Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

Happy Feast of Saint James the Greater!

You’ll likely remember Saint James as one of the Sons of Thunder (with his brother John). Why Sons of Thunder? Given that their schemes for heavenly prominence resulted in arguments among the disciples, I’d say they were given the moniker on account of some degree of quarrelsome hot-headedness (!). You may also remember that Saint James gives his name to the famous church of Santiago de Compostela where his relics are said to repose. Given that Compostela remains one of the great Christian pilgrimage sites in the world, it’s probably no wonder that Saint James is patron of pilgrims (it should be noted that Saint Christopher, who is also remembered today, is patron of travelers generally, though not pilgrims specifically).

In our reading this morning in the Daily Office from Mark’s Gospel, we encounter the story of Jesus’ call to James (and Simon, Andrew and John)…and few stories could be more straightforward. Jesus says, ”Follow,” and James does. Immediately. He leaves his job, his father, his home, and he follows. The Gospel is so matter-of-fact about it that it’s easy to gloss over the enormity of what’s happening. Jesus calls. And James answers with a resolution that seems incommensurate with the simplicity of the call. Jesus calls. And James gives up his life. Abandons his life. Empties himself. Utterly. To and for a complete stranger.

Perhaps there was something irresistible to Jesus’ call. If there was, I don’t think it was because the call was irresistibly compelling in itself. It must have spoken to something in James. It must have answered some deep longing he had. Some deep, soul-defining yearning. Deep calls on deep, sings the Psalmist, and I think the infinite depths of the Godhead spoke to the depths of James’ own soul—or perhaps more accurately, James discovered that the pattern of his soul’s yearning found its source in God’s own yearning, God’s own desire, for him. And I imagine that discovery looked like, felt like—was, in fact—an overwhelming superabundance of joy. “Follow.” And James, enraptured, followed.

The terrifying and thrilling thing is: Jesus is calling us, too, Friend. Theologian Frederick Buechner wrote that our vocation is precisely located: “The place God calls you to,” he wrote, “is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” At the crossroads of gladness and hunger, joy and need, deep calls on deep. And the call remains bewilderingly simple. “Follow,” it says. “With all your life, with all your love. With all you have and all you are. Follow. Let the purpose and meaning of your life utterly enrapture you. Follow.”

Of course, such things are easier said than done. And for some of us, the pilgrimage of vocation, even coming to discern the shape of that pilgrimage, the contours of that vocation, can seem particularly difficult or arduous. The important thing is to follow. The joy of the Way is not lessened by the difficulties we may encounter when we follow it, but we won’t know the joy for which we were meant if we will not consent and commit to follow.

Today, I wonder if we might take some time to listen more closely to Jesus’ call to us; to discern what, in fact, our deep gladness might be, and how that gladness might answer the world’s deep hunger; to discern how we might follow the call of Christ to that intersection of joy and need that most clearly articulates the character of our own discipleship and the enrapturing bliss of our soul’s deep purpose which is inextricably rooted in the loving desire of God which called into being; inextricably rooted, in fact, in the Word that names us; in the One who calls us; in Our Lord, Our Life, Our Love: Jesus Christ.

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+