Just This

A Homily for the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time

I would like to be so bold this morning as to redefine “church.” I suggest that church is the “Home of the Abnormally Born!” St. Paul, in our 2nd reading today, identifies himself as “one abnormally born” as a means to indicate how his call to be an apostle doesn’t follow the usual channels and won’t stand up against the usual categories and modes of understanding. The same is true for all of us. We are each “abnormally born” because we are each wonderfully unique. Take a moment and consider: You are sitting in a chapel full of people (including yourself) the like of which the world has never seen and will never see again. There has never been anyone like you or me since the foundation of the world and there will not be anyone like you or me in the ages to come and in eternity! We are, therefore, a church of the abnormally born. None of us were created to flow by the usual channels or fit into the categories and boxes we so often use to define one another.

The prophet Isaiah, in our 1st reading, captures this reality as he defines, in one brief declaration, the entire journey of the spiritual life. God calls out: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” And Isaiah responds: “Here I am.”

“Here I am” or (in Hebrew) Hineni is the response we hear again and again, especially across the Old Testament. When God calls — the man or woman called — responds quickly: “Here I am.” And it isn’t as simple as saying: “Present” or “I hear you!” It means I am here because only here, now, can I actually be. And I am present entirely to you, Lord! Then what follows usually is God introduces the person to how God sees him or her… which is always more wonderful and remarkable than how they see themselves… and the one called, of course, balks: “Sorry, Lord, you’ve got the wrong person!” But God doesn’t quibble with them he simply says (in one way or another): “Either you will learn to see yourself as I see you or you won’t! But if you don’t then you will miss out on the mission for which I created you, a mission that will positively and powerfully affect the lives of your brothers and sisters!”

So now let us note the totality of Isaiah’s response: “Here I am! Send me!” The revelation who we are in God’s eyes is never disconnected from the mission which we have been given to live out in this world. As Hopkins wrote: “What I do is me for that I came!” We can never get to “for that I came” if we don’t first accept “who I am in God’s eyes” and who I am right here and right now. I cannot be in the past. I cannot be in the future. I am only here, right here and right now! And there alone is where God moves and seeks to move me to the mission for which I have been uniquely called. And on which so many others depend.

It is all earth-shatteringly simple. As the medieval Franciscan, Blessed John Duns Scotus would have it: It is Just This! This is ground zero for the Christian life fully lived: “Here I am! Send me!” My acceptance of who I am in God’s eyes is my acceptance of the mission for which I have been created. Again, as Hopkins would have it, then: “Self flashes off face and frame.” And, so it follows, Christ “flashes off face and frame” as well.

Do you desire to participate in the expansion of justice? Well, then it is Just This.

Do you desire to be a source of mercy, compassion, and healing in the world? Well, then it is Just This.

Do you desire to heal division, war, and violence in so many hearts and places around the globe? Well, then is it Just This.

Do you desire to fulfill the unique mission for which God has created you? Well, then it is Just This.

“Here I am! Send me!”

We cannot be sent if we do not know who we are in God’s eyes. But once we accept and continue to accept daily the person God sees, then: Self flashes off this face and frame! Christ flashes off this face and frame!

As Jesus reminds us: It is time! It is time to put out into the deep and make the catch for which we were created to make.

So let us say along with St. Paul, as fellow members of the Church of the Abnormally Born: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace has not been ineffective in me.” Because as “I am” I am given to serve. Just This: “Here I am! Send me!”