Remember Your Call, Celebrate Your Story

Taken together, this Sunday and last Sunday’s readings present us with many calls, many vocation stories.  We hear the stories of Samuel and Jonah, and two differing accounts of the call of the first disciples from the Gospels of John and Mark.  I would like to touch upon some of the different themes and patterns that emerge in these stories and suggest ways that we may find ourselves in them.

Samuel was sleeping.  He was not familiar with the Lord.  He needed some coaching from Eli to find his call as a prophet.  The Lord reveals his presence to Samuel, who responds as he has been instructed: “Speak, for your servant is listening.”  So far, so consoling.  But we note that a significant section of the story has been omitted.  This is the difficult and disturbing message he receives.  The Lord says to him: “I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears it tingle” (1 Sm 3:11).  Samuel will be a man whose listening will lead him to speak hard truths to Israel.
Awakened by an unfamiliar voice, and seeking its source in the familiar, we need to be taught how to open ourselves to the presence of God, how to receive a word that will make our ears tingle.

God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh.  Jonah goes.  He gets about a third of the way through his mission before it becomes a runaway success, with kings and peoples, sheep and cattle garbed in sackcloth and calling on God for mercy.  God repents of his plan to destroy the city.  This call seems to be all about action, deed, accomplishment.  But again, we can be fooled by the omission of parts of the story.  In this case, the omissions are more glaring to anyone who has heard of Jonah.  What did we miss?  Well for starters, two chapters’ worth of evasive maneuvers from a Jonah who does not want to go – apparently, because he suspects from the beginning that God will change his mind and spare the Ninevites.  Unlike Samuel, Jonah deliberately runs away from the presence of the Lord, from the merciful will of the Lord.  His flight from God takes him to the depths, where he finds voice to cry for mercy.  Then after the successful mission, we see him squatting on a hillside in a sulk, “angry enough to die” because of what God has done, the God who is still showing him mercy.
The voice is too familiar, dreaded, and we run, but we cannot hide.  In spite of our resistance, and even through it, God does beautiful things with our life for others and for ourselves.

John points his disciples in the direction of the “Lamb of God.”  Jesus senses he is being followed.  “What are you looking for?”  “Where are you staying?”  “Come, and you will see.”  The essential call here seems to be to stay, to remain, to abide, to come and see and learn how to be, more than to go and do, which comes later.
We follow the voice of authority to find the one we desire, and his invitation is first to come and see, to abide with him always.

Mark’s account of the call of the disciples speaks of action from start to finish.  Rather than finding them on his tail, Jesus seeks out the disciples as they are in the midst of their daily work – in the very act of throwing their nets into the sea.  He calls them: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  The focus is on what they are leaving – boats, nets, family – and what they are to be about from now on – a variation on a theme, casting the net of the gospel to gather God’s people into one family.
Caught in middle of the business of life, we are turned around, drawn apart, and given a new direction for our energy and talents.

John Cassian’s Third Conference speaks of the call to monastic life in some depth.  He identifies three types of call.

The first is from God, that is, an inspiration of the heart that draws us to seek God.  Abraham, father of a multitude, heard, “Leave your country and your kinsfolk and your father’s house.”  Antony, father of monks, heard, “If you wish to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give to the poor, and your will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.”
God speaks to our hearts.  We feel personally addressed.  Our hearts burn.

The second is by human agency, moved by the example or teachings of certain holy persons.  The children of Israel followed Moses out of Egypt.  Cassian and his friend Germanus were drawn by Antony’s story to embrace monastic life.
Seeing the way unfold before us in someone else’s journey to God, or experiencing the holiness of another, we are drawn to follow them because we want what they have.

The third is out of need, when we seem to be compelled involuntarily by trials, dangers, and grievous losses to face God.  Israel turned back to God amid trials, “When he slew them, then they would seek him.”  Abba Moses, a murderer fleeing punishment, made of his monastic life a way to perfect love.
We locate our deepest desire in God most readily when all else falls to ruins around us.

What is the point of such a typology?  Am I supposed to put myself and my experience in a box with objects of similar size, color or category?  Is this satisfying?  I think the point, and the reason we feel so drawn to stories like these, is that in them we find friends, kinship, and company, to make sense of the road we are walking.  Yes, we are like Samuel, and Jonah, Abraham and Abba Moses and the disciples in some ways, and yet the differences can be more important that the similarities, because this is our unique journey.  No one has walked exactly the way we walk, and yet we are not alone.

Cassian asks whether it is better to be called directly by God, or through human mediation, or through trouble.  Though one may seem more noble than another, it is clear that what matters more is how we respond to the call, how we live it out and complete the unique mission given us by God.  “Everything, therefore, has to do with the end” (Conf 3.5.4).  This is our story.  Knowing ourselves called makes even the twists and turns of our journey precious.  What is important is to remember our call and relive the moment when God drew near and touched us interiorly, setting us alight.  We call to mind this moment and retaste its power to give us courage when we seem to be lost in the byways of life.

I recently read the vocation story of Fr Augustine Wetta, a Benedictine monk and author.  He chose to express his story using a series of excerpts from his diary spanning the time from when he was an adolescent, convinced that he had some purpose and place in the world, but with no idea what it could be, to the young monk flailing between consolation and desolation, faith and doubt, to the newly solemnly professed who, with deep conviction that he has found his purpose and place, nevertheless still has a million questions.  Usually, we retell our story differently for different audiences, including some things, omitting others, according to the demands of an overarching narrative that tries to make sense of it all.  Rereading journals can give a different impression, perhaps a more nuanced one.  Our vicissitudes are very much on display.  But we do also get a taste of how God is gently and patiently drawing us to himself through thick and thin, through much darkness and doubt and repeated self-questioning.  We begin to see that the overarching narrative is not something we create for ourselves, but is uncovered gradually, like a trail of breadcrumbs left behind by One we are following.

On Tuesday, we celebrate the Solemnity of our Holy founders of Citeaux, Robert, Alberic and Stephen and their companions.  This is an opportunity to remember and celebrate the call and the story of our forebears.  It is also a time to remember and to celebrate our call and story, both as individuals, and as a community.  In the midst of vicissitudes and uncertainties, the source of our confidence and hope is this: that God has called and still calls, looks upon us and walks with us, showing us his mercy.