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In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls us to repent as the kingdom is near at hand. We are called not to become overly engrossed in the ways of the world, but to believe the good news and live for the kingdom of God.
Our Choice
Our first reading today doesn’t tell us the whole story.
In this, the tail-end of Jonah’s story, we see him respond immediately to God’s call, and head off obediently to preach to the people of Nineveh. But that’s only half the story.
The earlier chapters of the Book of Jonah saw him stubbornly refuse to do as God asked him, fleeing instead in the opposite direction. It takes a mighty storm, a near ship wreck, and a very close encounter with a big fish to make him see sense and do as he’s asked. And even then, as Jonah’s story draws to a close, we see him sulking outside Nineveh because he feels God should not have awarded the very forgiveness he himself has preached!
He has certainly earned his title of reluctant prophet.
This is certainly not the case with the disciples in today’s gospel. When Simon, Andrew, James and John are called by Jesus, they leave their nets and their boats ‘at once’ to follow him. They even leave their families behind, such is their haste to follow Jesus.
In the opening pages of the Gospel of Mark, everything happens ‘at once’. And there is no time for dilly dallying. Jesus’ calling of his disciples is unstoppable, and the work of the kingdom too immediate to wait.
It took some time, and some convincing, and being swallowed whole by a fish, before Jonah was ready to fulfil God’s plan. The disciples, by contrast, are ready and willing to respond to Jesus’ call. Something about Jesus drew them away from their comfortable and familiar surroundings to answer his challenge. He invites them to change. ‘Follow me and I will make you fishers of men’.
They commit themselves to following in his way, not knowing where it would lead them. We too are invited. The choice is ours.
Intercom
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