Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 15, 2023 – Isaiah 49:3, 5-6; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34

In the late Spring of either my fifth or sixth grade, so 10 or 11 years old, I hung out with a large group of boys in my neighborhood. We all went to the same Catholic school. We walked to school, walked back and forth from school with your friends, hang out on the street corners. At that time of the year, stick ball would begin. And, although I was very popular with my friends, I did not know how to play any form of baseball. But, because we all had been tutored by the nuns, we all knew what proper behavior was like and how it was good to be kind and generous to one’s friends. And so, in choosing sides, they knew it was going to be difficult to choose me, but they did it anyway.

Remember that song in the 1970’s, a very odd song by an odd person, Janis Ian, At Seventeen. She sings about “those whose names are never called when choosing sides for basketball.” So, it didn’t happen to me. I got chosen, reluctantly, by one team of friends. Then the problem was what to do with me. So, when our team was fielding, they placed me in the outfield. They said to me, “Nothing is going to come out here, but if something does, just pick it up and throw it to that guy.” So, as luck would have it, a little grounder rolled out my way.  And I picked it up, and I walked over to the other guy while two runs scored. And they forgave me. 

Then what to do with me when we were up. They went out to the pitcher’s mound and they conferred with the enemy pitcher and came to a mutual decision that, for my benefit, they would deliberately walk me. And so they said, “Just stand here with the stick over your shoulder and do not move until four balls have passed over your shoulder, then walk to first base. So they did and I did, and the next batter struck out. And so, I don’t know what happened next, but probably what happened is the school custodian or the cops came and found us and chased us away. And guys hid their sticks because the sticks were illegal.

But it was a tribute to their Christian kindness that they saw the need to include me, to choose me. Not so much, a year or two later, now we are all young teenagers, and a brand new thing has come to our Bronx neighborhood. Little League. They all signed up for Little League. I didn’t. Had no interest in signing up. But I did want to be with my friends. The nearest Little League field was about a mile and half away from all of our homes. On a hot spring day, we all walked to the Little League field. A bit of a hike when there was a neighborhood bus that went right by it, but buses cost 15 cents. So, I went, and they said, “We’ll make you water boy.” And I sat in the hot stands. And I sat and I sat. And finally I said, “What do you want me to do?” They said, “Go get us soda, and we’ll pay you when you come back.” And so, I left the baseball field and I walked, and I walked, and I walked, until I found a grocery store. Of course, back then, all soda was in bottles, and I was carrying back a bag with 12 bottles of soda. The bag got heavier and heavier the longer I walked back to the baseball field. And when I got there, there was nobody there. They all left without me. In the intervening two years, what had happened was the societal pressure of belonging to a group trumped their understanding of kindness to a friend. 

I asked you if you could spot the four words in the second reading that were all the same. I am going to point them out to you. “Paul, called to be an apostle.” “You have been sanctified in Christ Jesus. You are called to be holy.” “With all those everywhere who call upon the name of the Lord.” That’s only three, what’s the fourth one? The fourth one is “To the Church of God that is in Corinth.” To the Church of God.

The Greek word for call is kaleó. You can hear the English word call in the old Greek word. Kal, call. But it goes through various changes. At the very beginning of the Church’s life, people who decided to follow the call of Jesus were said to be ekkaleó, called out of the rest of society to follow the way of Jesus. That being called out, being chosen, meant that you were now an outlier. Someone out of step with the rest of the society. You were called out, but you were called out for a purpose. Paul says he was called to be an Apostle, called to be one who teaches and preaches. But everyone else called out is called to holiness. To being truly what God wants us to be. But, being called to holiness requires that we, at least now and then, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus to help us do what we are called out to do. 

Catholics were not always an acceptable part of American society. Back in the mid years of the nineteenth century, there was actually a political party called the Native American Party. It had nothing to do with Indigenous peoples, but rather with those who felt themselves to be descendants of the Mayflower Pact. Their official title was the Whig Party. Their platform was deliberately, and almost exclusively, anti-Catholic. They did not like us. They burned down our convents and threatened our religious with bodily harm. And, under that platform, they managed to get a President elected. Millard Fillmore was one of those No Nothings. Even after the Civil War, the policies continued, in slightly different forms. The Ku Klux Klan burned crosses. Strange they would choose a cross to burn. Not only outside the houses and businesses of newly emancipated Black people, but also on the lawns of Catholic Churches. 

When my mother and her generation of young people, in their mid-teens, went out to look for a job, they would frequently see a sign, “Help wanted. Catholics need not apply.” It was not until after the Second World War, when our Cold War policies made the enemies of Communism into super patriots, that Catholics, because they talked about Communism as a godless philosophy, became acceptable in American society. And even then, it took a great deal of effort, and a great deal of money, and the fact that they were (Boston) Brahmins, to get a Catholic elected in the person of John Kennedy.

That’s not true anymore. We are now a part of the mainstream. But being part of the mainstream can blind us to the fact that we are ekkaleó. Chosen. Called out of the rest of the population for something. For something. We’re called to be holy. To stand for what Christ stands for. And that’s very, very hard to do. Especially when we are, and want to continue being, popular.

The only way we can do it is the other word. Calling upon Jesus, is another variation of the Greek word. Parekaleó.  To call someone to your side. To help you. To be your support.

And so, we’re left with a question, a two-sided question. Do you feel that you are called out, picked, chosen.  And if not, why not?