BIBLE STUDY #72
SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
January 15, 2012

Reading 1
1 Samuel 3:3b-10, 19

Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the LORD
where the ark of God was.
The LORD called to Samuel, who answered, "Here I am."
Samuel ran to Eli and said, "Here I am. You called me."
"I did not call you, " Eli said. "Go back to sleep."
So he went back to sleep.
Again the LORD called Samuel, who rose and went to Eli.
"Here I am, " he said. "You called me."
But Eli answered, "I did not call you, my son. Go back to sleep."

At that time Samuel was not familiar with the LORD,
because the LORD had not revealed anything to him as yet.
The LORD called Samuel again, for the third time.
Getting up and going to Eli, he said, "Here I am. You called me."
Then Eli understood that the LORD was calling the youth.
So he said to Samuel, "Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply,
Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening."
When Samuel went to sleep in his place,
the LORD came and revealed his presence,
calling out as before, "Samuel, Samuel!"
Samuel answered, "Speak, for your servant is listening."

Samuel grew up, and the LORD was with him,
not permitting any word of his to be without effect.

The Word of the Lord

Reading 2
1 Corinthians 6:13c-15a, 17-20

Brothers and sisters:
The body is not for immorality, but for the Lord,
and the Lord is for the body;
God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one Spirit with him.
Avoid immorality.
Every other sin a person commits is outside the body,
but the immoral person sins against his own body.
Do you not know that your body
is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,
whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
For you have been purchased at a price.
Therefore glorify God in your body.

The Word of the Lord

Gospel
John 1:35-42

John was standing with two of his disciples,
and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said,
"Behold, the Lamb of God."
The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus.
Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them,
"What are you looking for?"
They said to him, "Rabbi" - which translated means Teacher -,
"where are you staying?"
He said to them, "Come, and you will see."
So they went and saw where Jesus was staying,
and they stayed with him that day.
It was about four in the afternoon.
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter,
was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus.
He first found his own brother Simon and told him,
"We have found the Messiah" - which is translated Christ -.
Then he brought him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said,
"You are Simon the son of John;
you will be called Cephas" - which is translated Peter.

The Gospel of the Lord

Reflection

We are now in Ordinary Time, a season of either 33 or 34 weeks, that does not celebrate a specific mystery of Christ (i.e. Christmas celebrates Christ’s birth, Easter his resurrection), but is devoted to the mystery of Christ in its fullness. Ordinary Time begins on January 10, 2012, and goes through March 21, 2012 (the day before Ash Wednesday). It resumes on May 28, 2012 (the day after Pentecost), and ends on December 1, 2012, the day before Advent begins.

A liturgical anomaly is that there is no First Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Sunday that precedes the first week in ordinary time is usually the Baptism of the Lord. Due to the shortness of the Christmas season this year (2 weeks), the Epiphany of the Lord is the Sunday prior to the first week in ordinary time, with the Baptism of the Lord being the next day, a Monday. There are Mass parts for the First Sunday in Ordinary Time, but it’s only used during the week when there are no feasts or memorial masses.

Today’s Gospel makes an important statement by John the Baptist about Jesus, whom he calls “the Lamb of God.” The Apostolic Church would have been familiar with this term, which would have evoked two separate images.

The first one would be the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 52:13-53:12, in which the Suffering Servant is led to slaughter like a lamb, and who bears our sins. This would have reminded them of Jesus, would was the innocent lamb slaughtered for our sins, whose death conquered sin and death once and for all.

Secondly, it would remind them of God freeing them from bondage in Egypt. God sends Moses as his agent, but Pharaoh refuses to ‘Let my people go.” God sends plagues, to no avail. The tenth plague is the death of all the first born of the land. The Israelites escaped this punishment by putting the blood of an innocent lamb on the wood of the doorpost, and the angel of death passes over their houses, hence the Jewish feast of Passover. They were freed by this blood from slavery in Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land. Jesus is the innocent Lamb of God whose blood was shed on the wood of the cross, which freed us from the slavery of sin and death to the freedom of new and eternal life. In both instances, John is telling his disciples that Jesus is the long awaited Messiah and that they are to follow him. John would want all his disciples to follow Jesus.

Jesus then asks them, "What are you looking for?" This is a more complicated question than it sounds. Sometimes we don’t know what we’re looking for; other times we look for too little. This question is really a call to discipleship, to something far greater than they would ever imagine.

The disciples question to Jesus, "where are you staying?" is more than asking for Jesus’ address. This question is explained later in the gospel when we are told that the Son dwells (stays) in the Father, the Father in the Son, and the Spirit dwelling in us (see John 14:10-11, 16-17). We participate in the very life of Jesus.

When Jesus says, "Come, and you will see" it is an individual call to follow Jesus, which is initiated by Jesus, as in John 15:16, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain.” Taking up Jesus command to follow him means a total dedication and commitment to faith and discipleship. They may not understand much initially, but as they dwell, or abide, or stay with Jesus, they “will see”, that is, they will grow in knowledge and grace of the Lord as time goes by.

We are now told that Andrew is one of these two unnamed disciples (traditionally, the second was John, son of Zebedee), and that he is the brother of Simon Peter. It seems that Andrew was probably not nearly as well known as Simon Peter, since he is referred to as Simon Peter’s brother so people know who he is. Andrew stayed with him the whole day, and became convinced of Jesus’ identity; then at 4 pm, at the end of the day, he goes for his brother, Simon. He says to him, "We have found the Messiah." I can hear Andrew’s excitement at his new found messiah, and his desire to share Jesus with his brother.

Andrew brings his brother Simon to Jesus; Simon’s name is changed to Cephas (meaning rock in Aramaic), or Peter (meaning rock in Greek). It’s interesting to note that in the beginning, Peter is known as Simon originally, and mutates into Peter with the advent and the burgeoning of his faith. Look through the New Testament – he starts out as Simon, goes to Simon Peter, then eventually, as his faith grows, the Simon name is dropped, and he becomes Peter. Peter becomes the rock the church is founded on which will last until the end of time.

In the first reading from the First Book of Samuel, we have the call of the prophet Samuel. He is the son of Hanna and Elkanah. Hanna was unable to conceive a child. She went to the Temple to pray to the Lord for a child and began weeping bitterly promising the Lord that if she conceived a son she “will give him to the Lord all the days of his life (1 Samuel 1:11).” Her prayer was answered, and she bore a son and named him Samuel, and after was weaned, “she brought him up with her, along with a three year old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and presented him at the house of the Lord at Shiloh (1 Samuel 1:24).” The child was brought to Eli (a Judge of Israel as well as high priest), and Samuel was dedicated to the Lord for as long as he lives.

Samuel was in God’s service when he heard God’s call. Since he was asleep in the temple, some scholars think that Samuel was tending the sacred flame representing God’s presence which was never to be extinguished. Other scholars think that he was in a type of “sacred sleep” hoping for a revelation from God.

Samuel was sleeping, and God’s call woke him. He thought it was Eli – he didn’t understand it was God, because God “had not revealed anything to him as yet.” Samuel goes to Eli, who tells him, "Go back to sleep." Eli didn’t understand either. It wasn’t until the third time that Samuel came to him did Eli understand that it was God calling Samuel, and he responded, “"Speak, for your servant is listening."

This call story is very similar to the call story of other prophets. For a call from God to be effective, it must be recognized as an authentic call from God, and one must be ready to respond to that call in whatever is asked.

Eli was the mentor that set Samuel on his course in following God. It was only through Eli’s direction that Samuel was able to discern his course in life. He was the last of the Judges (King Saul came after him), a priest, and the first of the prophets. He anointed Saul as king at God’s request. He was the one who anointed David as king.

The lesson here is that we all need someone to help direct and guide us, to help us discern our spiritual way, commonly known as a mentor or spiritual director. A good friend in whom we can confide in trust can also be invaluable in our lives. Regular sacraments and daily prayer is very useful in guiding us.

The second reading from 1 Corinthians talks about how we are to act once we have received and begin to follow the call of God. The people of Corinth separated body from spirit, looking on the body as worthless and of no account, and thought they could believe and still do anything they wanted. St. Paul denies this and says that we are one, and our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, so we are to avoid immorality and sin. If we have chosen Christ, we must put off the ways and sins of the world, and put on the grace and holiness of Christ.



Fr. Phil