Isaiah 9: 1–4; Psalm 27: 1, 5–13; I Corinthians 1:
10–18; Matthew 4: 12–23
This is a reflection
by Fr. Gene Tucker, offered at St. John’s Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on
Sunday, January 22, 2017.
“RECEIVING GOD’S CALL”
(Homily
text: Matthew 4: 12-23)
The
Collect (prayer) of the Day which is appointed for this, the Third Sunday After
the Epiphany, and our Gospel text, which relates Jesus’ call to four of His disciples,
Simon Peter, his brother Andrew, and the two brothers, James and John, fit
quite well together. Here is the Collect:
Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior
Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we
and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.[1]
Since
we have the theme of call before us, let’s explore some of the ways in which Jesus
Christ calls us, and the implications of God the Father’s call, coming through
Him.
We
might begin by noticing the nature of the call of these four disciples, coming
as Jesus walked along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, for there must have
been something very compelling about that call. (Indeed, I can’t resist saying
that – to be in the Lord’s presence during his earthly ministry – must have
been to experience a very dynamic and loving person. I suspect that the growing
popularity He experienced was, in part, due to his persona, but was also due to
the outpouring of divine love and hope that He offered.) Matthew seems to
indicate that these four disciples simply got up, left their fishing, their
nets and their families to follow Jesus. Their response, Matthew tells us in
verses 20 and 22, was “immediate”. (We will see the same sort of thing again as
we read about Matthew’s own call, for, in Matthew 9: 9, we get the sense that
Matthew simply got up and walked away from his tax collecting in order to follow
the Lord.)
So,
the first point we might discern about God’s call is that it is a call that
comes from outside our own experience. Connected to this reality is
the fact that God’s call comes from One
who is mightier than we are. As we ponder the mystery of God’s nature, one
thing we can be sure of is that His nature is one of generosity and love. After
all, Jesus came to demonstrate by His manner of living and His manner of giving
the true nature of God’s love.
God’s
call to us comes, then, from the One who is the author of life itself, the One
whose truest nature is one of love.
By
responding to God’s love, we are simply returning to God what has come from God
in the first place. To acknowledge God’s love and generous nature is to be
aware of God’s greatness, God’s holiness, God’s gift of life and God’s
continuing presence in our lives. This last point leads us to conclude that
God’s call to us doesn’t come just once, but again and again as our lives
unfold. To be aware of God’s call, coming again and again, is to listen
intently whenever God’s call comes, and to be prepared, as Simon Peter, Andrew,
James and John did, to follow God’s call immediately.
As
we look at our sacramental life, we can see that each of the seven Sacraments
involves some sort of a call. Let’s explore these specific ways in which God
acts in our lives from the perspective of the call involved.
God’s
great and first call often comes in baptism. To respond to God’s call to
enter the waters of baptism is to acknowledge, that, as we pass through these
waters, we are saying to God that we know Him to be the way of salvation and
eternal life, given to us through the work of Jesus Christ our Lord. So we
pass, as did God’s people in ancient times when they walked through the waters
of the Red Sea out of bondage into a new and glorious future in the Promised
Land, into the Promised Land of an ongoing and permanent relationship with Him.
In
the Holy
Eucharist (also known as the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, the Mass),
we respond to God’s call of love, made known to us in the Lord’s self-offering
of Himself on the cross on Good Friday. In a very real sense, the Eucharist is
a bloodless sacrifice, a remembrance of the Lord’s passion and death. As we
come to the holy table of Communion, we acknowledge that we cannot save
ourselves, and we respond to God’s call to put our faith in the One who saved
us by His precious death and by His glorious resurrection, for nowhere else can
we see God’s enormous power made known in God’s victory over death and sin,
than in Jesus’ death and in His rising again on Easter Sunday morning.
We
confirm our faith in the Lord as we make our own mature declaration of faith in
the rite of Confirmation. In this rite, we are declaring that we’ve
examined many of the possibilities that life offers, and have come to affirm
the promises that were made at our baptisms exceed all other realities,
responding to God’s call made then, with our own response which has been shaped
and molded by our coming to know God and to know Him more fully.
The
rite of Reconciliation[2]
(Confession) allows us the opportunity to acknowledge that there will be times
when we fall short of God’s holy and righteous standards. What we are talking
about here is the reality of sin. Indeed, it is guaranteed that – in this
earthly life – there will be times when we are guilty of missing the mark (one
of the definitions of sin). So the rite of Reconciliation offers us a specific
chance, in cases of especially serious wrongdoing, to confess such
transgressions to a priest or bishop, and to hear God’s declaration of
forgiveness for our genuine repentance.
In
Matrimony,
we step outside of ourselves to acknowledge that we are connected to others
through marriage. And, by extension, we are connected to God as we take up our
part in bringing into being the next generation of human beings. So matrimony
is, in a very real sense, a call to acknowledge that we are not alone in life.
We are connected to others in marriage and in participating in God’s plan for
humanity.
Ordination is, perhaps,
the most explicitly examined area in which a call is involved. For persons who
present themselves for ordination, one of the key concerns among those who will
discern the nature of a person’s call (whether that discernment takes place at
the parish level, at the diocesan level, or with the Bishop) is to ask, “Just
what is this call? Is it a genuine call from God to serve God and to serve the
people whom God loves, or is it a call that arises from some other, perhaps personal,
agenda?” As important as it is to determine the nature of call with regard to
ordination, it is equally important to be aware of God’s call in other areas of
life.
The
rite of anointing with holy oils, known as Unction[3],
is a rite which is administered for healing (spiritual, mental and physical),
and for anointing at the time of death (which is God’s ultimate healing as He
draws our spirits back to Him).
Finally,
each of these seven channels of God’s grace, known as the Sacraments, are
specific ways in which our awareness of God’s call is raised to a more
sensitive level. Acknowledging God’s call, whether it is our sacramental life,
or in our daily walk with God, is to ally ourselves with God’s greatness, power
and love.
[1] I have highlighted the phrase “to answer
readily the call” to show the connection to our theme for this reflection.
[2] Our liturgical life offers us the
opportunity to make our confession to God in the weekly inclusion of the
General Confession in our worship. The Rite of Reconciliation offers a specific
and private opportunity to confess especially troubling and disruptive sin. In
the Anglican/Episcopal tradition, no one is compelled to make such a
confession. The phrase which is often used in this connection is: “All may,
some should, none must”.
[3] Anointing with holy oil for healing is known
as Unction. Anointing with another type of holy oil at the time of death is
often known as Extreme Unction.
