The gospel (Mark 1: 14-20) on this third Sunday in ordinary time, has us trying to catch up with Jesus. He’s launched his mission, announcing that the Kingdom IS here (same phrases as the now-imprisoned John the Baptizer had used), his tone immediate and urgent. Then he invites strikingly ordinary fishermen to follow him on this extraordinary journey.
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| Fishing on a lake in Kerala, India |
I’ve often thought that Simon, Andrew, the Zebedee boys initially must have felt that their lives were on the way up, that they had won the lottery. Something powerful and deeply felt had motivated their decision to “leave their nets.” From this moment on they could no longer worry about their lives and day-to-day business. Now with Jesus, they were to be about bringing Good News and healing others… who, to them, before this event, had been strangers perhaps even enemies. These common fishermen were beginning a journey that would eventually end in their transformation into peculiarly free (and even dangerous) people of the Kingdom.
It may often surprise – and reassure – us when we notice just whom God calls to do special things in the world of the Bible: reluctant, complaining prophets like Amos, Jonah and Jeremiah, inexperienced youngsters like David – the boy who would be Israel’s greatest king, Daniel – alien, slave, teenage-seer, and Mary – the maiden who could give an unqualified “yes” to God. And in today’s gospel… a remarkably unremarkable collection of fishermen’s sons. Still, I’ve often wondered what compelled them to leave their nets, their places in the world, their responsibilities, their comfort-zones… to follow after a relative nobody. Jesus of Nazareth was just beginning his work and… well, 30 years is a long time to not be known for anything. Why take the risk for such an uncertain, “unlikely” reign of God, such as what Jesus was describing! It appears that, along with such calls from God there always comes the grace to respond...deeply, fully, faithfully.
This Sunday may also have us wondering about how you and I respond to Christ’s call and what is it that we really, deeply desire – not a bad thing at all. People of the Gospel should never forget how to look forward…to the Kingdom. Especially today in our youth-obsessed western culture that would have us “yearning backwards” i.e. envying others’ good looks for fear that we’ve lost our own, desperately holding on to some great (if momentary) moment in music, sports, politics, or just endlessly hungry to feel acknowledged, noticed… we may someday discover that we’ve spent a lifetime leaping from one lily pad to another in our search for happiness…
Meanwhile, in today’s scriptures, these first “chosen” are described as nothing more than fishermen, pêcheurs in my new language. In French there’s a play on words here, not lost on the faithful I’ve spoken with. At each Eucharist we ask God (numerous times, in fact) to forgive us for being “pecheurs” (sinners), yet’s there’s no doubt that it’s essential for each of us to answer His call to to be “pêcheurs” (fishers) – the two words are proounced exactly the same, my friends smilingly agree.
And so, we baptized (also pretty ordinary, right?) are called in the same way – to follow (i.e. to learn from Jesus in transit with Him) and to announce, to heal, to offer hope. It seems essential that, in order for us to hang in there with the Lord to complete His mission, we have to learn to know ourselves as He does…enough to neither be shocked to know we are always sinners in need of healing nor perplexed by His complete confidence in us as His evangelizers of others.
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