THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – January 22, 2012
The Book of the Prophet Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 7:29-31
This is the only Sunday in the three-year cycle of readings that we hear from the Prophet Jonah. That shouldn’t be surprising since the book is short, only four brief chapters. In some ways the book is a comic opera given the hapless and reluctant prophet that is Jonah. Reluctant is the operative word. God called Jonah to be a prophet to the people of Nineveh, a people of long standing animosity with Israel. Jonah wanted noting to do with them and so fled by ship hoping to reach Tarshish and so escape God’s call. You know what happened next. God sent a storm that threatened to envelop the boat and sink it. The mates on board saw the storm saw the storm as a punishment from God, but directed at whom?
Jonah confessed that he was fleeing from God’s will and concluded that the storm was probably directed at him. He offered himself to be thrown into the sea so that the ship would be spared. Overboard he went only to be swallowed by a giant fish in whose belly Jonah would reside for three days. Jonah repented from there. God heard him and commanded the fish to spew forth Jonah. Sputtering on the shore, Jonah heard God’s message again: Set out for the great city of Nineveh and announce to it the message that I will give you. The message? In forty days Nineveh will be destroyed – the epitome of a sermon of fire and brimstone. Jonah expected his proclamation to be ignored by the people of Nineveh. He looked forward to finishing the three-day trek through the city so that he could climb the hill on the other side and from there, watch the destruction of the detested people.
Imagine his consternation when, after a single day’s journey into the city, all the people hear the prophecy and repent, declaring a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. Even the king repented, and so God changed his mind. Nineveh was spared, much to Jonah’s disappointment. He so wanted to see the fire and brimstone fall from the heavens. Instead he witnessed God’s mercy and finally experienced that mercy in his own heart.
So, what is the point of all this? When we hear the word of the Lord, we ought to respond wholeheartedly. But you have to wonder what was in the hearts of the people of Nineveh that they repented so quickly and thoroughly. What spoke to them and touched the longings in their hearts. Why didn’t they hear in Jonah the epitome of the judgmental Haranguer? In spite of Jonah’s sternness, God’s grace went out through Jonah’s message and found reception in the people’s hearts. They heard a message of hope, theirs if they would only change their ways.
After John the Baptist had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God. Jesus’ message, like Jonah’s is a call to repentance but without the threat of immanent destruction. The word gospel means good news. Jesus invites all who hear him to get ready for the time of fulfillment, what the prophets had foretold, the coming of the reign of God. If they change their lives and return to God’s ways they will experience God in their lives – God living not only among them but also in them.
Now we see the start of something new. Jesus does not want to be the sole bearer of the good news. He invites others to take up his ministry. He calls the fishermen, Simon and Andrew. It would seem at their first hearing of the message they respond wholeheartedly. Come after me, and I will make you fishers of humankind. They will still be throwing out nets, but not to ensnare fish. Immediately Simon and Andrew abandon their former way of life and follow Jesus. There is no implication that the brothers were living evil lives. They were honest and hard workers. It means that Jesus called them to something different and they held nothing back in responding.
The same holds true for the next pair of fishermen-brothers, James and John, who hear and immediately leave their father, Zebedee, and the crew of workers and follow Jesus. One can’t help but wonder how thrilled Zebedee was with this turn of events. But for the brothers, Jesus was the answer to everything that they longed for and desired. For them there was nothing else to do but answer his call.
They abandoned everything and followed Jesus. They left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed Jesus. The call goes forth and the response is total. The example is a call for us to do the same.
You might ask what these men understood when Jesus invited them to follow him and become fishers of people. They probably did not understand very much and certainly not what they would come to understand to be the Gospel. In the beginning they had a lot to learn. Jesus must have had a magnetic personality. Everywhere he spoke, crowds immediately gathered. It is likely that those first called thought Jesus was the Messiah with their understanding of Messiah as the one who would restore Israel to power and drive out foreign rule, free them from the Romans. They might have imagined that when all this would come to pass they would find themselves to be important personages in that coming realm. Perhaps. That really doesn’t matter. Jesus spoke. They followed. They never looked back. As they made their trek with Jesus they would come to a whole new understanding of Messiah and experience God who does not want to be served but to serve. They would be formed following the example that Jesus was before them. They would come to understand that Jesus is the message that invites all people to experience a new unity with God and each other, a new peace.
For us, it is the same. Whatever fascinates us about Jesus in the beginning doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we recognize the call and dare to imagine that the message is meant for us. What matters is our willingness to change our lives and conform them to Christ. What matters is that we follow him and learn his ways.
That is what making this journey through the Liturgical Year can accomplish. We hear the readings as the Word of God. We hear the Gospel as the living word. We listen and let that Good news that is Jesus take root in our hearts. We change and learn to do what Jesus does. If Jesus is the norm, then imitating him must be our response. Over time and with each gospel’s proclamation we will come to know more and more what that imitation means, what in us has to change. It is not fear that draws us. It is love. And like those first responders, we too are invited to join in the announcing of the Good News, Jesus the Lord.
I don’t know how long it is that we walk in Jesus’ footsteps before we realize that his call is never for ourselves alone. I don’t know when it is that we realize that the love that drew us must go out from us and draw others. But I do believe that once we hear and let the Word penetrate our hearts, the rest follows.
That is why our lives soon begin to revolve around Sunday Eucharist. We gather with others who have heard and begun to respond. We gather as one body to be renewed in Jesus’ dying and rising. We gather to give thanks to God through the renewal of Jesus’ dying and rising. We gather to take and eat the Body of Christ so that we can be sent forth and in the week ahead, find the strength and the courage to be fishers of people, catching them up in God’s love that comes to us through Jesus and invite them to follow, too.
Sincerely,
Didymus
