Year B, Lectionary 65
God is calling us but are we recognizing the divine when God approaches? We may find ourselves comfortable in our current spiritual situation, sleeping like Samuel by the ark of God or already studying from a great teacher like John the Baptist. But while we would like to contain God in our circumstances Jesus walks by inviting us to journey with him. No longer dependent on what our spiritual instructors teach us but having a personal relationship with God that we each need to have.
Hate feeling lost on Sundays at church? Searching for a better explanation of the Bible than what you hear from your pastor's sermon? Check out the following collection of audio, video, and text commentaries from various Christian experts for a better understanding of today's scripture that deal with: • Attention • Body • Call • Commandment • Conscience • Discern • Disciple • Evangelize • Follow • Home • Identity • John the Baptist • Lamb • Lead • Listen • Manifest • Name • Overcome • Passover • Personal • Prophet • Purpose • Recognize • Relationship • Reside • Respond • Response • Samuel • Sleep • St. Andrew • St. Peter • Teacher • Unity • Vocation • Voice •
“how have we seen God working in and through someone who might not see herself or himself that way? How can we affirm the goodness in another person and encourage them to respond to God's call for their lives?”
“You have it within you to bring about here in this place the beloved community, the Kingdom of God”
“according to Paul, right, if you were baptized, if you have faith then your body belongs to Christ and he paid for it with the infinitely valuable price of his blood which makes any desecration of the Christian body that much more serious, that much more grave”
“what John tells us is that Jesus already knew who Peter was and what his role was going to be from the very first time they encountered one another”
“In order to be a follower of Jesus you don't just have to believe 'hey, he is the Lamb of God', you have to remain with him, you have to stay with him, you have to abide in him”
“Do you have something to share? Do you have a message to give? Is there a lesson that we have learned that we can pass on and teach to another generation?”
“Can we be like St. Andrew? Can we be known for the one who always brings people to Jesus and are we willing to do that in such a way that, that no one even notices who we are? That everyone's attention is on Jesus Christ himself.”
“The evangelist John is not only directing that question to Andrew and his companion, he is also addressing his readers. And isn’t that one of the most fundamental questions that we can ask? 'What at this stage of my life am I seeking? What do I truly desire?'”
“before we rush into doing what everybody wants us to do let us take a step back and go to God in prayer to ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes, to grant us the grace to journey into ourselves to discover our true identity as the children of God and to live a life that is based on that identity”
“Today's readings remind you and me that God is always at work in many places and in many people, calling, inspiring, healing and sustaining. We only need to come and we will see.”
“We must not restrain our lips, we are all called to speak out even when it's uncomfortable. Especially when it's uncomfortable. After all that's what Jesus did time and time again.”
“I may not know the details of where God is calling me but it is enough to say 'here I am' and trust God for the rest”
“we exist, the church exists in order to manifest the Lord and another word for manifesting the Lord, epiphania or manifest, is to evangelize. We've got to tell the world about Jesus.”
“I pray for you as I pray for myself on this day that in the midst of all the noise going around that God may grant us the grace to listen attentively to identify the voice of God, the grace to detach ourselves from past presumptions...to identify the true Lamb of God”
“Perhaps you've been waiting to hear the voice of God and he's been trying again and again to reach you as he did with Samuel but it's so ordinary you didn't recognize it”
“And so when we think about it the one thing we know is that the world is hungering for Jesus and it is our job to bring him wherever we may be.”
“So as we begin to emerge from isolation and division can we pause to listen to the stirrings of our hearts?”