Calling and Sending: Reflections on Readings for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“The Lord took me from my flock, and said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel” (Amos 7:15)

Many people, some of whom call themselves Christians, make the charge that Sacred Scripture is not relevant today. This is clearly not the case with today’s readings. Today’s readings depict our being chosen, called, and sent by God to spread the eternal Word. There’s a reason we call it the Eternal Word. It was applicable for several millennia, is applicable today, and will be applicable throughout time.

One of the definitions for the word “prophesy” is “to speak as a mediator between God and humankind or in God’s stead.” In the first reading, Amos explains how he had been a mere shepherd when God called him to be His prophet. It was not a task he had sought nor, does it seem, to be one he relished. But he answered God’s call, to the consternation of Amaziah, a priest who is apparently fostering worship of false gods (2 Chron 25:14-15). Amos proceeds to prophesy the disasters to come upon Israel, including exile and destruction. However, he promises hope by saying God will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob but will raise up the ruins of the “booth of David” and repair its breaches, which appears to me to be a foretelling of the Christ. Thus Amos was called to pass along the word of God to Israel.

A connection to Christ is clearly stated in St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Paul also notes how we have been chosen “before the foundation of the world” and destined us for adoption through Jesus Christ. I also see in this passage Paul alluding to Baptism when he says that we “were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” which occurs at Baptism and that is the first step in our becoming heirs to the kingdom of God. Hopefully your parish did not succumb to the trend so prevalent today to excise the important lessons contained in the full version by not reading “between the brackets.”

And then we have the first sending of the disciples by Jesus to go out and preach the word, preach repentance, often overlooked or downplayed. Repentance is a major focus of Jesus’s teaching. He began His public ministry with the words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17) He sent them as humble servants with no food, no sack, no money in their belts, only a walking stick. They were to wear sandals but not a second tunic. Not only was this to emphasize the need for humility but it was also to make them aware that their successes would have nothing to do with their personal characteristics but would be God working through them.

And so, by extension, we are all called and sent in the same way. By our Baptism, we become members of the body of Christ and so become a part of His mission. We have become disciples and thus are sent to our fellows to preach repentance, just as the disciples in Jesus’s time. As Paul says, this is part of our mission planned by God before the foundation of the world. St. John Henry Newman said, “I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created. I have a place in God’s counsels, in God’s world, which no one else has. Whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name. God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission...”

And so we must seek to find what mission God has for us. We are called to evangelize and to live lives of witness so that the world sees Christ in us. Similarly, we need to see Christ in others, not just those next to us in Church but in all the people of the world. We are all siblings, members of God’s family. It is when we forget to love our neighbors as ourselves that the devil starts working on our pride and our own self-interest, setting us apart, introducing division and envy. Isolation and division are tools of the devil.

At the end of every mass we are told, “Go, the mass is ended,,” and to “glorify God by your life.” Another sending which we seldom hear is, “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.” In other words part of everyone’s mission is to live and preach the Gospel.

As St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta said, “Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”