This Sunday our gospel reading continues the call of Jesus to His earliest disciples, His apostles. This call is to something special, something unique—and it is not simply a recanting of an ancient, once-in-a-lifetime calling but rather is a reminder that the Lord’s call is ongoing in every time and place and is to all peoples. Jesus’ call to discipleship is for us—you and me—today in our “time and place.”
What does this call mean, and what does it entail? The call from Christ means salvation offered. It means a personal invitation to join in Christ’s inner and Divine Life with God in eternity through how we live-out our lives in the world today—the way in which we find ourselves interacting with our brothers and sisters.
Let us listen to the words of this weekend’s Gospel of Mark (1:14-20): This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel. A few key points we should consider:
This is the time of fulfillment. We are living now, today, in this time and place and our call to be a disciple of Christ is not meant for our attention in five years or when we are retired and loaded with free time, but rather we are called to dive into our faith and live it out today. We can do this in many different ways; however I don’t want this to be an alarmist-like call to do everything right now, but rather that everyone can do something right now to begin our participation in Christ’s ongoing mission and ministry of concern for others. Perhaps for some that means joining a parish ministry to feed the hungry or to work with youth ministry or become a lector, join the choir, or teach religious education. Perhaps for some it simply means attending Mass more regularly and getting to know more intimately my faith and how I can better practice it. Small steps are usually the firmest steps with which to begin a life-long journey.
The Kingdom of God is at hand. Certainty tells us that we do not know what the future holds—as far as how much time we have, and the past is behind us—we cannot change it; and yet the present offers us the best opportunity to better the future and help make all things new. Today is the gift that allows me to change, to transform and to be-come that which God desires for me. Timing is everything, as they say. And this is the time to listen to God, to take in and discern what my life is meant to accomplish, and how I can best serve God by serving others. Like the gospel of the Good Samaritan, in asking “who is my neighbor,” we have to ask ourselves today who are the others I must serve?
Repent, and believe in the gospel. John the Baptist and Christ Himself preached the baptism of repentance, that spoke of a sorrowfulness for our weaknesses, for our choices of convenience, for our selfishness and for our lack of trust in God, and them to hear His Word Made Flesh, the Christ who is the Truth, and then to believe in Him. This belief is only illustrated in the way we live out our lives, meaning our lives of faith, with acts of kindness that build hope, with words of forgiveness that heal wounds, and with signs of mercy that draw people toward Christ in a welcoming way.
Mark’s message in the Gospel today is supported by the first and second reading of the day, with the first from Jonah, which talks about how in the act of the people’s repentance from wicked and sinful ways the Lord Himself repented and withdrew from the evil He said He would do to them. Mercy and forgiveness and love were shown to those who “repented, and believed in the gospel.” In the second reading today from 1 Corinthians, the message is one of timing. The past cannot be changed, the future cannot be promised, but the present is here-and-now, among us, and we should act accordingly and act in the truth. This is what we can do. Our faith teaches us that “there is no time like the present to act” when situations present themselves and that in acting appropriately, in truth and generosity, we bring about the love and compassion of Christ into our world and into the lives of those who are in need—whether it be in need of food, of medical care, of a visit, or simply in need of compassion—now is the time to act. In the gospel Mark (3:1-6) the Pharisees and the Herodians are trying to catch Jesus in the act of healing a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath day. Christ asks them, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” Christ speaks here to the idea of “acting” on a sacred day when the established powers-that-be believed it was more important to follow the ritualistic thing to do and thus refrain from acting at all. Jesus highlights the importance and the power of caring and acting for good over the obedience of ritual. The courtiers of Herod disagree and plot His arrest for daring to act. It is Christ in this gospel who teaches us the importance of not being indifferent, and to prioritize what truly matters and then act accordingly.