1-25-26 Third Sunday of Ordinary Time- Call of the Disciples


                                                                 


Our gospel this week presents us with interesting thoughts about the call of the early apostles and the call to discipleship for all of us.    If we were to compare the different gospels, this call can be different.  For example, in Mark and Matthew’s account it happens similarly to this Sunday’s gospel.  In Luke’s account though the men are fishing and catching nothing and Jesus ‘s instructs them where to find the fish.  They do and catch an abundance of fish.  Peter leaves the boats, falls at Jesus’s feet, and ask him to depart because Peter is a sinner.  Jesus tells Peter from now on he will begin to catch men.  Then he and others leave their nets and follow Jesus.  In John’s gospel, the apostle John and Andrew follow after Jesus after John the Baptist points out to them, that Jesus is the Lamb of God.  They spend a day with Jesus and then they go and tell Peter what they have learned and they affirm that they have found the “Messiah.”                                                                                                                                                   In the first part of the gospel, it talks about Jesus, leaving his hometown of Nazareth, where he grew up and with Mary and Jospeh, and moving to Capernaum.  Why Capernaum we might ask?   Capernaum was a seaside town on the shores of Lake Galilee. “Capernaum was the place to be if you were a merchant and wanted to grow your business.  Capernaum was considered an important trading city since the roads that ran through it were on important trade routes."  It certainly would be a good place for Jesus to begin his mission. Stories of his preaching and his cures would travel far and wide along the roads that lead in and out of Capernaum and across the water of lake that was a major fishing area in that region and beyond. Capernaum was a city of about 1500 people.  Its primary industry was fishing.   It did have a beautiful synagogue in which Jesus would speak from time to time. So, overall, it was an excellent place for Jesus to select for the beginning of his ministry.1    This first part of the gospel this weekend can leave us some questions to ponder.  Have you ever had to move from the home where you grew up and then move to a whole new area?   What was that like?   Did you have to begin a new school?  Was it easy to make friends?  Was it easy to find good housing?  What questions or feelings did such a move bring for you?  Did you wonder how you would maintain connections with your family?     Have you ever experienced anything in your life like a loss of job, a sudden serious illness, that’s so upended your life in a way that you had to begin your life anew?                                                          And so, we see, from the gospel that the core of Jesus ’s mission when he began was about people changing the directions of their lives.   Repenting doesn’t only mean feeling sorry for sins, but it has a deeper meaning, principally -“to change the direction of your life".     In his new location, Jesus would have been preaching on the streets and in the synagogues in and around Capernaum.   Since Peter and his family, as well as John and his family would have lived in this area. It is likely they would have heard of Jesus and may have even encountered him preaching in one of their synagogues.                        When Jesus walks along the shores of the lake of Galilee, the people there would probably have recognized him.  So, when he comes to Peter and John and the others and summons them to follow him it is not the far stretch that they would have left their jobs to follow Jesus and see what he is about.   Of course, the gospels show us that they return to fishing a number of times, before leaving it completely.  But isn’t that also how our own faith journey with Jesus grows in "fits and starts?”    In other words, it begins, then stops, then begins again, each time with us, like the apostles, growing closer and closer to Jesus.  And through it all Jesus is patient and understanding with us, as he was with the apostles, even as he asks us, as he asked them, to go in “a new direction with him.”                                                              The gospel invites us to consider what it would take for us to respond positively to a summons from Jesus to follow him?   Would we just lay down everything and go?  Or would we have questions about where this is all going to lead?   Or would we want assurances from Jeus that everything was going to work out and that there wouldn’t be any problems?   How well do we know Jesus to be able to just get up and go with him?                                                                                                                                   As I was reflecting on this this gospel and Jesus ’ invitation not only to Peter and John but through them to all of us, a song came to mind.  It is a song we sometimes sing at Mass, and it is called “The Summons."  It was written in 1983 by John Bell.    The opening line of the song gives us some indication of what God, through our faith in Jesus, might ask of us.  And that opening line goes “Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?2   Could we do that?  What would it mean giving up (occupations, relationships, addictions, free time, Sunday sleep-ins, etc.) to do this?                                 The rest of the song asks us about the following:

-going places, we do not know 

-letting Jesus change us in ways we cannot perceive 

- caring for or about people, we now avoid (i.e., the sick, the ignorant, the impolite, the foreign, etc.)

-a willingness to stand up for what we truly believe even when it means a stare or two or three from others 

-to reach out and touch the sick, if need be, and not turn away

-visit the prisoners and be a source of hope and not condemn

- trust the path he chooses for us and not turn back

- let the light of Christ’s hope shine in you and through you for others to see?  

                      Will you do all these things and more if He would call your name?3   


1. https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/why-was-capernaum-such-an-important-city-in-the-bible.html

2. catholichymn.net https://catholichymn.net › the-summons

3. Ibid


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