OT II [B] I Sam 3:3b-10, 19; I Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20; Jn 1:35-42

A stranger once asked a teacher, “What’s your profession?” The teacher replied, “Christian,” The stranger continued, “No, that’s not what I mean. What’s your job?” The teacher asserted, once again, “I’m a Christian!” Puzzled, the stranger clarified, “Perhaps I should ask, what do you do for a living?” The teacher replied, “Well, I’ve a full-time job as a Christian. But, to support my sick husband and children, I teach in a school.” — That teacher had certainly understood the meaning of discipleship summarised by today’s Responsorial Psalm (40): “Here I am, Lord, I come to do Your will.”  What is that God wants us to do? The characters in the Scripture reading will help us to find out.

John the Baptist recognized himself as someone called to prepare the way for the Greater one coming after him. He saw the Spirit coming down on Jesus and revealed to him that Jesus was the chosen Son of God. Far from keeping that discovery to himself, he shared it with his own disciples, even though he knew that in doing so, he was going to lose them to Jesus. He pointed two of his disciples in the direction of Jesus. A short while later, one of those two disciples, Andrew, did for his brother, Peter, what John the Baptist had done for him. He led his brother to Jesus. In the first reading, Eli did something similar for Samuel, helping him to hear God’s call. The readings this Sunday put before us three people, John the Baptist, Andrew and Eli, each of whom, in different ways, led others to the one who is the source of life. They all lived to do God’s will.

We could probably all identify a John the Baptist or an Andrew or an Eli in our own lives, people who, in some way or another, brought us to the Lord, or helped us to recognize and receive the Lord who was present to us. We might think first of our own parents who brought us to the baptismal font. As early as possible into our lives they wanted to say to us what John the Baptist said to his disciples, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God’. Then, as we began to grow, they helped us to know the Lord whose followers we had become in baptism, bringing us to the church, praying with us, reading stories from the gospels to us, taking us to see the crib at Christmas, placing an image of the Lord or of one of the saints in our room, helping us to prepare for the sacraments of the Eucharist and Confirmation. If we were fortunate, we might have had a good religion teacher at school who took us a step further in our relationship with the Lord, who enabled us to ‘come and see’, in the words of the gospel reading today.

Samuel, who was led to the Lord by Eli, is described in the first reading as a boy. However, the two disciples who were led to the Lord by John the Baptist and Peter, who was led there by Andrew, were all adults. It was as adults that they allowed themselves to be directed towards the person of Jesus. In our adult years, we too may have met people who helped us to grow in our relationship with the Lord.

At any time in our adult life we can meet a John the Baptist who says to us, ‘Look, there is the Lamb of God’, and that can happen to us over and over again, right up to the very end of our lives. The Lord never ceases to call us through others. At no point does he say, this person no longer needs a John the Baptist. There may indeed come a time when the Lord asks any one of us to be a John the Baptist or an Andrew or an Eli for somebody else. We hear the call to share our faith in some way, to open a door to the Lord for others. Our response to such a call can take many different forms. For Eli it took the very simple form of saying the right word to Samuel when it was needed.

Today is a day to give thanks for all those who introduced us to the Lord, who played the role in our lives that Eli played in the life of Samuel, that Andrew played in the life of Peter, that Peter played in the life of many others, and that, later on in John’s gospel, the Samaritan woman played in the life of her townspeople, and that Mary Magdalene played in the life of the other disciples on East Sunday morning. Both these women played a significant role in bringing others to the Lord. Each of us is called to bring others to the Lord, perhaps just one person. We don’t have to be great missionaries to introduce someone to the Lord. Very often, our own quiet and faithful witness to the Lord and his way of life will, in time, bear that rich fruit for others.

But let’s realize the fact that before bearing witness, we should know the one we are going to bear witness, to know Christ, the lamb of God. Knowing Jesus is a matter of personal and first-hand experience of Jesus, which is obtained through the meditative reading and study of the Bible, through personal and family prayers, and through the Sacraments, especially by participation in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and primarily in the Eucharistic celebration.

Once we have experienced the personal presence of Jesus in our daily lives, we will start sharing with others the Good News of the love, peace, justice, tolerance, mercy, and forgiveness that Jesus preached. May the Lord help us to have a dynamic and living experience of Jesus, which will enable us to invite and encourage people to come and participate in our Church activities.