My grandfather, nearly a hundred years ago, a Professor of English Literature in an established college, was tipped off to become the first Indian principal of that college, when he answered God’s call to become a missionary, with these words on his lips, “Here I am Lord, send me!” And so, with my mother, the youngest of five other siblings they travelled the whole of India, Burma, Singapore, Malaysia, and Ceylon, sometimes staying under the most pathetic conditions, only answering God’s call to preach the gospel.

From St Francis Xavier in Goa, to St Thomas in Kerala, such zealous men and yes women like Mother Teresa answered God’s call, left luxurious lives and went wherever God sent them.

Does God still call us to leave our comfortable lives and go where He wants us to go? I think, He does, and if you are thinking He is going to give you a bugle call to go to Africa, you may find it’s a whisper to do something nearer home.

It was such a whisper, a few days ago, when someone asked me for a priest to be present at the cremation of a Catholic lady married to someone of a different faith. I asked around, and so did a close friend of mine, but all we got was a firm ‘no’.

Naturally. Who wanted to leave their comfort zone of handling a funeral within the community and go to a crematorium with strangers and more so from another faith? Finally when we were giving up, one priest said, “Here I am!” and went.

He reached the crematorium, was welcomed by the gathering, who were happy that their mother and wife and friend, had a priest from her own religion to send her to the great beyond, and then he opened his Bible and preached from Isaiah 55 vs 6, ‘Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.’ And then ended with John 3; 16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

I spoke to the priest later and he was bubbling with happiness, “What an opportunity Bob,” he said, “To take the gospel to others!”

“Pastor,” I told him, “All you did was say, ‘Here I am Lord, send me!”

These are His calls that will come to us; speaking at a crematorium, holding the hand of someone who has lost everything, or maybe being called to a filthy slum.

Maybe, it’s time priests and we others living in luxury, need to understand that it may not always be an air-conditioned church or a fancy wedding reception where we are called to preach His word, but even in an unfriendly crematorium! What God needs to hear from us is, “Here am I, send me..!”

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