In my house, not everyone comes for dinner when called. “It’s dinner time! Come for dinner!” I’ll call up the stairs,
but only a spattering of children materializes in the kitchen—maybe three or
four, but where are all the others? So I
have to search the house to find them in various corners, engrossed in some
activity—reading, building something, or typing something on their laptop. They’ve ignored my summons, or didn’t “hear”
it. A wave of frustration sweeps over
me, tempered by memories of having been the same way when I was their age. Then the words pass my lips: “Drop what
you’re doing and come now!” We can’t
postpone dinner indefinitely for everyone to finish their pet project before
coming to eat.
“Drop what you’re doing and come now!” fairly well
summarizes the urgency of the call to repentance that forms the major theme of
the Readings for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Scriptures have been chosen to emphasize
the immediate response to the call of God.
We begin with a reading from the Prophet Jonah:
Reading 1 Jonah 3:1-5, 10
The
word of the LORD came to Jonah, saying:
“Set
out for the great city of Nineveh,
and
announce to it the message that I will tell you.”
So
Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh,
according
to the LORD’S bidding.
Now
Nineveh was an enormously large city;
it
took three days to go through it.
Jonah
began his journey through the city,
and
had gone but a single day’s walk announcing,
“Forty
days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed, “
when
the people of Nineveh believed God;
they
proclaimed a fast
and
all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.
When
God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way,
he
repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them;
he
did not carry it out.
The Book of Jonah is clearly an exception among the minor
prophets. While the other books record
the oracles of their namesake seer, the Book of Jonah consists of an historical
narrative about the prophet’s mission to Ninevah and its aftermath. It records only one prophetic oracle, a
half-verse in length (Jon 3:4b). The
story of Jonah has captured the imagination of popular piety through the ages
because of the fantastic account of the prophet being swallowed by a great fish
and subsequently vomited up alive.
However, the account of the fish is only supplemental to the main
theological thrust of the book, which concerns God’s grace and forgiveness
toward the Gentiles (that is, toward all humanity).
The
prophet Jonah is an historical figure who ministered during the reign of
Jeroboam II of Israel (783-743 BC), during which he prophesied the expansion of
the northern kingdom to its Solomonic boundaries (2 Kings 14:25). Jonah seems to have been identified with
Israelite nationalism; thus, his commission from God to preach repentance to
northern Israel’s greatest foe (Ninevah) in Jon 1:2 provokes a strong negative
reaction from the prophet (Jon 1:3).
Particularly
notable throughout the book is the contrast between Jonah and the Gentiles in
their response to God. Jonah, the
Israelite prophet, willfully defies God’s express will for his life by sailing
for Tarshish. The Gentile sailors, on
the other hand, actively seek to find out the will of God. They have to wake the prophet and urge him to
pray. Even when they discover that he
has thoughtlessly endangered the entire crew and cargo by making them complicit
in his defiance against the divinity, the sailors show humanitarian concern for
Jonah’s welfare and attempt to row ashore to save the cursed man’s life. Only with great reluctance do they cast him
overboard, and then they piously offer sacrifice to the God of Israel in gratitude
for their salvation.
Again, the
response of the Ninevites is similar. Jonah’s
preaching gives them no hope for salvation, it’s just an absolute statement of
imminent destruction: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed!” Though
given no reason for hope from the prophet himself, they engage in a mass
repentance the like of which was scarcely ever seen in Israel itself. They immediately throw themselves on the
mercy of the LORD God of Israel, while the prophet himself becomes enraged with
God and pleads for death. Ironically, the
Ninevites are being upheld in Jonah 3 as examples of the kind of immediate
repentance that is appropriate when we hear the word of God.
The central
theological thesis of the Book is that the LORD is the God of the Gentiles,
too. Throughout the narrative, God
demonstrates his sovereignty over both human and natural affairs, both within
and without the land of Israel. The LORD
God shows absolute control over the weather, the sea, the monsters of the deep,
the vine, and the course of history in foreign lands. All these arenas were the domains of specific
gods in pagan thought: the weather was controlled by Ba’al (Jupiter/Zeus), the
sea by Yam (Neptune/Poseidon), the depths by Tiamat or Mot (Pluto/Hades), etc. In the Book of Jonah, however, there is no hint
of the existence of any of these deities, much of less of their opposition to
God. Rather, all nature and human
history follows the will of the LORD with docility, who sovereignly “appoints”
(Heb. manah; 2:1; 4:6,7,8) creatures
to do his bidding. Moreover, human
beings far outside the orbit of Israel—pagan sailors and Assyrian
commoners—respond to the LORD with repentance and worship.
Selections
from Jonah 3 are read in the Liturgy of the Word on a handful of occasions in
which the themes of repentance, forgiveness of sin, and conversion of the
Gentiles are appropriate. Jonah 3:1-5,10
is read in this Sunday (Year B on the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time)
to set up a parallel with the opening of Jesus’ preaching mission in Mark
1:14-20. Between Jonah and Jesus we see
both comparisons and contrasts: they share a prophetic role and their
message(s) elicit repentance. But
Jonah’s message is one of pure threat, whereas Jesus calls his hearers to enter
the “kingdom of God.” A longer reading
of the same passage (3:1-10) is proclaimed during the first week of Lent
(Wednesday) and is an option for special Masses for the Remission of Sins. In addition, the end of Jonah (3:11–4:10)
forms an optional First Reading for special Masses for the Evangelization of
Peoples, thus reminding the Church that God’s desire for the salvation of all
people was present already in the Old Covenant era.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 25:4-5,
6-7, 8-9
R. (4a) Teach me your ways, O
Lord.
Your
ways, O LORD, make known to me;
teach
me your paths,
Guide
me in your truth and teach me,
for
you are God my savior.
R. Teach me your ways, O Lord.
Remember
that your compassion, O LORD,
and
your love are from of old.
In
your kindness remember me,
because
of your goodness, O LORD.
R. Teach me your ways, O Lord.
Good
and upright is the LORD;
thus
he shows sinners the way.
He
guides the humble to justice
and
teaches the humble his way.
R. Teach me your ways, O Lord.
Psalm 25 is an acrostic psalm, with each successive
verse—with only a few exceptions—beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew
alphabet. It is primarily a lament
psalm, in which the Psalmist—identified by the superscription as David—cries
out to God for salvation. Nonetheless,
there are also expressions of praise and confidence in this Psalm, as well as
reflections on the law of God that resemble wisdom literature.
It is clear that the Psalmist is in a covenant relationship
with God: “All the paths
of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant (Heb. berith) and his testimonies” (v. 10). This resembles St. Paul’s famous assertion:
“All things work together for good to those who love the LORD,” the Latin of
which gave rise to the well-known
dictum, “Omnia in bonum.” In addition to
berith, a number of other
covenant-associated terms are employed in this psalm: hesed, steadfast love or covenant fidelity; emet, truth or faithfulness; racham,
compassion, from a root related to the womb of the mother; yashar, upright. Covenant
partners show these virtues toward one another.
Those who are humble are taught by God. That’s the message of this psalm in this
Sunday’s liturgy. The Ninevites, as well
as the fishermen of Galilee, were simple common people willing to listen to
God’s voice and be instructed. Pride
plugs our ears. The proud cannot receive
the message to repent and turn toward God.
They don’t believe they need to repent.
Reading 2: 1 Cor 7:29-31
I
tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out.
From
now on, let those having wives act as not having them,
those
weeping as not weeping,
those
rejoicing as not rejoicing,
those
buying as not owning,
those
using the world as not using it fully.
For
the world in its present form is passing away.
St. Paul reminds us that the time to respond to God’s call
is not infinite! Christ will
return. Even if he does not in our
lifetime, there is that appointment with God toward which we are all heading
that we call “death.” St. Paul urges
detachment from the things of the world: we cannot be controlled by our
relationships (“wives”), our emotions (“weeping, rejoicing”), or our
possessions (“owning, using”). The
importance of all these things has been radically relativized by our
relationship with God, and the revelation that this world is not eternal. Heeding the call of God on our lives—in
whatever form that may take—takes priority over all our other commitments,
occupations, and distractions.
Gospel Mk 1:14-20
After
John had been arrested,
Jesus
came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:
“This
is the time of fulfillment.
The
kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent,
and believe in the gospel.”
As
he passed by the Sea of Galilee,
he
saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea;
they
were fishermen.
Jesus
said to them,
“Come
after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Then
they abandoned their nets and followed him.
He
walked along a little farther
and
saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.
They
too were in a boat mending their nets.
Then
he called them.
So
they left their father Zebedee in the boat
along
with the hired men and followed him.
Mark narrates everything vividly. The pace moves quickly in this short Gospel,
as Mark sought to please his action-oriented Roman audience. We know from the other Gospels that there was
a little more backstory to Jesus’ relationship with these four fishermen. This was not the absolute first time they had
laid eyes on the teacher from Nazareth, by any means. Yet the point of Mark’s punchy narrative is
correct: when the time came, this quartet of Galileans lost no time in
responding to the call.
“Gospel” is literally “good news,” in Greek, “eu (good) +
angelion (news)”. The “kingdom of God”
is not a phrase found in the Old Testament, but some of the Psalms come close
(esp. 145), and the “kingdom of the LORD” describes David’s kingdom in
Chronicles (1 Chr 28:5 & 2 Chr 13:8).
The kingdom of God is both divine and human, as Jesus is both son of God
and son of David. Jesus is the King, but
he needs royal officers. This is where
the Galilean fishermen come in. They
will be groomed as viceroys in the kingdom.
Jesus calls them to himself and promises to make them “fishers of men,”
fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah:
Jer. 16:16 “Behold, I
am sending for many fishers, says the LORD, and they shall catch them; and
afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every
mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
In the context of Jeremiah 16, this prophecy referred to
judgment: God would send “fishers” and “hunters” to hunt down the rebellious
Israelites who defy his word. But in its
fulfillment in Christ’s ministry, the sense is switched. Now God, in Jesus, is sending out fishers and
hunters to recover his people Israel as well as the nations.
God’s desire to save all men, all the nations, is a strong
connecting them between the First Reading and Gospel. Just as God in the Old Testament called Jonah
and sent him to the Gentile Ninevites, so Jesus in the Gospel calls the
Apostles so they may later be sent to the Greeks, Romans, and other Gentiles.
The response of the Apostles sets an example for us. Simon and Andrew “abandoned their nets,”
whereas James and John “left their father in the boat.” They gave up their profession (“nets”) and
family relationships (“father”) to follow Jesus. All of us need to be ready to do that. Of course, for many of us, following Jesus
might faithfully may mean doing a better job
at our profession or caring more deeply
for our family. So the point is not that
professions or family relationships are inherently bad. It’s that nothing can take priority over
obedience to God.
That’s another point we should make about this passage: the
divinity of Christ. It’s often said or
thought that the Gospel of Mark doesn’t clearly indicate that Jesus is God, but
I disagree. His divine identity is
fairly clear to the sensitive reader, even and especially in the opening
chapters. In Judaism, it was not ethical
to give up one’s profession or abandon family relationships for anything except
to study the Torah, the Law of God. Only
God and his Law trump these other commitments.
By calling them away from family and profession, not to study but to
“follow me,” Jesus is putting himself on par with God. Rabbi Jacob Neusner recognizes this, and
Benedict XVI quotes him extensively on this issue in the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth.
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