Jonah 3: 1–5, 10 / Psalm 62: 6–14 / I Corinthians 7: 29–31 / Mark 1: 14-20
This
is the homily prepared for St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene
Tucker for Sunday, January 24, 2021.
“DROP WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING”
(Homily texts: Jonah 3: 1–5, 10 & Mark 1: 14–20)
God’s call
to a specific work or ministry can take various forms. One who is heading
toward ordination, or is already ordained, many times the question is often
asked, “Tell us about your call to ministry.” Of course, the same thing can be
said about any sort of ministry that God calls His people to be about, not just
ordained ministry. (At this point, I can’t resist saying that all ministries
are critical to the advancement of God’s kingdom, no matter what they are, lay
ministries or ordained ones. All are of equal importance, even if we may tend
to focus more on ordained ministry.)
At times,
God’s call can come over a period of years, perhaps shaping and molding the person
being called as time passes. That’s one way we see God’s call at work. Such a
call often takes shape over a period of time, during which the person
contemplates how the ministry to which they are being called might take shape,
or how it might be adapted to a specific set of circumstances, circumstances
which might change as the period of discernment unfolds. An example of this
might be the person who feels called to start a specific ministry of
establishing a church-based feeding ministry. Time and the work of the Holy
Spirit might shape the final form of the ministry as various aspects of God’s
vision for the ministry fall into place, one at a time. (OK, at this point,
I’ll ask, “Is God calling you to a specific ministry you’ve not already
undertaken in your life?” That’s an important question to pay attention to, I
think.)
Sometimes,
God’s call comes with urgency, but it comes more than once. That’s the
situation with Jonah, who was told by God to go to Ninevah. You may remember
that, in response to this call, Jonah got onto a ship and headed west toward
Tarshish (the Old Testament name for Spain). You’ll recall the story that the
ship flounders in a great storm, and Jonah is thrown overboard. After spending
some time in the belly of a great fish, Jonah is expelled onto the shore,
whereupon God calls again, telling Jonah to go east to Ninevah. This second
time that God calls, as today’s passage alludes to, Jonah gets the message and
goes to Ninevah.
At other
times, God’s call comes, and it produces an immediate response on the part of
the individual. Our reading from Mark’s Gospel account presents us with an
immediate and urgent call to work in service to God, Jesus’ call to four of His
disciples: Simon (also known, later on, as Peter) and his brother Andrew, and
the two sons of Zebedee, James and John.
Notice the
word immediate. It’s one
of Mark’s favorite words (along with the word amazed). Mark
says that these four men immediately responded to Jesus’ call to become His
disciples, because He was going to make them “fish for people”. We get the
impression that the four said “goodbye” to their families and to their family
businesses (fishing) that they’d been engaged in.
Once they
had said “yes” to the Lord’s call, their lives completely changed. A new course
lay ahead of them, one that would give meaning and purpose to their lives that
they could never have imagined, for they were laying the foundations for a new
way of relating to God. Nothing short of that statement would come close to
describing the plans that God had in mind for each one of them. A new, great
and glorious thing was unfolding, and God had a plan for each one of them to
play in making that happen. Of course, all of us who have come to faith, down
through the centuries, are the beneficiaries of their “yes” to God.
It’s a
certainty that God will call each of us to some sort of a ministry as our lives
unfold. After all, Baptism itself is a call to ministry, a call to put God’s
place in our lives in first place.
Some other
ingredients are necessary, I think, for God’s call to be heard and responded
do. Off the top of my head, here are some suggestions:
The
work of the Holy Spirit: The Spirit plays a crucial role, working in our
hearts and minds, preparing us to see God’s vision for God’s plans for us. The
Spirit is often at work long before we are aware of this phase of preparation.
The technical term for this sort of God’s grace is prevenient grace,
that grace that “comes before” (the root meaning of prevenient) we are
aware of it.
The
counsel of other believing Christians: What others see in us as gifts can be a valuable
tool for helping us to see what gifts we have to offer God. After all, if we
feel we are being called to a ministry, but it’s clear that we don’t have the
gifts necessary for that ministry, then it’s a strong possibility that we’re
not hearing God calling us at all.
A critical
self-assessment: The
preceding paragraph which talks about the gifts and abilities that others see
in us links to this part of discerning God’s call: Our own assessment of our
own gifts, or lack of gifts. This aspect of seeing the nature of God’s call
demands extreme honesty, and the ability to see ourselves as accurately and
completely as we are able to, asking ourselves honestly what things we do well,
what things we don’t do well, and what things we have little or no talent to do.
The
willingness to set aside our plans and our agenda for God’s: Here we come back to the Jonah account, and
to our Gospel account, where each one called responds, setting aside whatever
plans they had had until God called them, in order to take up what God had in
mind. That’s going to involve change, perhaps major change.
May we,
when God calls (for it’s sure that He will), we will offer our “yes” to Him.
AMEN.
