Jonah 3:1-5, 10;
1 Cor 7:29-31;
Mark 1:14-20
When we read our Scriptures, especially the Four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we learn so much about God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, whom we are daily called to imitate. He is holy, generous, merciful, slow to anger and kind. We learn so much about Christ who once changed water into wine, healed the blind, dialogued with the Samaritan woman, raised Lazarus from the tomb, ate with tax collectors, and encouraged Zacchaeus to come down from the tree, whom he later went to dine with. He loved on the road to Calvary and forgave sinners on the Cross. He is selfless, humble and reaches out to everyone. He is persistent in calling us to himself, regardless of our "narrow nationalism," gender, language and culture, or which part of the continent, we may come from. Today’s readings seem to point towards the same direction.
In today’s Gospel, the selfless Christ knew that a time would come when he would be “handed-over”, so He quickly initiated the calls of his disciples, beginning with Peter, Andrew, James and John, who were originally fishermen. Thank God, they left everything to follow Jesus, including their nets, boats, parents, family and workers. They became fishers of men. What does this mean? It simply means that they became champions of God’s love, preachers and promoters of justice, unity, sources of divine mercy, and agents of true evangelization, viceroys and conduits of the inclusive of the message of God’s love.
This was something that was lacking in the Corinthian community that Paul was preaching to, in the 2nd reading. Selfishness, rivalries, abuse of marriages, sexualities, and overt worldliness perverted this community. Some of them forgot that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. Many could not realize on time that everything is this world, our talents, our homes, money, power, wealth, our physical bodies are temporary and transitory and that we are expected to make good and timely use of them, for the common good; for the glory of God, for the service of the community, and the entire church.
Jonah, in the first reading, also fell into the same trap of selfishness about God’s love, mercy and blessings. He is called by God to bring God’s message of love and forgiveness to enemy- folks in Nineveh, in Assyria, but unlike Peter, Andrew, James and John, in the Gospel, Jonah resisted, and sailed in the opposite direction, as far West as he could, to Tarshish. He, as it were, refused to pick God’s call or if you like he switched off his phone and took off when God sent him on a mission to Nineveh.
Now, Nineveh of that time was the capital city of Assyria and also the capital of the known world at the time. As the meeting point of the high and mighty and a commercial crossroad, it brought together many people from various nationalities and cultures. On account of the busyness of the city and the cultural hybridization, it also became an irreligious and morally porous ground; more like a “Sin City”.
God was sending Jonah to Nineveh to preach to them about repentance or to face destruction. But Jonah saw the idea of going to preach to them as preposterous and unnecessary. He knew that God could be merciful to them after all and his words of imminent destruction of the city would be faulted. On the strength of this he decided to escape to Tarshish through the seaport at Joppa all in an effort to run away from God. One wonders if anyone could run away from God or hide from Him. David was aware of this when he confessed that no one could possibly hide or run away from God as He is everywhere (Psalm 139:7-12).
While on the way to Tarshish, the ship Jonah boarded started experiencing turbulence with a fierce wind from God tossing the vessel around. Jonah was sure he was the cause and went to have an emergency sleep in some hidden compartment of the ship. When he was discovered he did not deny that he was the cause of the turbulence and after some deliberations, he asked the other members of the ship to throw him into the troubled water and instantly everything became normal. However, God CALLED upon a big fish (whale) to go and swallow Jonah and keep him for three days and thereafter to spit him out by the shore of the sea facing the city of Nineveh.
Jonah’s story offers us a spiritual mirror to see ourselves as God’s instruments. God has called us to various missions which we must do selflessly, with all our talents, energies and enthusiasms. This story also offers us a mirror to see ourselves, how we still are, sometimes today in this 21st century: petty, intolerant to others, selfish and jealous to our neighbors, in many ways. And sometimes unwilling to let go, unwilling to admit that God’s love and mercy extend to all persons of every land and nations, Jews and Gentiles, gender and culture. Granted that Jonah had problems on the way: shipped wrecked, swallowed by a big fish, tormented by nasty weather, he would eventually, by the grace of God, carry out God’s mission of preaching repentance to the Assyrians, non-Jews and the Gentiles, as Paul did in Corinth.
From the narrative we gathered that in spite of the size and wealth of the city, it was filled with evil and wickedness. Sometimes we assume that when something is big, mighty and beautiful it will be free from evil. Nineveh remains an example for us to learn from. Next, we are told that it could take three days for Jonah to walk round the city to preach to them. However when he started God completed the walk for him. This tells us that when we walk with God, the road becomes shorter and easier. We only need to start and God will perfect what he has started in us (Phil. 1:6).
Finally, when the people of Nineveh heard the message of God from Jonah they accepted it and also repented. One cannot but admire their prompt and speedy reaction to the message of the prophet. They did not wait for the next day, the next month, the next year as some of us keep postponing even our reconciliation with God in the sacrament of confession. When was your last good confession? God on His part accepted them immediately and forgave them their sins and the punishment due to them. Do we, like God, reconsider and reconcile with those who offend us?
In the Gospel Reading (Mk.1:14-20) we read about the call of four of the apostles namely: Simon, Andrew, James and John. They had one thing in common and that is that they were fishermen. When our Lord called them, they left everything; their boats, nets (and for James and John) their father. They followed our Lord Jesus Christ without asking questions like: “how can we become fishers of men?” Every single answer could be found in the one who called them. These men whom He called were completely unprepared and they did not even belong to any religious groups at that time.
According to William Barclay in his commentary on the gospel of St. Mark (1985, p.28) all of these men he called were simple folks. They did not study in some known schools or colleges; they were not drawn from the ecclesiastics or the aristocracy; they were neither learned nor wealthy. They were simply fishermen. That is to say, they were ordinary people. No one ever believed in the ordinary people as Jesus did. As once George Bernard Shaw said: “I have never had any feeling for the working classes, except a desire to abolish them, and replace them by sensible people.” A man should never think so much of what he is but of what Jesus Christ can make of him. As of the twelve, they were challenged by Jesus’ words to become ‘fishers of men’, and so they followed Jesus and wanted to know Him better and preached Him to other people. Later on, they continued His work of salvation whether the people like them or not, much like the dejected and rejected parish priest in the story.
Their prompt and unquestioning response to the call of our Lord Jesus Christ is reflective of St. Paul’s admonition in the Second Reading (1 Cor. 7:29-31) where he enjoined the Corinthians not to place so much premium on material concerns as time is passing. In another place St. Paul further said:
However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me–the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. (Acts 20:24). The best disposition is thus to leave EVERYTHING and answer the call of the Lord. It is obvious that we are often hindered by various things in our effort to answer God’s call. There are indeed many who are holding on to their nets, boats and their fathers. These represent those things that contend for the attention we are supposed to give to God’s call and mission.
Like Jonah finally did, one of the best ways we can serve God is to assist in making Him known to the world around us. We may not be required to travel to any Nineveh. In fact, there are many Ninevehs around us. Nineveh here represents those around us who are in need of God. We could attend to them not by condemning them as sinners but by making honest effort to share the word of God by our helpful and soothing words and actions. In fact, every baptized Christian is a potential Jonah and fisherman. It will be proper for us to examine how far we have gone into the Ninevehs around us and also how many fish we have been able to catch.
As we launch into the third week in ordinary time of the year let us try to be continually aware of the fact that we are in one way or the other called by God. And as the Psalmist would say: “Oh that today you
would listen to His voice harden not your hearts.”(Psalm 95:8).
Even today God seeks men and women to send on the mission to Nineveh. Where is our Nineveh today? Our Nineveh today is found in the back-streets and alleys of our cities festering with prostitution, drug and crime. It is found in the ivory tower of the corporate establishment where the destinies of half of the world are decided without any attention to their interests and welfare. Jonah was not sent to the people of Israel who were believers already, neither are we called to cater for the interest of good churchgoers alone. God invites us to bring the Good News to unimaginable places and “impossible” situations. The good news for us is that these “hopeless” cases are not too hopeless after all. For if even Nineveh could turn back to God so can they.
My brothers and sisters, in our Second Reading, Saint Paul tell us that time is running out. This life does not last forever. Some day it will end. Saint Paul told the first Christians that they should leave behind the trifles that the world offers to them. And that is what we should also do. Let us change our lives and place them at God’s service because, in the long run, that is the only way that we will be able to enjoy some day eternal life with Christ, Our Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment