The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
January 26, 2014
Click here to listen to this
homily (mp3 file)
The calling of the first disciples is a story we
know very well -- so well that we may tend to tune it out when we hear it. But
what if we try to hear the story as if for the first time? We might just be
surprised at what we hear.
But I admit that there doesn’t seem to be much room
for surprise here. The story is quite straightforward. It’s a story about
four fishermen who answer a call, and who, in doing so, leave everything behind.
But a closer look reveals that, in those few verses from Matthew’s gospel, it
is five people, not four, who leave everything behind. Peter and Andrew leave
their nets to follow Jesus; James and John leave their boats and their father to
follow Jesus. But did you catch the fifth person to leave everything behind?
You had to be listening carefully. So, just in case you missed it, listen
again. The passage began with these words: “Jesus left Nazareth and went to live
in Capernaum by the sea.”
“Jesus left Nazareth.” Jesus is the other one
– actually the first one – in that brief gospel passage to leave everything
behind. Jesus left Nazareth, and for him, leaving Nazareth was not just a
physical move -- a move of a few miles from Nazareth which is up in the hills to
Capernaum which is down on the lake shore. No, for Jesus, leaving Nazareth
meant leaving home and family. It meant leaving behind all that was safe
and comfortable. It meant breaking out of the cocoon, if you will: flying free,
moving into the great unknown, setting out on the mission for which he had come.
And what prompted him to do this? Matthew
simply says that “when Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been arrested…he
left Nazareth.” It seems that John’s arrest – John’s silencing – told
Jesus that he could be silent no longer, that it was now time for him to take up
where John had left off. And so he left home and began his ministry, and when
he did, he sounded a lot like John the Baptist. In fact, his message was almost
identical to John’s: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
So, that’s the first thing. Jesus left Nazareth.
If we understand the meaning of that, we will better understand why Jesus was
able to call others to leave their homes. Jesus first left behind all that
was comfortable, safe and secure for him before he ever presumed to ask Peter
and Andrew, James and John to leave behind all that was comfortable, safe and
secure for them. They did what he did. Jesus left Nazareth behind; they
left behind their boats, their nets, their homes, their families, their way of
life.
I don’t want to belabor the point, but I do find it
reassuring that Jesus never demanded anything of his followers that he didn’t
first demand of himself. He still doesn’t. And that can be a
comforting thought whenever we are faced with a tough decision – maybe a
decision about our calling in life, or about an unhealthy relationship we’re in,
or about a career move -- any time we feel that God may be calling us to move
beyond our comfort zone and we feel uncertain, stymied, or stuck. The
decision won’t be any easier to make, but we will know that we are making it in
very good company. The best!
I spoke earlier of hearing this passage as if for
the first time. Something else caught my attention as I did that: it was
the words “at once” and “immediately.” “At once they left their nets and
followed him…. Immediately they left their boat and their father and
followed him.” That’s a very surprising response, if you think about it.
It’s one thing to leave behind everything you know and love, but to do so at
once? Immediately? Would you make a life decision that quickly?
Would I? To be honest, no! But those men did.
I sometimes wonder what it was about Jesus that
prompted such a response. Was it something in his demeanor -- his
appearance, his physical bearing? His penetrating eyes, perhaps, or his
commanding voice? Or was it something deeper: something more difficult to
describe but no less real? Maybe an inner peace he exuded, a holiness that
he radiated simply by his presence? Artists have long offered their own
answer to this. Caravaggio’s brilliant “The Calling of Matthew” comes to
mind. Film directors have tried their best, too, and so have poets and
preachers.
In the end, though, there’s probably no clear and
definitive answer -- any more than there is when it comes to saints down through
the ages who, when they heard the call of Jesus, did an abrupt ‘180’ and
followed him. I think, for instance, of St. Francis of Assisi who heard
the call of Christ while he was praying before an ancient crucifix in a rundown
church; of St. Catherine of Siena and St. Therese of Lisieux who heard the call
when they were very young girls; of St. Ignatius Loyola who heard it as a young
man with many things besides Jesus on his mind.
My friends, the call of Christ is a mystery, a
mystery of grace, and so, of course, is the response. All we know is that
when Jesus called his disciples, they left everything -- at once -- and followed
him. And the same is true for those saints I mentioned, and for countless
saints down through the ages.
Oh, and we do know one more thing. It’s this: Jesus
is still calling. He is still calling!
Father Michael G. Ryan
