When God Calls

15th Ordinary Sunday

When people find out that I had joined the friars at a considerably young age of 25, being the youngest in the Order then. Some would ask me if I had already been considering it since young, and actually no, I had never wanted to become a priest or a religious, and as a youth then it was never a cool thing even though I had always been active and involved in church. At times, some friends would tease me saying that, “you’re so active in church, you wanna become a priest, is that it?!” I would always react negatively because I never intended to be a priest. But somehow deep down inside me, there was that sense of wanting to serve and a desire to help other youths get in-touch with their faith and with the other youths in our parish community. That for me perhaps was

the beginnings of that call from God.

In our First Reading today, we hear about the prophet Amos preaching to the Northern Kingdom of Israel and was met by major opposition. Amos had never intended to become a prophet, we hear that he was a shepherd and a gardener from the Southern country of Israel. And to make that even clearer, he clarifies that he’s never belonged to a company of prophets or schooled in the way of the prophets. He would much rather prefer to be tending to his sheep and vines. The wealthy city people would even call him a country bumpkin, but despite his background, despite him not being trained as a prophet, God has called him to prophesy and to be his prophet to Israel. And we hear how the prophet Amos had gone all the way to preach to the kingdom in the North but was ‘officially’ rejected even by the religious authorities when he was bringing God’s message.

Last Sunday we had encountered Jesus as a prophet, he himself had called himself ‘a prophet’. And what we may not have realised is that actually because he is a prophet and we are anointed in our baptism, we are all prophets. Our reading of the prophet Amos makes it clear that we don’t have to wait to be trained and schooled in the ways of prophets to be able to prophesy and to preach the message of God to others. We are all called by God to preach his word, just like the prophet Amos, regardless of whether we are a shepherd or an executive or military personnel or a student, a teacher or a stay-at-home-mum, the question for us is, what message are we giving to others? And if it is God’s message and we are rejected for it, we can take courage and be affirmed by Jesus that ‘a prophet is never accepted in his own home and in his own country’. However rejected prophet Amos was, he never gave up, he found other ways, by having God’s message written down and circulated, so that the people would still ‘hear’ God’s word, those who were open to God & his message, and be moved.

Not all of us are gifted and called to preach up in front of people like that of priests and religious, like Friar Mike. But all of us are called by God to preach his message in our own various ways, in our own lives. How are we “preaching that” through our own circumstances and to the people around us; our families, our friends, our colleagues, our schoolmates?

At 85 years old, my grandma who lives in Australia is more of an itinerant missionary than

I, a Franciscan Friar. God moves her to a different ‘mission centre’ every 3 months – the homes of her 4 children, one of which is here with my mum in Singapore. Regardless of where, she would daily wake up at 6.30am in the morning, have her coffee and say her morning prayers & rosary without fail. She prays for the whole family and all her grandchildren: my cousins, my brother and I. She’s living out the call to being a prophet the way that she can, despite her being a little grumpy and forgetful in her old age; she continues to be a witness to our entire family in her own unique way.

Our call to being a prophet must first begin in the family, expressed when we made our wedding vows before God and had our children baptised. The message of God comes clear when we show love and sacrifice for each other in the family, how we share in each other’s joys and sufferings, when we forgive, how we come together to pray for and pray with each other, to worship in Church together. Will there be rejection in that? Yes, of course. Children will take their parents for granted, I’m guilty of that! Spouses may be too tired from a long day’s work, everyone in the family gets irritable, we have family squabbles and so on. But nonetheless, we’re invited to still try our best and shake the dust off our feet every time we’re set back and reconcile again.

In the Gospel, Jesus called his disciples whom having spent a considerable amount of time with Him, is now sending them out in pairs to preach the Love and the Kingdom of God to all. He sends them 2 by 2 to make sure that they’re not alone, that they have a trusted friend who can support each other. For married couples, that’s your spouse. From our

understanding of the Sacrament of Marriage, the love between husband and wife reflects the love of Christ and His Church, that in itself is already a prophetic sign to others.

For those of us who are not married, our Second Reading reminds us that God has given us the Holy Spirit as our companion in this journey, through our Confirmation and by receiving the Sacraments He strengthens us. Just as how people do internships, doctors do housemen-ships, military personnel have various training courses and detachments, and we, friars, have our pastoral immersions, Jesus forms and sends us out, giving us the opportunity to immerse ourselves and practice what have learnt and received from Him, and to recognise that He has actually blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as St. Paul reminds us. We’re invited to ask ourselves, have we been conscious about it and have we been doing it?

I’d like to end my sharing with this, just recently on 9 July, Monday in the White House, Judge Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court, though he might be controversial to some, he's mentioned in his address, sharing about his Catholic identity and his active involvement in the Church, saying that “even as Catholics we differ on many things, but what we all understand is this call to serve that every Catholic is called to”, that you and I have. And so, as we come here around the Lord’s Table, yes, we may differ on many things but what unites us in this Body of Christ and allows us to break bread together, would it not be the fact that we have all been called? Our Baptism affirms us that you and I have been called and chosen by God, and we celebrate it every time we gather to meet Jesus in the Eucharist, the One who has called us and sends us.

The question for each of us is,

‘what kind of prophet am I and what message am I preaching?’