Today’s question involves three clues. Can you name the person who fits the following description? First: he was a son who was born to a childless woman in her old age. Well, there are several answers if that’s the only clue. One answer might be “Isaac” who was born to Sarah when she was ninety years old. So, here’s your second clue: his mother dedicated him as a Nazirite to the Lord God. Here your answer might be “Samson,” or perhaps “John the Baptist,” since both their mothers consecrated them to the Lord and they were forbidden to cut their hair or drink wine. But here’s your third clue: when his mother prayed in the temple that she would give birth to a son in her old age, the priest who saw her praying thought she was drunk and tried to chase her away.
Well, if you still haven’t guessed who this is, here’s an extra clue: he was the prophet who anointed Saul, and later David, and ushered in the kingdom of Israel and all that evolved from it. The correct answer, of course, is: Samuel. He’s the young apprentice we heard about in today’s first reading. In today’s first reading from the book of Samuel, we heard how the Lord God called to him when he was sleeping and how he did not recognize the voice of God, but needed the guidance of an older, more experienced prophet, Eli, in order to respond: “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”
Perhaps you are led by all of this to conclude this will be my focus for today’s homily. The story of Eli and Samuel would be an appropriate one for us to reflect upon in order for us to understand that when God calls us, we sometimes need the help of those whom we believe are more experienced than we are in the ways of the Lord. And how we each need to be able to say: “Speak lord, your servant is listening.”
But then we have the Second Reading, taken from the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians. Here we should recall that Corinth was a major seaport in ancient Greece, where Paul visited and began a Christian community. And as a seaport town, it was subject to all sorts of vices from visiting sailors. There were many places where visitors, and town residents, might go for physical pleasure. And so it is that Paul felt the need to remind the men in his community that: “your body is not for immorality, it is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.” Or in the words found in other translations: “the body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”
Paul goes on to remind the Corinthians: “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is within – the spirit you have received from God. You are not your own. You have been purchased …” by Jesus who suffered, died and rose again. This, too, would make another focus for a homily. How we need to turn away from lust and bodily pleasures, since the Holy Spirit now resides within each one of us, abides within us, lives within each one of us.
But then there is the Gospel reading, in which we hear another reference to abiding, or staying, or in the version we heard today: lodging. In the Gospel of John the Evangelist, we heard how the followers of another John, John the Baptist, were encouraged to leave him and follow Jesus, the Lamb of God. We heard the question of Andrew who asked Jesus: “Teacher, where do you stay?” And the response of Jesus: “Come and see.” This too, is a reading that is worth an entire homily. How each one of us is invited to “come and see” where Jesus lives, for, by experiencing his way of life, we, too, can become his disciples. For that is the very nature of discipleship: to live with the master and learn his ways first-hand. To not only learn what he has to say, but more importantly to experience how he lives out his life.
This Gospel reading might also encourage us to reflect upon Simon who is now called Kephas, or in Greek, Petros, the Rock. The rock foundation who seems at times not to be very steady in his following of Jesus. The rock who, in fact, denied three times that he even knew this Jesus of Nazareth.
But rather than focusing on any one of these stories from today’s readings, perhaps it would be possible to combine all three into a single focus. To combine … “Speak lord, for your servant is listening” and how we are to arise from our sleep and follow the Lord God. … With Paul’s reminder, “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is within you,” … And Jesus’ invitation: “Come and see,” experience with me, my life so that it may become your own life as well.
Perhaps we can arrive at this combination by recognizing that this Sunday is the day the bishops of the United States have dedicated as “Respect Life Sunday,” a day to reflect on the decision by the Supreme Court on January 22, 1973, to legalize abortion. A day to reflect not only on the killing of unborn children but on the killing of the elderly under the guise of euthanasia, and the killing of the terminally ill by assisted suicide.
It seems to me that all three readings are part of a New Gospel, “The Gospel of Life,” proclaimed by John Paul II on March 25, 1995. In his encyclical, he speaks of the two cultures seen in our modern world: the “culture of death” and “the culture of life.” Once again, he reminds us: “Nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. Nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action.”
In the Gospel of Life, John Paul reminds us that some view the body as … “a complex of organs, functions and energies to be used according to the sole criteria of pleasure and efficiency,” which is a far cry from the view that “the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is within you.”
The worldly view does not recognize we are made in the image and likeness of God which, in the words of John Paul, “is transmitted, thanks to the creation of the immortal soul.” In the Gospel of Life we are reminded that the soul becomes joined to the body at the moment of conception; that it is at this instant in which a new human being comes into existence; and remains in existence until God calls us home at the moment of God’s choosing and not our own.
And in the “in-between time,” in that time from the moment of conception until the moment when human life, in the words of John Paul, “leaves the realm of time to embark upon eternity,” we are expected to care for the poor, the homeless, the imprisoned, those brothers and sisters who are in need. Again, John Paul goes on to say: “society as a whole must respect, defend and promote the dignity of every human person, at every moment and in every condition of that person’s life.”
John Paul closes his encyclical with a prayer to Mary in which he prays:
“O Mary,
Bright dawn of the new world,
Mother of the living,
To you do we entrust the cause of life:
Look down, O Mother,
Upon the vast numbers
Of babies not allowed to be born,
Of the poor whose lives are made difficult,
Of men and women
Who are victims of brutal violence,
Of the elderly and the sick killed
By indifference or out of misguided mercy.
Grant that all who believe in your Son
May proclaim the Gospel of Life
With honesty and love
To the people of our time.”
And so, not only on this Sunday dedicated to “respect life,” but on each day of each week of each year, we are urged … to rise from our sleep, … to state firmly, “speak, lord, your servant is listening”,… to acknowledge that every human body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is within, … and to hear the invitation of Jesus: “Come and see.” Then we, too, might speak the words addressed by Andrew to his brother, Simon: “We have found the Messiah!’‘ it is then that this Messiah, this Anointed One of God, can turn to us and say: “Your name shall be Christian. Come, walk with me.”
Second Sunday of ordinary time; January 19, 1997: “Respect Life Sunday”
1 Sam 3:3b-10, 19; 1 Cor 6:13c – 15a, 17-20; Jn 1:35-42