INTRODUCTION
God’s call to discipleship is as old as creation itself. In every age, in every nation, in every race and langauge God calls and chooses men and women to sow the seed of His kingdom. The process is always God’s own initiative. He comes to man and then the latter is expected to respond by emptying himself through repentance, conversion, and renewal of life. This is the theme of today’s readings. God first calls us to conversion, to reform, to repentance. It is all about a necessary process to becoming new people. Those who truly accept this call and its exigencies are constantly reformed by the Spirit who alone empowers them to follow the path to wherever God leads them. Our three readings today underline this process of absolute necessity of repentance and readiness to respond to God’s call.
Furthermore, the readings equally pointed out God’s eternal desire that all men be saved. They showed how the seeds of salvation were sown outside the territories of the sowers. Such phenomena blend with the call for unity among Christians (and extensively with other faith confessions). It is for this that a whole week of prayer crusade that will be concluded today was dedicated to praying for unity, thus leaving us with a simple message: “the walls of division will fall when men cease to limit God’s saving purpose. The world will convert to God when those who practise faith shield their sword of cold war.”
Finally, it is not for nothing that the Holy Father Pope Francis in his wisdom has set aside this day for the universal Church to celebrate the Word of God (every 3rd Sunday of the liturgical year). All the three readings were carefully chosen to fit into the celebration of the day. It is a day we are called to celebrate and live the Word of God. It equally reminds us of the divine mandate to announce it to others so that together we can take it to the borders of the earth.
FIRST READING: Jonah 3:1-5
The call to repentance does not require any negotiation. It is a daily commitment to be in harmony with God. The prompt reaction of the Ninevites in the first reading is emblematic. The beginning of the second part (Jonah 3-4), narrates how after much hesitation Jonah finally accepted the call of the Lord to preach repentance to the Ninevites.
The Book of Jonah dates back to the 5th century BC. when the people had returned from Babylonian exile. The strong nationalistic tendency that characterized the worldview of many of the Jews became the basis for their claim of superiority over all other nations. This tendency was present in Jonah, and that was why at first he refused to evangelize the Ninevites. He like many of his co-nationalists wished God would destroy the nations who were not observing His commandments such as the city of Nineveh of the ancient Assyria which was notorious with immorality and idolatry.
However, the whole episode of God’s insistence that Jonah goes to Nineveh was purposeful. God wanted to convert Jonah (and many of his likes) through the prompt repentance of the Ninevites and to reveal to them (the Jews) that He cares for other peoples besides themselves.
Jonah accepted the call of God not because he truly wanted the people of Nineveh to repent– but because he was convinced that in any case they will never repent since they were deeply rooted in immorality and idol worship. Evidently, the narrative shows how Jonah was disappointed to see the ready response of that evil city to God’s message of repentance and a change of life! Jonah had not even finished the first day of his preaching journey before the people had totally turned around – doing visible penance while asking and hoping for God’s love, reconciliation and forgiveness. Contrary to Jonah’s expectations, the pagan peoples of the city “believed in God” and “renounced their evil behavior”. It became obvious that Jonah himself was the one who needed a more radical change. Thus, it dawned on him that God’s love is not limited – God’s power of forgiveness is not to be minimized– God’s offer of salvation is for all – and should never be personalized
SECOND READING: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Today’s second reading equally toe the line of the first reading. It is an invitation to conversion and to accept the “Good News’ preached by Jesus. Thinking that the end was near and the second coming of Jesus would happen soon, Paul preferred that no one get married and that slaves not try to gain their freedom (1 Cor 7:8, 17-24). But the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World makes clear that it is precisely through engagement with the concerns of the world that Jesus’ followers are to exercise their discipleship. Saint Paul had to be strict and detailed in his moral teaching to the Christians in Corinth because Corinth was a bawdy seaport with a typical seaport’s set of ethics and some very bizarre philosophical ideas. Hence, Paul spent all of chapter 7 on marriage and sexual morality. He told the Corinthians to live in total freedom and detachment because nothing they had, whether things or personal attachments, was permanent, and everything could disappear at a moment’s notice. Whether life is very good or very bad, nothing lasts except the fundamental values of truth and love, of freedom and justice. In the end, it is who and Whose we are, not what we have that counts. Hence, let us ask to have the freedom to follow the call of God and to be ready to go at once wherever Jesus is asking us to go. (Fr Anthony kadavil).
GOSPEL:Mark 1: 14-20
Mark summarizes the preaching of Jesus today in three major lines:
1. “The time is fulfilled.”
Mark places emphasis on time. Writing the Gospel in Greek, Mark employed the word kairos.The Greeks have two words for time:
• Chronos is chronological time—the kind of time that we measure on clocks and calendars.
• Kairos is significant time—the moment of truth—the decisive moment–a significant, purposeful moment that is meant to mark the life of persons.
Therefore, when Jesus says that the kairos “is fulfilled”, He simply announces that the decisive moment has arrived. Which moment? God’s reign.
2. “The Kingdom (basileia) of God is at hand”.
The Greek basileia is preferably translated to mean reign of a royal power, kingship, dominion, the right or authority to rule over a kingdom, and not just kingdom. Thus Jesus affirms that His coming is that moment in which God has chosen to reign over His people not from afar but among them (Emmanuel) such that the life of the people of the world becomes a kingdom where God’s reign must take place.
The idea of a God who reigns in His kingdom is implicitly expressed in some passages of the Old Testament (Psalms 45:6; 103:19; 145:10-13; Isaiah 52:7).
In the story of the early Israelites, we observed how they once rebelled against God and rejected His kind of kingship because they were lured by the type of kingship practised by the surrounding nations (1 Samuel 8:5-22). God granted their desire and through Samuel, He installed Saul for them as the model of king they opted.
In the story of the New Israel of the time of Jesus, they desired a restoration of their ancient davidic dynasty full of the power and glory because of the constant presence of Yahweh among them.
But today, Jesus proposes a totally different kind of kingdom—a kingdom that “is at hand” (v. 15)—a spiritual kingdom that is realized when men surrender their hearts to God—a kingdom inaugurated through Jesus’ first coming, and which will be fully manifested in his Second Coming.
3. “Repent, and believe in the Good News” The appropriate response to the coming of the kingdom is twofold: Repent (Greek: metanoeo—to change one’s mind or direction) and believe the good news!
The idea of repentance here transcends our normal understanding of the term. Repentance is not just a feeling of guilty, but it suggests a change of mind and a change of direction. To repent means to start seeing things from a different perspective; to see things in right ways. Thus, repentance starts with new vision rather than guilt feelings.
The Gospel proclamation of Jesus today is an invitation to repentance. It is a pressing call to turn away from false alliances with the world and to turn to the true God who is ready to seal a new covenant with His people. That is the true meaning of the Good News. It is the message that God is all loving and forgiving Father and not a punishing judge. His sole project is to save His people through His son Jesus Christ.
St. Paul translates this Good News to different situations of God’s intervention in the life of His people: the Good News of truth (Gal 2:5; Col 1:5), Good News of hope (Col 1:23), Good News of God’s promise of salvation (Eph 1:13, 3:6), Good News of peace with God and man (Eph 6:1), and Good News of immortality (2Tim 1:10). To believe in the Good News simply means to take Jesus at his word, to believe that God is the kind of God that Jesus has told us about, and to believe that God so loves the world that He will make any sacrifice to bring us back to Himself. To believe in the “Good News” involves a total commitment – the investing of one’s whole self in God without any guarantees or preconditions.(Fr. Anthony Kadavil). It is simply an exchange of ones life to accept the new life which only God offers; a life that has no end.
The rest of today’s Gospel narrative is the account of Mark on the call of the first disciples. By inserting this part to Jesus’ proclamation of the Good News, the evangelist affirms that the salvation that God brings to His people involves the cooperation of His people. It is a joint effort in which men are called to be protagonists in building the kingdom. It equally suggests that the proclamation of the Good News is a continuum knowing that Jesus’ physical presence among His people is temporal. It is interesting how Mark points out how promptly these disciples responded to the call of Jesus. Andrew and Peter left their nets immediately and followed Him. James and John also responded immediately, leaving their nets, their boats, and their father “in the boat along with the hired men, (1:20),” to follow Jesus.
The act of abandoning their nets is a way of speaking of what must be left behind when one embraces radical discipleship. This was one of the revolutions that accompanied the public ministry of Jesus. Traditionally, rabbinical students sought out their teachers and attached themselves to them. However, in the case of Jesus, He (a rabbi) takes the initiative to call, and certainly some who are less-than-ideal candidates according to the standard of world. The evangelist made it clear that these disciples were fishermen with no great or noble background.
In this way, Mark suggests that what Christ needs is not really ability, but availability.
By calling them, Jesus changed their identity from fishermen to fishers of men. Such was a metaphoric expression which in the ancient time represented two distinct activities: “judgment and teaching.” “Fishing for people” meant bringing them to justice by dragging them out of their hiding places and setting them before the judge. And “fishing” was also used of teaching people, of the process of leading them from ignorance to wisdom. Both cases involve a radical change of environment, a break with a former way of life and entrance upon a new way of life.
This is the type of new life Jesus chose for His disciples. He took them with Him not to teach them a course of study, but a way of life to follow. Hence, a call to a new life in which they would have power and authority and would be respected by everyone as a result; a call in which they will be offered a superior net to catch superior beings. They might not have understood at first instance the beauty and the ugly nature of their call but they took the bold step to follow Him. By this we learn that the call to follow God does not require any bargaining because the road in which He leads the one He calls is though difficult but safe and sure.
LIFE MESSAGES
1. NO ONE IS LESS A SINNER
We are all called to be saints, even though there is no doubt that some people make active efforts while others are either sluggish or unconcerned. Meanwhile no one has got an ID card that certifies him/her as less sinner than the other. The one who kills is a sinner. The one who gossips is a sinner. The question should not be whether the one who gossips is less a sinner to the one who kills, rather the call for all to repent.
The story of Jonah is a big lesson for all of us especially in the recent happenings around us. We should learn to pray for people to change and never condemn them. Our Christian duty is to denounce evil at all cost but on no account should we take the place of God in judging people. We see some people as political or religious messiahs and others as evil and antichrist. We sharpen our tongues to call them all sorts of names because of their inclinations and human tendencies. We already see them as doomed while we are saved. And our hatred for them goes to the extent of hating other persons who pray for them. We abuse them and call them accomplices in evil, yet we forget that the Jesus we claim to follow was always close to sinners, eating and dinning with them so as to draw them to repentance. We cannot convert a sinner by way of hatred and abuses. The truth is that those who condemn others hardly have time to look at their own lives.
Like Jonah, many of us who answer Christians truly need repentance. God loved the Ninevites and desired for their change, yet Jonah wished it could have been the contrary. If we can stop being like Jonah, the world will be converted. But it is obvious that Christians condemn but do not love. If we can pray for people the same way we condemn them, they will certainly change.
May God really help us to grow from nominal Christians to practicing Christians.
2. WE MUST APPRECIATE OUR CALL TO BE CHRIST’S DISCIPLES:
Every one of us is called by God, both individually and collectively. The mission of preaching, teaching, and healing which Jesus began in Galilee is now the responsibility of the Church. Our own unique vocation and our relationship with the risen Lord are the same as that of the universal Church. Be we religious, priests, married or single people, we are all called, and in this call we become what God wants us to be. The call, of course, begins with our Baptism and the other Sacraments of Initiation, is strengthened throughout the years with the Eucharist and Reconciliation, healed and consoled by Anointing, and (for those so called), made manifest in Matrimony, or Holy Orders. God is relentless in calling us back to Himself, even when we stray away from Him. Perhaps, God is asking us to see His hand in unexpected changes, reminding us that we are a pilgrim people who cannot be settled down into comfortable routine! Even when the changes are, apparently, not for the better, how we deal with them is what matters.
3. THERE IS A NET WE MUST LEAVE BEHIND
There is no vocation without a call, and there is no true answer to a call without a change. To say yes to God implies saying no to ourselves. This simply means offering God our broken lives of sin and allowing Him to work on them. To follow God requires sincerity. It implies that there is an old net we must all abandon. It is not compatible with the call. If we don’t abandon the old net that offer us worldly comfort and security, it will be difficult to accept the net of God’s own comfort and security. Many of us are yet to leave our old nets behind. We simply do not want to leave them. And we often imagine that we cannot live without them. We say yes to God yet deep within us we are not convinced. We keep casting our old nets into the world. How often are we driven to cast nets into the sea of rivalry, lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride etc? Are we willing to leave those nets behind, whatever security they seem to provide, and instead accept the net of Jesus to cast in His own water? Jesus offers us a new life today. Paul in the second reading calls us to abandon whatever we have for the it because there is no more time. He concludes with the message: “let those who deal with the world live as though they have no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away.”
Let us embrace the life that God offers us. Though it is difficult but it leads to everlasting happiness. We won’t regret it.
PRAYER
Almighty and ever-living God, it is your desire that we be saved. You have reminded today of our call to repentance and the need to embrace a new life by living according to the dictates of your Word. Help us to understand that our life here is short and therefore renew our commitment to You on the day of our birth into new life in You through Your Son our brother and our Saviour Who lives and reigns with You in communion with the Holy Spirit, Eternal God, one perfect unity forever and ever. Amen.
PAX VOBIS!
