When will I say 'choose me?'

Homily

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

6 February 2022

AMDG +mj

When will I say 'choose me?'

I know, I know, if you've been Catholic long you're probably tired of hearing about vocations.  Vocation, vocation, vocation.  You have one.  You are made for something.  Jesus is calling you intimately and personally by name.  You have a mission that only you can accomplish.  Your happiness depends on your answer.

You've heard it over and over and over.  Sometimes, it can seem like just one more thing for a Catholic to feel guilty about, especially if I struggle to know or be faithful to my vocation.

Yet your vocation is not meant to be experienced in this way.  Jesus did not create you to test you.  He didn't create you to hire you.  Of course, He needs fishers of men but He doesn't need need them.  He chooses to need us for our own sake, not for His.  Your vocation will never be a means to His ends.  He will never call you to control or abuse you.

Quite the opposite, Jesus created you only to love you.  He created you to suffer for you, and to reveal all the love He has in His sacred heart for you.

That's why a vocation is not first a surrender to God's will, but first a surrender to His love.  That's what the three guys in tonight's scriptures found out.  Grace is first, then the call.  Jesus first invades our space with his mercy, only after does He call.

Isaiah got the hell scared out of him, when he received a vision.  He was sure his unworthiness meant his destruction.  Instead, an ember touched his lips and cleansed him, an ember not unlike the flesh of Jesus from His burning heart that may hit your lips tonight.  From this experience of mercy, Isaiah says 'choose me.'

Paul hated Jesus more than anyone.  He is the last person Jesus should have called, yet because Jesus wants to dump all the mercy that is in His heart, Paul is the person He most wanted to call.  From his most hateful point, redeemed by Jesus, Paul says 'choose me!'

Peter called Jesus an idiot.   Peter, who alternates between great confessions and putting his foot in his mouth, reminds Jesus that it's his boat and he knows how to fish.  He obeys not out of faith, but to prove Jesus wrong.  When Jesus turns his world upside down, Peter gets scared.  Jesus tells Peter to take courage from his more fearful place, and from there Peter responds 'choose me!'

Thank God Peter did.  My life was forever changed through the fulfillment of today's Gospel promise, that Peter would catch men.  When I was a sophomore at KU, Peter's successor John Paul II gathered a million people in Denver for the World Youth Days.  Talk about a catch!  A million people is way smellier and messier than the two boatloads of fish Peter had to deal with.  Yet it's also more glorious.  This catch changed my life forever.

Isaiah, Paul and Peter.  None of them applied for the job.  None of them told God when they were ready.  They were all invaded by God's mercy. They responded to their experience of grace at their weakest point, where Jesus revealed all His love to them.  

When will I say 'choose me?'

I confess I get caught to often not by God's grace, but by my telling Jesus what I'm ready to do for him.  Yet this is not a vocation.  A vocation is not me telling God that I know how things go in my boat, and I know this is as good as it's gonna get.  No a vocation is born when Jesus invades my boat and says I love you.  Don't be afraid. There is more.

Your vocation is not matching your skills to God's job board.  It's you're response when God rocks your world by revealing how much He loves you.  You're vocation is like Isaiah's, Paul's and Peter's - it's meant to be the greatest of upsets, something that astonishes even you.

That's the invasion of grace first, then vocation.

In this light, when do I want to say 'choose me?'