Fifth Sunday February 4, 2007

Isaiah 6:1-8 Ps 138 1 Cor 15: 1-11 Luke 5: 1-11

1. We will be celebrating Ash Wednesday in 17 days time. The church is packed at all the four Masses, and if one were to tally all the numbers, they double the figures of those who come on Good Friday. Ash Wednesday is a time when we acknowledge that we are sinners and in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. But who tells us that we are sinners? And why do we listen to them? Our readings today give us that answer.

One of the most well known and perhaps “over-sung” hymns today is “Here I am Lord.” - it is also called the hymn of the Young Prophet. It could refer to Samuel in response to the Priest Eli, but today we find those words on the lips of the Prophet Isaiah. In the Old Testament, most if not all the prophets came reluctantly. With apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan, “A prophet’s job was not a happy one.” Off hand we can think of

Jonah who was swallowed by a fish when he tried to run away from preaching to the Ninevites.

Elijah whose life was threatened by Ahab and Jezebel. 1.Kings 19:3

Amos who was banished by the King Jeroboam Amos 7: 14

in each of these cases, the prophets were either beaten, banished or threatened with death. It is no wonder they made all sorts of excuses when called by God to prophesy in the name of God. But God will not take NO for an answer. When

Isaiah says that he is not worthy because he is a sinner or

Moses says that he keeps on stammering and stuttering and

hence they are unsuitable, God takes the initiative and removes their impediments.

2. Today our common refrain is that there are not enough priests to man our parishes, not enough sisters and religious and we have to close down schools, hospitals, social centres and all the other wonderful works that our religious sisters have been doing. Like the prophets, there are so many excuses and many of them are valid in our world today:

with ongoing and unresolved scandals, the vocation to the priesthood does not have the attraction it once had.

the call to celibacy does not have the “witness value” - and desire to have a married priesthood seems to be a more sensible alternative.

our priests - especially those who are alone to manage a parish seem to be overworked, constantly tired and pulled in all different directions.

in our specialised world today, our priests and religious seem to merely general practitioners.

And the list goes on a on. It is no wonder that although we may seem eager to sing “here I am Lord” in our churches, we always think it refers to someone else and not to ourselves. These excuses have no greater or no lesser strength than the ones put by the prophets in the Old Testament to God.

3. However, as Jesus said in the Gospel to the Apostles, he says to us today, “Come follow me.” As the cliche goes, Jesus does not call those who are qualified, but rather qualifies those whom he calls. If Jesus had gone to a Business Consultancy before calling the Apostles, he would probably have received this report.

Peter is a vacillating character with no backbone. James and John are self centred hot tempered personalties. Matthew is one know to juggle the books. Thomas is a sceptic. James the Zealot has other political alliances. Nathaniel the one without guile has a hidden past. The rest are unknown personalities and hardly qualify for having leadership qualities to attract people to follow your agenda of proclaiming the Kingdom of God. And yet Jesus says to these very men, to these very fishermen, to these men who probably do not even have a college degree among the whole lot put together, Jesus says to them, “Come follow me.”

4. Jesus is calling us to be Prophets in a world where

1. We have a more and more secular and consumer oriented society. This is constant contrast to the Religious Values we hold, value and want to share.

2. The stress on “It is my right” - the rights of the Individual is often at the cost of the Common Good. It is a more egoist & narcissistic society. I am #1.

3. The common Structures of Society and Family which were there to support a Vocation have disintegrated and hence we cannot look for support over there.

4. The package deal of Sports and Entertainment is becoming glossier and more attractive and vies for our attention especially on weekends. This package consumes more of our time, both in Families and Religious Life.

5. In my humble opinion the qualities we need to develop in response to the call of Jesus are: we must be women and men who are

deep in Human society - in the World but not of the world.

witnesses to the Value of Jesus

for wholeness of life

prophets: we must know the socio-political-economic structures to critique it.

persons of God, nourished by prayer and reflection

persons centred in the Eucharist.

internally secure: going beyond the prejudices of race, gender, language and sexual orientation.

permanent disciples, always learning: therefore we must have a certain intellectual capacity.

most of all we must be Dreamers... we must be willing to see Visions.

And the beauty of these ideals is that I can recognize these qualities in most of you that come for Mass - so do not sell yourselves short. God bless you all.