January 14. 2024
John 1:43-51
The calling of the disciples, the calling of anyone by God, to “Come and see,” is about more than saying “yes” so that the Lord can send us out. Philip, Nathaniel, Andrew, and Peter were not called and immediately sent. Their sending will happen three years after their calling. After three years of seeing what Jesus was doing, they would be sent to make more disciples, to baptize them, and to teach them to follow what Jesus had taught the first 12.
Before Jesus called his followers “disciples,” they were called “beloved” because of who created them. We are only who God says we are: no more and no less. So, no matter what number we might be in the Enneagram, no matter what four-letter Myers Briggs designation we receive, we are who God says we are: beloved. You are beloved before you are anything else. You are beloved before you are sent out to do anything in the name of the Lord who saw you sitting under a fig tree, on a barstool when you were at your wit's end, or in the car because you could not face the people inside the house with the news you had to deliver.
For Samuel, the first 12 disciples, and us, the Good News is that Jesus’s preexisting messiahship (where all of the best qualities are of God and the result of who God is) is not dependent on us saying “yes” to God. Instead, it is a sign of God saying “yes” to us, “yes” to creation, and “yes” to seeing to it that the kingdom of God is fully realized.
