Two brothers, Peter and Andrew, out on the water and
casting their nets into the sea on a day like most other
days, doing a job they had done thousands of times
before as fisherman. But this day would end up being the
most important day of their lives, because on this day
Jesus would call them to leave it all behind and come
and follow Him. And they did! They followed Him. They
heard and they saw things that no other people could
ever begin to imagine if they were not a part of the
band of apostles and disciples. Although they could not
yet comprehend or understand it, they would be following
God Who was made man. There would be the great highs and
the great lows, the passion and crucifixion and the
resurrection from the dead, and later the great
struggles in preaching the Gospel, and the great joys in
preaching the Gospel. All because of that one day when
Jesus walked by and called them. All because of that one
day when they answered the call of Jesus. And it is
about that call, and answering that call. In fact, in
our Liturgical books St. Andrew is known as the “The
First Called.”
So, I was thinking about the idea of calling. When you
call someone, you are attempting to make contact with
that person, to establish a link between you and them.
We call people for all kinds of reasons: to warn them,
to speak or meet with them, to praise them, to share
good news or bad, to ask questions and get information,
to spend time with them, to give them information. There
are lots of reasons we call people and sometimes it’s
nothing more than to tell them to get in there and start
doing the dishes. We may be calling them directly with
our speech, or we may use aids like the telephone, but
we call other people because we want something. We may
want something for ourselves, or we may want something
for them, or we may want something for the both of us.
But think of it, please—every single time we call
someone, whether it’s out in the parking lot or to some
city thousands of miles away, we call people because of
something we want, for us, or for them or for the both
of us (although I grant you we may sometimes call
because of something we want for another person, yet
when we call someone it is still also about us and the
person we’re calling.) Did you call someone today
already, at home, or on the phone, or in the parking lot
outside? How many other people will you call this
Sunday?
Jesus calls Peter and Andrew. Why? What does He want
from them? He does not want something from them. He
wants them. He calls them to be in a very close relationship with
Him. He calls them to Himself, He calls them into His
love, He calls them to genuine life and eternal life.
And, after His ascension, by the power of the Holy
Spirit, He will call them to call others in His name and
into His love and into His life. That is their
vocation—to be called by Christ and to call others to
Christ. Vocation comes from the Latin root word “vocare”
which means “to call.”
Just like Peter and Andrew we too have been called. We
have been called by Jesus. He called us through our
parents into Holy Baptism (and thank you dads, for your
part in that.) He calls us through His Church, and
through His priests. He calls us through His eparchial
administrators, even when they can feel their ultimate
power slipping away from them slowly but surely, like a
handful of sand running out through the fingers. He
calls us, the Lord calls us, in the depth of our souls.
He calls us every day through circumstances, other
people, happy events, sad occurrences, in our prayers
and at Liturgy, and even when we’re tired or bored He
calls us to come and be with Him, to come and listen to
Him.
We rarely, directly and firmly reject His call.
Certainly, none of us here have rejected His basic call
that we too, like Peter and Andrew, become His
disciples. But those other calls—the calls where He
wishes us to spend time with Him, those calls where He
urges us to avoid sin and take up virtue, those calls
where He asks us to put Him in first place instead of
our own selfish egos—those are the calls that He makes
as well. And, as most cell phones show us very clearly,
we either push the “Accept” or “Decline” button. Or it
may be we have turned the ringer off altogether for
right now. We send the Lord to spiritual voicemail.
We’ll catch up with Him later, probably. Maybe we’ll
even call back. But we’ve got things to do and places to
go so Christ is sent to voicemail. And now that we’re
sitting here today and have a minute to think, how sad
is that for us?
So let’s not just spend time here in church today, good
as that is. Let’s also call on the Lord and listen for
His call. There is no better way to start
your week than to speak with Him and listen to Him.
Jesus doesn’t have voicemail because He is always ready
to hear us, always ready to be with us. We have so many,
many ways in which we can spend our time. Let’s be sure
that we are also attentive to hearing the calls of our
Lord. He offered Peter and Andrew lives of great love
and satisfaction in soul. He calls us to that very same
thing.