3^rd. Sunday in Ordinary Time.

January 22.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news^* of God,^{* 15}and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;^* repent, and believe in the good news.’^*

16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. ¹⁷And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ ¹⁸And immediately they left their nets and followed him. ¹⁹As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. ²⁰Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

Mark 1:14-20.

Commentary

People experienced the message of Jesus as a good news.  It was neither threatening, fearful or debilitating.  It gave people a sense of liberation, hope and joy. A shorthand for the content of that preaching was ‘the kingdom of God’. The kingdom of God was not a place, community or institution. It is God in action. As we read this Gospel text, what do we learn about this kingdom?  Is it present or future?  Is it to come? Or is it here already? Standing by itself, the phrase ‘has come near’ would designate 'immediate', just around the corner.  However, the commanding phrase is 'the time is fulfilled' and this gives a tone of presence and actual event.  The kingdom here and now surrounds us:  worship and morality must be lived in the experience of the invasion of God's Spirit.  The rest of the Gospel which unfolds through history down to our own day illustrates the comings of the Kingdom into human life.

After the summary of Jesus preaching, 1:15, there is the call of the first four disciples, 1:16-20.  Three of the four will have special experiences of Jesus ministry (Peter and the sons of Zebedee, - the healing of Jairus’ daughter, 5:37; Transfiguration, 9:2; in Gethsemane, 14:33. They are joined by others but as the gospel develops, their performance is pretty weak. The disciples are painted in their fragile humanness. 

• The two sons of Zebedee  with commendable alacrity abandoned their father, their boat and their hired servants all of which suggests affluent circumstances. Then it transpires that they wanted “seats of honour in the kingdom”,  10:35-40.
• Jesus wonders about their faith.  Do they have any?”Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith”. 4:40.
• They are bewildered.  “Who then is this?” 4:41.
• The Transfiguration left them confused and silent.  “So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.” 9:10.
• Peter recognizes that Jesus is the Messiah but he rejects the suffering Son of Man, 8:31-3.
• When the forces of evil closed in on Jesus we learn that “they all left him and fled” 14:50. And the fleeing disciples are joined by a mysterious young man who runs away naked.
• Peter makes a brief if inglorious entry at the trial, 14:66-72.

The scholars, Rhoads and Michie, wrote of the disciples that:  “….the final circumstances of the disciples seem to typify their whole struggle to be faithful followers of Jesus.  They simply are not prepared for the unpredictable, overwhelming consequences of following Jesus, 14:17-21, 37,42, 43-50, 66-72.  Everything overwhelms them;  everything happens too quickly;  The final depiction of Peter, sobbing after his third denial of Jesus, 14:72, is a stark portrayal of how much the disciples want to succeed and how utterly, at  the end of the gospel, they fail.” Rhoads, D. and Michie, D. Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel,  1982, Philadelphia, Fortress Press, p.93.

 Reflection.

We live in an ocean of divine life and presence. The ever coming kingdom of God supports, carries, challenges us every moment of our lives.  When we reach down into the stillness deep within us, then we meet it.

Something in Jesus appealed to these men and he saw something in them. Perhaps, not what they were but what they might become. They were looking for something more.  And he invited them to search for it.  And finding it did not happen in an instant.  Back around 1979 Bob Dillon launched an album under the name of one of its lyrics, -  Slow Train Coming. It described the slow growth of his Christian conviction.  And these young men who followed Christ that day had a long slow road to follow also.  We know all about their doubts, their questions, their betrayals. The real conversion was not the instant response to Jesus on that sunny day by the lake shore. The real response was found in the slow, and patient chipping away at their lives. The change comes in reflection, in maturity, in experience in personal growth. These young men set out to change the world; but like us all, they had to begin by changing the world in themselves.