all of the rules, regulations, specifications, limitations and restrictions of the lockdowns. While there has been lots of enforced silence and isolation, from church and from families, we have struggled, I think, to find that time to listen for God and to truly hear Him amongst all of our worries and feelings of dread.

But this is the time. This is the real time when we should be listening out for His calling. This is the most important time for us to tune our inner-radar to His voice, speaking to us in the whisper of the breeze, in the silence of our dreams, “I have called you by your name. You are mine.”

“Speak Lord, Your servant is listening. Show me the way that I can do Your will to the benefit of all mankind and to show your love of me and our Father’s love of all.”