Second Sunday In Ordinary Time

1 Samuel 3:3-10,19
1 Corinthians 6:13-15,17-20
John 1:35-42

OUR CALLING IS TO REVEAL CHRIST TO THE WORLD

Both the first reading and the gospel speaks about the calling of God. They accounts for those who receives a vocation from God, a calling. The boy Samuel was to become the first of the great prophets whereas In the gospel, the two young men became Our Lord’s first disciples. Samuel’s calling was that of the promise of Christ in the Old Testament, and the calling of the two disciples was the fulfillment of that promise in the gospels.

The boy Samuel, dedicated by his parents to the service of God, was asleep in the temple where he worked under the supervision of the priest Eli. As he lay there, he heard a voice calling him, but did not recognise it. He thought it was Eli speaking to him. After this had happened three times, Eli himself realized that it was the Lord who was calling to Samuel. Eli told the boy how to answer when he heard God’s voice again. And so it was that Samuel responded to the voice of the Lord. This was the start of a new life in God’s service, a life quite unlike that which his mother had envisaged when she had presented her son in the Temple. Samuel could have declined this surprising new vocation, and simply remained as Eli’s assistant, but that was not what God wanted of him. God had a special task for him and so issued a special call, to which Samuel responded in a positive way. “And Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.” This means that God did not allow Samuel’s words to fall to the ground, that is, to be weak or without effect. Because God had called Samuel to be a prophet, He gave His words the power of the Holy Spirit, so that none of His prophetic teaching would be lost or wasted.

Turning to the gospel reading, we have the calling of the first disciples. Now, the calling is not be prophets, but to be disciples, and later apostles. Unlike the boy Samuel, these first disciples, Andrew and another, do not hear an unknown voice from heaven. It is all much more direct. They hear and see Christ Himself. Not a voice, such as Samuel heard in the dead of night, but a real Person, in the flesh, and in broad daylight. They already knew who He was, because John the Baptist had told them, and they were curious to know more. As they were following Jesus, He turns to them and asks, “What do you seek?” Perhaps they were a little flustered by the directness of His question, for their response is slightly odd: “Teacher, where are you staying?” Jesus simply says to them, “Come and see.”

This episode teaches us several things about the ways in which God calls us. In the first place, the two disciples are moved to approach the Lord by the words of John the Baptist. This is often the way God works – using someone who is close to us, a friend or colleague, who will bring us to meet Christ. Or it may work the other way. God may want to use us to bring others to Him. He may want us to be like John the Baptist, to be the one to say to someone we live or work with, “Behold the Lamb of God.”

When the disciples make their first approach to the Lord, perhaps hesitantly, but drawn by a desire to know more, Jesus speaks to them in a simple and friendly way, “Come and see.” No long lectures about how difficult the life of a disciple will be, just a simple invitation to spend time with Him. Personal contact with Him and time spent in His company will confirm their vocation and secure their loyalty. For our Christian vocation is very personal. Nor is it just an intellectual matter. It also touches and moves our hearts. It affects our whole lives. At the start, Jesus does not lecture them about the new way of life that He is offering them. He simply invites them to spend time in His company. In accepting His invitation, they open themselves to His gentle and gradual instruction. They start to learn His doctrine through their personal experience of His presence. And having come to understand Who Christ really is, they bring others to meet Him. Andrew finds Simon his brother and says to him, “We have found the Messiah”. That was Andrew’s first act of discipleship, the first fruits of his new vocation. He brings his brother to meet the Lord.

Telling others that “we have found the Messiah” is a task for all Christians. It is one of the fundamental activities of being a disciple. For when we are baptised, we are grafted into Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church. It is through this Mystical Body of which we are the members that the Lord continues His saving work on earth. As members of that Body, we all have a duty to bear witness. Called to be a witness means that God has some specific role for each of us to fulfil. Our role might be to teach the gospel in a formal and authoritative way. That is one of the main roles of bishops and priests – to teach and pass on the great truths of revelation. But that kind of teaching, though essential to the life of the Church, is not the only way of bearing witness to the reality of our Saviour.

For many disciples, the most effective way of making Christ known is not by teaching but by example, not by words, but by deeds, which are so often far more eloquent. That is a common theme in Saint Paul’s epistles. It underlies his teaching today on the way we should use our bodies. Our bodily life should be an outward sign of the spiritual reality of Christ within us: “glorify God in your body.” Our behaviour should always bear witness to our faith, so that if someone asks what it means to be a Christian, our behaviour will echo the words of Our Lord, saying, “Come and see.” To live in a way that reveals Christ’s presence to the world is our greatest challenge. It requires determination, and a humble acknowledge

Fr Joseph Osho