WE ARE CALLED

in spite of, in view of & in the place of...

February 6, 2022: Fifth Sunday in Ordinary time

Isaiah 6:1-2,3-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5: 1-11

We are called - this is one of the most fundamental self-understanding that every Christian should possess. We are Christians, we are followers of Christ because we are called. There is in the Indian context, a term called 'Ghar Wapsi', refering to bringing back to the 'hindu' fold, those who had gone to other religions in the name of conversion! Is it as simple as this - just changing camps, or changing names? Or there is also another movement, however minor, of people who claim that their ancestors were converted to Christianity and that they have no allegiance to it on their own! What has been their self-understanding all this while? Still more, there are those who go from one denomination of Christian faith to another, looking for excitement and variety! Looking at all these phenomena, the sad fact that emerges is that those who claim to have received the faith, still need to understand that faith is a call!

Faith is a call, a response to a call, a personal response to God who reveals Godself to us, in various ways. Fundamentally, every believer in God is called, is called to a self-understanding, a way of life, and a mission. The Liturgy of the Word this Sunday reminds us of this fact: that we are called. And in this respect there are three messages given to us to reflect upon:

We are called in spite of... in spite of our limitedness, in spite of our weakness, in spite of our unworthiness! This is the common thread that obviously runs through the three readings we listen to. Isaiah exclaims that he is impure and lives among impure people and therefore is not worthy to even hear or pronounce the Word of the Lord; Paul declares that he has been like a person who was unexpectedly born and an enemy of the people of God; Peter falls at the feet of the Lord and begs the Lord to leave him because he is unworthy and sinful. The unworthiness, weakness, and at times even wickedness, is a matter of fact within us - it is in spite of that the Lord has called us!

It is not because we are worthy that the Lord has called us, we are worthy to stand before the Lord because the Lord has called us. Every day of our life when we have an opportunity to do good to someone, when we have a recognition for the identity we bear as followers of Christ, when we are in a position to serve someone because we have the identity of a Christian, we need to remind ourselves that we are called. we are called in spite of our limitedness. Our call, our identity can never be a source of pride or arrogance - judging others, condemning others, looking down on others, and  treating them as people who have to be somehow rescued to life! As Christians we need to grow more and more humble, towards an authentic self-understanding of a people who are called by God, in spite of our unworthiness.

We are called in view of... in view of a mission, in view of a purpose, in view of a task to be accomplished! The three characters we meet today in the Word - Isaiah, Paul and Peter - were called for a particular purpose - to be a messenger of God, to proclaim the Gospel to the peoples, to be fisher of persons! There were called in view of something, they did not know that. They were thinking only of their past, their present and their situation in life; they could not see what lay ahead of them. They were in fact being called for a way of life, for a new way of life, for a completely different way of life! As soon as they realised this, they were able to come over their fixation with the past and the present and they began to look that the new life they were called to life - as a messenger, as a preacher, as an apostle!

It is important to be attentive to what the Lord is calling me to. I cannot consider myself called and continue with the same old life style of the past or the present. As the saying goes, 'you cannot make a difference, if you do not do anything different!' My call, taken seriously, transforms me totally, to a new way of life, to a new perspective of life, to a new understanding of life, into a new person altogether. There is a sense of renewal in my choices, my priorities, my values, my outlook on life and my perception of persons. All these transformations, of course, are for the better, not for worse! Because as Jesus chides the pharisees and the scribes - woe to you who go across land and see to make one single convert, and make them twice as much a child of hell as yourselves! What a powerful accusation Jesus has against a conversion that does not bear its right fruit. We are called in view of a new way of life!

We are called in the place of... in place of God, to speak to the people who need to hear God's word, to announce the good news of God to the people that God loves them and comes to them with salvation, to become fishers of persons who need to come into the net of the Reign of God so that they can experience God more intimately and become truly fulfilled in life. Be it Isaiah, Paul, Peter, or any one called in the history of salvation, they have been called to carry out a mission in the name of God. Could there have been a person better than Isaiah, more commited than Paul, holier than Peter? Certainly, Yes! But all the same God chose these, and God had a specific mission for each of these.

When we are called, we are called to make the Lord present wherever we are. That is our mission. In our words, in the news we wish to announce to each other, in the choices we wish to propose to others, in the kind of outlook of the world we create, in the kind of mindset that we wish to spread, we need to be people who do it in the place of God...that is, those who create what God wishes to create, those who build what God wants to build, those who bring people to that net which gathers persons into the Reign of God. We are called with a mission to be presences of God, that people shall experience God in us, that persons shall be drawn to know God more in and through us, that persons can feel the need of having God close to them in their lives. 

We are called. Inspite of our unworthiness, we are called; in view of presenting to the world a style of life that becomes a witness; a witness that speaks in the place of God, that speaks hope and joy to a world immersed in strife. Let us live our lives ever mindful that we are called!