Our Tyrolean friend wanted to adventure too, to answer the call of God, and to follow Francis Xavier in going to China. So he became a Jesuit - and the order sent him to the far ends of the earth, but not to China. They sent him to Sonora, Mexico. They sent him here.
You know who I mean by now: Eusebio Francisco Kino. Father Kino established a series of mission posts - by simply stopping, preaching, celebrating the Eucharist, and moving on. X marks the spot — all over what is now northern Sonora and southern Arizona, what he called Pimeria Alta - are the spots where he stopped and planted churches.
This all happened before 1711 when he at last dedicated a chapel in Magdalena and then breathed his last, and his bones were laid beside the altar.
He had gone on adventure indeed - and he had answered the call of Christ. It drew him to unexpected places.
That is what the call of Jesus does. Do you think Simon, James, and John knew what they were getting into when they left their nets and followed Jesus? No — and yes.
They did not know where he would lead them, or the pain they would suffer, or the glory that awaited. They saw only - only enough: a simple fisher folk by the lake, who put out one more time into deeper water after a night of frustration, on trust, and were shown a miracle.
It was something they could understand - in that it was a lot of fish - but beyond the possibility they knew. What they did know, right then, was not where they were going, or what they would see, but who they were going with. And that was enough — enough to terrify, enough to compel, enough to begin the adventure.
Was it about their worthiness? Was that what qualified them for this all-expense-required trip to the unknown Kingdom? No. What they had was a beginning, the beginning of faith — maybe starting smaller than the the seed of a mustard plant — but it grew as they traveled with Jesus on the way.
Isaiah had said he was a man of unclean lips. Paul saw he was not worthy. Peter called himself a sinful man. But all knew they were in the presence of the Holy - a vision of the Holy One on the throne or a burst of light on the Damascus road or a net full of fish - and they knew something else: they were called, to make the proclamation, to gather in the people, for the Lord was near.
What? No miraculous catch of fish in our life? No burning coal on your lips? No Damascus Road light burst? No, but perhaps God is calling us, you and me and all of us, still to put out once more, even into deep waters, to put our trust in him as they did along that lakeshore far away.
For what happens when we follow God’s call is not up to us, and what we know is not the sonar assurance of a shoal of fish, what we know is that we are with the one we can trust, who reveals to us the presence of God’s glory, in a touch of a healing hand, in a mention of a name in prayer, we are no less than ancient fisher folk invited on an adventure that will carry us — to a place where we are long expected, a city we have never seen, that yet is our home. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. He is the journey and the destination. The one with us is the one who expects us and welcomes us home.
When I was far from home I went to visit an old friend and told him my reluctant story — that years after seminary I was still despite my uncertainty feeling a desire to pursue ordination — but I did not know if I could or should or what would happen if I tried. And he asked, is it a question of unworthiness?
Unworthiness.
Because that, my friends, as it turns out, is a chief qualification.
Because it means your are developing a proper sense of awe.
And yet you need to know it is not about your worthiness. It is about his glory and his call to you.
From now on leave behind the tangling anxieties that pull you down. For you will be catching - gathering - bringing into the kingdom - the living souls of people.
This is not a gospel message for preachers only, of course, or for times when only religion is on your mind.
In every ordinary thing we do God can be revealed and proclaimed, beyond our arrangement or understanding. Our imaginations are inadequate to the surprise of his revelation.
What I have experienced since that now-distant visit to an old friend is not a straightforward journey, nor a progression of triumphs, but a return again and again, to the faithful presence of the Holy in small things as well as great, in the progress or the plod, plod, plod of weary feet, following the path.
Imagine the far travels of Father Kino across unknown deserts, or the oceans crossed by Francis Xavier, or the humble begging of Saint Francis, or the cruel confrontations faced by Peter, and yet imagine, see, God with them, Christ in them, the hope of Glory - and the promise of faith.
Lord give us nets that do not break - by the Christ of the sea may we be caught in the nets of God - and may we in turn catch our friends.
O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the
earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those
who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people
everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the
nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh;
and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on
the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within
the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit
that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those
who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for
the honor of your Name. Amen.
On the sea of Galilee you can see a boat like the ones Peter and James and John and the other fishers of men sailed upon during the first century of our era. It is preserved inside a museum at the kibbutz of Ginosar, a fertile place surrounded by banana trees and other fruitful plants. There it rests, between Magdala and Capernaum, on the western side of the sea. It is not far from Tabgha where German Benedictines watch over the church of the multiplication of loaves and fishes and the church of the primacy of Peter ("Peter, do you love me?").
This is the kind of boat that Jesus was in - one with disciples, uncertain, unknowing, faithful; ready to put out into deep water and again try to do something they knew very well might not work. That did not stop them - and they who had followed him as soon as he called them, came up - not empty, but full beyond their hopes. A boat full of fish. From deep water.
Far from land, not safe, not safe at all: where the storms blew up fast and the waves were steep and close together when the wind rose, they cast their nets once again. And this is what they found: God is faithful - and he knows what he is doing.
(Howard Hayden fly-casting on the Stillaguamish River)
The lessons from the Old Testament, both Isaiah and the responsorial psalm, talk about the glory of God. This resonates with the admonition of Paul the Apostle, in the letter to Colossians (1:27): Christ in you, the hope of Glory.
The praises of all Creation resound with the name of God and his Glory. His shining- forth, that is, his Epiphany, or revealing, to all people. In this week's fifth Sunday of Epiphany, the revealing is of Christ as a bringer of abundance, a maker of miracles. But he has something more in mind: not showing off a divine ability but revealing the glory of God in an ordinary (until then) moment.
They have been fishing - and have gotten nowhere. They have nothing to show for their work. Until he provides for them, and shows them, that there is something beyond their current calling, a new work for them to do. Now they are to fish for people.
I think they get it. When they go out into perilous places beyond safe limits they will find abundance.
Sources:
Howard Hayden
Suzanne Guthrie, Edge of Enclosure
David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word
