THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR B
JESUS INAUGURATED A NEW ERA
Introduction
Christians believe that the Messiah has already come. The Jews claim that he is yet to come. Who is right? No doubt, the Jews. We, Christians, too dedicate four weeks each year to prepare ourselves for his coming. We anxiously wait for the Messiah because we are told that “justice will flower in his days and peace abounds till the moon be no more. He delivers the needy who call on him, the afflicted with no one to help them. May grain abound throughout the land” (Ps 72:7,12,16). We have not yet experienced these prophecies coming true, so we keep waiting.
The Messiah is yet to come, but everyone, including the Jews, will recognize that it is Jesus when he arrives. His birth into the world is slow and gradual; the new times, the last times, have already started but have not come to fruition.
One day people reported to Jesus that his mother and brothers were looking for him; he “looking around at those who sat there, said: Here are my mother and my brothers!”(Mk 3:34). Yes, the community of those who listen to his word, trust him and follow him. His mother is the one who, in pain, gives birth to him every day until God’s plan is fully realized: “To unite all in Christ everything in heaven and on earth” (Eph 1:10).
Generosity, a quick decision in detachment from what is old and incompatible with the future world, characterizes the response of those who, answering to the call of Jesus, commit themselves to God’s plans.
“Show me, O Lord, your ways, and give me the strength to follow you.”
First Reading: Jonah 3:1-5,10
We are in Jerusalem, near the end of the fourth century B.C. Israel remembers with anger and resentment the deportations by the Assyrians and the bitter experience of the Babylonian exile. Nineveh is still a synonym for a bloody city, and Babylon symbolizes the oppressive and idolatrous enemy.
It is the time of reconstruction of Jewish society. Restorations—as we know—are quickly accompanied by fundamentalism, hard feelings towards others, and the inability to leave room for mercy and forgiveness. Israel wants to regain her allegiance to God but is obsessed with the purity of the breed. She regresses and believes her election is a privilege and not a service. She becomes fanatical, and intolerant and is convinced that the Lord rejects the pagan nations.
In this environment, the author of the book of Jonah, an intelligent and open-minded rabbi is born. He is a late humorist who smiles at the animosity of his countrymen. Soaked in biblical thought, he realized that God is “full of pity and mercy, slow to anger and abounding in truth and loving-kindness. He shows loving-kindness to the thousandth generation and forgives the wickedness, rebellion and sin” (Ex 34:6-7); he loves every person and chooses Israel to save the heathen, not in opposition to them.
He does not resort to arguments, which are always ineffective against bitterness and ill will. He makes up a story whose main character is Jonah, an obstinate prophet who embodies his people's petty thoughts and narrow feelings. Jonah means dove in the Bible, the sweet and innocent dove represents Israel (Hos 7:11).
The story is set in Nineveh, the city reduced to a pile of rubble for at least three hundred years. However, the author imagines her at the height of prosperity and erects her as a symbol of evil, arrogance, and violence against the weak. The Israelites hate her and believe that God, being just, shares and approves their resentments and is determined to punish her, make her pay for the iniquity, and destroy her. But does God think that way?
Today’s passage responds to this question. “Get up—the Lord orders Jonah—go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach against it, because I have known its wickedness” (Jon 1:2). Jonah, disappointed, without saying a word, goes down to the port of Jaffa. Instead of embarking eastward, he goes to the west, towards Tarshish (Jon 1:1-3). He would rather die than become an instrument of salvation to the Gentiles.
Faced with the stubbornness of his envoy, God is not discouraged. He is too fond of the Ninevites, so he stirred a storm, and Jonah was thrown overboard. A big fish swallows him and brings him back to the shore (Jon 1:4–2:11). For the second time, the Lord instructs the rebellious prophet to go to Nineveh (Jon 3:2). The city “was very large and it took three days just to cross it” (v. 3).
Jonah begins to preach, without enthusiasm, only ‘for a single day’s journey.’ Lazy, he does not even reach half of Nineveh, and his message is reduced to just five words, the bare minimum. It is a catastrophic announcement, different from what the Lord had instructed him. God had not spoken of the city's destruction, but only the need for the invites to be aware of their sinful life.
Despite the sloth with which the mission is carried out, the people of Nineveh believe in God and are converted. The fact is impressive. With subtle irony, the author suggests the conflict: Israel has not listened to the voice of the prophets, the Ninevites instead, listening to the first words of Jonah—though badly spoken—have changed their lives. This is what the Lord had said to Ezekiel: “It is not to a people with a difficult foreign language to whom you are sent; it is to the people of Israel. All of them are defiant and stubborn of heart” (Ezek 3:4-7).
Jonah represents not just Israel. He is anyone who still imagines God as an avenger, anyone who cultivates the secret hope of one day witnessing the punishment of the wicked. For God, there are no enemies to defeat, but only brothers and sisters to love, and he helps to turn themselves away from sin so that they can be happy.
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Time is short; those who have wives must live as if they have none; those buying something as if they don’t possess it; those who use material goods as if they are not using them. This is, in short, the message of the passage. It gives the impression of introducing an inevitable devaluation of the reality of this world in favor of those of heaven.
This is not what Paul means. He wants Christians to give earthly things their true importance. They are important all right but will not last forever. Like all good things, marriage, family, and property can seduce and turn into absolutes. They become idols, totally absorb the human heart, and make them lose the meaning of life. To recall the transience of this world (v. 31), Christians are moved by an unshakeable faith in the Risen Lord. Some renounce marital life, refuse the possession of material goods, and put their own lives and persons at the service of others.
This choice represents the imminence of the future world where there is no more marriage or death, for they are like angels of God (Lk 20:35-36).
Gospel: Mark 1:14-20
The passage opens with a brief introduction of Jesus going to the villages of the Galilean mountains and preaching the gospel. “The time is fulfilled—he said—and the kingdom of God has come. Repent and believe the gospel” (vv. 14-15). This first sentence is the synthesis of all his messages.
He speaks of the kingdom of God. His listeners, educated by the prophets, know what he refers to. For five hundred years, Israel has had the experience of the monarchy. The Davidic dynasty had able sovereigns. However, the analysis that the Bible makes of this historical period is entirely negative. Except for a few noble exceptions, all the kings had fallen away from the Lord. They did not listen to the prophets and led the people to ruin. In 587 B.C., the last king and his people were deported to Babylon.
Was it the end of everything? Some dreamt of the restoration of the Davidic dynasty; some others put their hopes in a future messiah. All concluded, however, that only the Lord could revive the fortunes of Israel, personally assuming the leadership of his people, and proclaiming himself king in place of the previous unworthy rulers.
It was the beginning of the waiting for the kingdom of God. In the early books of the Bible, there already is a promise: “The Lord is our king” (Jdg 8:23), and “The Lord will reign for ever” (Ex 15:18). The promise is a commitment reiterated by God through the prophets: “I rule you with an iron hand” (Ezek 20:33); “The kingdom will be of the Lord” (Obad 1:21). By remembering this expectation, cultivated over the centuries by the Israelites, we canunderstand the explosive charge of the words of Jesus. The time of waiting—he says—is over; now is the time of consolation and peace, the kingdom of God is here; the Lord’s promises are fulfilled. The content of his message is the gospel—the good news.
Today, by gospel we mean a book, but in Jesus’ time, gospel meant only good news. All happy good news was called gospels: a military success, healing from an illness, the end of a war, the birth of an emperor, his ascension to the throne, and his visit to a city. At the beginning of his book, Mark presents Jesus as the herald, in charge of proclaiming such extraordinary news to people, so impressive as to arouse great joy in the listeners.
There are two conditions to experience great joy: one must repent and believe. To repent does not mean the firm determination to avoid sin. Instead, it is the decision to radically change how one sees God, man, the world, and history.
We have always focused too much on moral conversion. Often little has been understood that the first change is about God's image which we do not like to give up because it is modeled on our thoughts, judgments, and sentiments. We are firmly anchored on the Baptist’s words referred to us by Matthew: “Brood of vipers! Let it be seen that you are serious in your conversion” (Mt 3:7) or those that Luke attributes to the precursor: “The ax is already laid to the roots of the tree” (Lk 3:9). Mark leaves more space for the intuition of the good news: “The kingdom of God has come.” The kingdom's message is not about the imminence of a terrible punishment but a novelty that cheers. There is hope for all, even for the most hardened sinner, even for one who feels like cum, because God considers him a son, not a waste.
God already revealed himself thus, not only in the Holy Scriptures but through creation. For this, when humans imagine God, any god, one has to imagine him as necessarily good. To convert, then, is to go back to see God as infinitely good because this is already part of our DNA. Christ has revolutionized the world. He describes God as an embodiment of love and compassion, correcting first the idea of God that is deformed within us.
To convert is also to change the way of looking at human beings and creation. It is to start seeing everything from the perspective of God, a God who is loving, patient, slow to anger, full of kindness, and keenly interested in his creatures; a God who distinguishes the temporary from what is lasting.
To assimilate this image of God, it is necessary to live in a permanent state of conversion. One will never reach the perfection of the Father in heaven, but we must continually work towards it. The one who considers himself already converted stands outside the kingdom of God. These people may feel calm, yes, but never satisfied.
Then one must also believe that accepting the kingdom is not equivalent to accepting a package of truth. It means to follow Christ, with the certainty of his arrival, considering the fullness of life he offers. To believe is to trust him, his words, and his promises: “See I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). To believe is to accept his answers to our questions with unconditional confidence.
The second part of the passage (vv. 16-20) introduces the call of the first four disciples destined to become the heralds of the gospel after the resurrection of Jesus. The episode is divided into two parallel moments corresponding to the calls of the two pairs of brothers: Simon and Andrew (vv. 16-17), and James and John (vv. 19-20). The version of the events referred to us by Mark is different. From the historical point of view, it is difficult to reconcile it with John (Jn 1:35-51).
The goal of Mark is not to offer a detailed account of what happened. He does not intend to meet even our legitimate curiosity. He does not tell us, for example, if the four fishermen had already met Jesus or if they had seen some of his miracles. He does not explain how they could give up everything without raising any objections, without questions. He wants to give a lesson of catechesis to anyone who one day feels called by Jesus. The passage does not refer to the vocation of priests and nuns. It speaks about the call of every person to be a disciple. It is about the vocation to baptism.
The scene moves fast, so much so that it is almost hard to follow the frames. Jesus, the protagonist, is moving quickly, in a hurry to walk and speaking and inviting to follow him. It looks like a race against time. He is anxious to announce that ‘the time has come.’If one wishes to be part of the reign of God, there is no choice but to hurry.
It is noted that, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus never stops: passing along the Sea of Galilee (v. 16), he calls and does not turn back to see if the disciples have accepted his invitation. He goes straight over (v. 19), calls the other two, and then continues his way without stopping for a moment (v. 21). Anyone who wants to follow him cannot delude oneself: the road ahead is not easy. The Master leaves no rest even for a moment. He does not grant months off, days, or hours of vacation. He demands that the disciple keeps pace, always.
Then the other characters appear, Simon and Andrew, James and John. They are not praying or performing some important action. They are simply practicing their profession. Other vocations in the Bible took place in similar circumstances. Prophet Elisha received the invitation to follow Elijah while he was in the field plowing with twelve yokes of oxen before him (1 Kgs 19:19-21). Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law (Ex 3:1); Gideon was threshing wheat (Jdg 6:11), Matthew was busy collecting taxes (Mk 2:13-14).
God turns to those who are fully inserted in their social, economic, and family context. The adherence to Christ in faith is never a stopgap, a consolation for those who failed in other goals, but a proposal made to committed people and those involved in the ordinary things of life. As with all the vocations of which the Bible speaks, following Jesus is also a free choice. The disciple knows and follows the Master because he is called because it was revealed to him and offered as a gift. He who is aware of this is not proud nor despises those who have not joined Christ. He thanks the Lord for what he has received and commits to creating, also in others, favorable conditions to receive the same gift.
From the beginning, Jesus presents himself as a teacher different from those of his time. The others remained in their school, waiting for the disciples to meet them to learn the lesson and then return to their homes. The teachers did not choose the disciples, but the disciples chose the teacher.
Jesus does not want disciples who seek him to learn a lesson, but people who walk with him, who share his life’s choices. The first four disciples respond immediately to the call. They trust in Jesus and follow him, even if the destination is still unknown, and the fate to which they are called will be clear only later.
The Ninevites were granted forty days to accept or reject the invitation to conversion. Elisha was allowed to ‘say goodbye to his father and mother’ before following Elijah (1 Kgs 19:20). To his disciples, Jesus does not grant any postponement. To one, he will say: “Let the dead bury their dead; as for you, leave them and proclaim the kingdom of God. Whoever has put his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God”(Lk 9:59-62).
The answer to Jesus’ call must be given immediately. The separation must be total and immediate; nothing can prevent the disciples from following him. Even the most sacred affections, such as those that bind one to the parents and the family, attachment to one profession, building careers, economic and social security, and relationships must be sacrificed if they conflict with the new life to which Jesus calls.
