Have you ever heard someone say “I’ll follow, God, but when I am ready to do so,” or words to that effect? Plainly put, if we say this, we are saying that we have important things to do, and God will just have to wait until our business is sorted out. In the language of modern youngsters, it assumes the form “God is there for us.” Both of these ways of speaking are contrary to the way God works. When God calls, he moves on past us, and if we are not quick to follow him, we may never be given another chance. We follow God when He calls us, not the other way round. And it is we who are “there” for him, not the reverse. In the words of Elijah the prophet, “O rest in the Lord; wait patiently for him.” It is we who wait for his call, not he who waits for our response.
Scripture is filled with examples of people who have responded immediately and unconditionally to his call, from the boy Samuel’s words, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening” to the response of the apostles when Jesus says, “Follow me.” We are told that “at once they left everything and followed him.”
In today’s First Reading we are told of the consequences of Abraham’s response to God’s call. In the twelfth chapter of Genesis, when God first calls Abraham, the whole story is framed with these words: “God said to Abraham, ‘Go!’…and Abraham went.” His response is an immediate and unqualified “Yes!” Similarly, when the angel Gabriel tells Mary that she is to bear Jesus, the Son of God, Mary’s answer is “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word.” Another unqualified “Yes!”
In the case of both Abraham and Mary, there are enormous difficulties and dangers. Each of them has to take a bold step into the unknown, a leap of faith, as it were. Both have questions. Neither can see how it is to happen, Abraham to father a child by a ninety-year-old wife, Mary to bear a son without a human father. But both accept God’s call in faith, for, as Gabriel says to Mary, “nothing is impossible to God.” To both, God makes promises of the blessings that will ensue. Neither accepts because of the blessings promised, but because of their implicit trust in the God who calls them.
What is God calling us to do? It may be something big; it may be something very small. But to each of us, whether the task is great or small, he still says “Follow me.” Do we have the courage or faith to follow him? Are we prepared to lay aside everything to carry out the task to which he has called us? Do we allow ourselves to be daunted by the seeming impossibility of the task, or the cost to ourselves which may be involved? We must always remember a few important things. First, that whatever God asks us to do, is the best thing that can possibly happen to us. Second, that it is impossible for us to give more to God than he gives to us. Third, that all that we have which is good, is given to us by God in order to use in our service of him. And finally, and most importantly, the reassurance that the angel gives to Mary at the Annunciation, that “nothing is impossible to God” is as true for us as it was for her. If we really have faith in God and respond freely, generously and promptly to his call, then whatever he asks us to do, no matter how daunting it may seem, must succeed.
Fr Phillip.
