2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

          There are some beautiful parallels between our first reading today, from the Book of Samuel, and the Gospel passage, taken from the first chapter of John’s Gospel.  Both are really stories of calling – vocation.  Both demonstrate how God gradually reveals Himself to us and how we gradually respond to His call.  And so, I’d like to look first at that reading from Samuel and attempt to draw out some of the rich meaning that is there.

          There is this simple, almost “throw away” line right at the beginning:  “Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was.”  Ignore the fact, for the moment, that Samuel was sleeping in Church.  He was nonetheless in the temple “where the ark of God was,” which contained not only the fragments of the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, but also the staff of Aaron, and some the manna (the “bread from heaven”) that sustained the Israelites on their journey through the desert.  For our Jewish brothers and sisters, the temple was the holiest place on earth.  It was truly God’s dwelling place – the place of encounter with God.  In their Exodus from Egypt they had the “meeting tent,” a kind of portable temple, but now established in the Promised Land, in Jerusalem, they had erected a more fitting and more glorious sanctuary for the Lord.  And Samuel was there.  He was simply there.

          I am more and more convinced that much of the spiritual life is just showing up, being where you need to be on a regular basis to encounter the Lord, to listen for His call and then to respond.  We need to be the right place (whether physically or spiritually).  We need to “put the time in,” to be faithful to our prayer, to come to Church, perhaps to pay a visit from time to time here at the Chapel, this place of encounter, where “the ark of God” is.    As we go about this we may not always be exactly in the right frame of mind.  Like Samuel, we may be even be sleepy.  Like our Holy Father, Pope Francis, I will confess to more than a few short naps while trying to pray.  It’s only natural, I suppose, that to come to a quiet peaceful place, where we can feel the warmth of God’s love that we should find ourselves drifting off.  Pope Francis says that in moments like this, we are “like children in the arms [our] Father.”  There are worse things, certainly, than falling asleep in prayer.  The more important thing, and the lesson that Samuel teaches us is to be at prayer in the first place, to be where we need to be to have this encounter with the Lord.

          Samuel is then called repeatedly by God, but not knowing who is calling, he goes each time to his teacher and mentor, Eli, saying “Here I am. You called me.”  This reveals an eagerness in Samuel to respond.  He knows his being called, and he doesn’t simply roll over and go back to bed.  Each time he is quick to get up and respond, even if he is not yet quite sure to whom he is responding.  This reminds me of so many of our students, who are starting to return to campus now for the second semester.  Some of them have a clear sense of direction and purpose and are pursuing it relentlessly and with great calculation.  Others, like Samuel, display great enthusiasm and energy, even if they are not quite sure yet where that energy should be directed.  Discovering that is no small part of what a college education is all about.  As a university, we are (or should be) less about producing workers – “cogs for the machine” – and more about forming human beings, forming disciples, men and women who know who they are and seek to offer their gifts for the benefit of others.

To enable this self-discovery that will eventually lead to self-gift, we need help along the way:  teachers, mentors, coaches and confidants.  In the story of Samuel, Eli sees what Samuel cannot.  He sees that it is God who is calling the youth, and so he can then advise him that the next time this happens to simply respond, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”  The work of discernment and spiritual growth is not meant to take place in vacuum, apart from others or without guidance.

          The last line of the passage from Samuel we heard today shows us the fruit of this process: “Samuel grew up, and the Lord was with him.”  Because Samuel was where he needed to be, because he put himself with the Lord, because he listened and eagerly responded when called, then the Lord was with him.  Samuel becomes, in a sense, a mini-temple, a mobile “place of encounter” with God for all he will meet and serve as prophet of the Lord.

          Something like this unfolds for us in the Gospel as well.  The disciples were where they needed to be.  They showed up.  They were in the right place, and so could hear John the Baptist’s cry: “Behold, the Lamb of God” – indicating Jesus.  It says, “the two disciples heard what he [John] had said and followed Jesus.”  Like Samuel, they are eager to follow this “Lamb of God,” even if they don’t know much about him yet.  Jesus turns and asks them, “What are you looking for?”  What a question!  This is the question of all questions.  Again, I think of our students, who are in daily confronted with this question: “What are you looking for?”  Knowledge?  Success? A job?  Relationship?  Love? A sense of purpose? Happiness?  Perhaps all of that.  Perhaps some don’t know yet.  Notice that when Jesus asks this question of the disciples (“What are you looking for?”), they don’t offer a response.  They might not know yet.  They just know that they need to follow Him if they are to have any chance of figuring that out.  And so, they respond in kind with their own question:  “Rabbi, where are you staying?”

          This might seem like another “throw away” line, as though they were caught off guard and were just making small talk, but I don’t think so.  I think this is very significant.  It speaks of the disciples’ deep desire to know where Jesus lives.  In essence, they are asking him, “Where do you dwell?  Where is your temple, that place of encounter, where can we find you and be with you?”  Jesus responds simply, “Come and see.”  Interestingly, though He will take them many places over the course of the next three years of His public life and ministry, it is not really about where they will go.  It is that they go there with Him.  He is the temple.  He Himself is that locus of encounter with God.  And so, in inviting them to “come and see,” He is not inviting them to a place, but to a relationship.  So, it says, “they went and saw where Jesus was staying, and they stayed with him that day.”

          Immediately after this invitation and encounter, what do the disciples want to do but to tell others and to bring others to this Jesus, especially those about whom they care most?  Andrew, one of the two disciples who was there that day, goes to his brother, Simon, and says (very accurately, I might add for such a brief encounter), “We have found the Messiah!”  Simon too begins to follow the Lord and is quickly given a glimpse, a sense of what his own particular mission will be as Jesus gives him a new name: Cephas, the Greek word for “rock,” which is translated into Latin as Petrus, and in English as Peter.  Just as in the story of Samuel, being in the right place (“showing up”), listen for the call (“Behold, the Lamb of God”), being eager to follow, leads the disciples to a sense of mission, purpose, vocation.

In just a little while, we will hear those words of the Baptist once again:  “Behold, the Lamb of God.”  This should stir something within us.  Let us listen.  Let us follow.  Let us stay with Jesus.  And let us bring others to Him.