Homily Third Sunday Year B Discipleship
Homily Third
Sunday Year B
Reading 1:
This is a condensed version of the full story about Jonah and God’s call to him
to preach repentance in Nineveh.
Initially, Jonah didn’t want to go to the pagan city. He thought it would
be a waste of his time. He ran away from and ignored God’s plan to do his own
thing. But God, through extraordinary experiences, reminded Jonah that it was
the mercy of God to give the Ninevites a chance to repent. Reluctantly and
probably with little enthusiasm or conviction, Jonah went to the town and began
to preach a call to repentance.
To his
amazement and later anger at them and God, they heard and responded to the
grace of repentance immediately. Instead of experiencing God’s wrath, they were
spared. We see in this event the mercy of God for a people other than the
chosen people of Israel.
How often
have we heard the call of God to turn away from sin and to turn back to God,
but did not respond as totally and rapidly as the non-believing Ninevites? Do
we presume on God’s mercy and think there is time? At the beginning of Lent,
Ash Wednesday, we will hear the prophetic call of Isaiah: “Repent. Turn away
from sin and believe in the Gospel.” What response did we give in the past?
What response will we give in the present? A grace word from the Old Testament
reminds us: “If today you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts.”
The grace of repentance is a daily gift from God.
Gospel:
Jesus echoes the call of Jonah to the Ninevites to his own people (and to us).
Repent and believe in the Gospel: the Good News of God’s love and mercy. But
then he adds another step in the process. He calls us not only to repent and
turn away from sin, then to believe that the Lord loves us and desires to save
us, but to act. This third step sometimes is missing in one’s journey.
Like the
rich man, who came to Jesus wanting to know what must he do to have eternal
life, though knowing and hearing the truth, he failed to act on it. Jesus,
called him to become a disciple, totally depending on the Master. In contrast,
when Peter, Andrew, John and James heard the same invitation, they responded
immediately. They became his disciples
To be a
disciple of Jesus doesn’t mean that we have to leave everything. Rather, it
means that we don’t let our station in life prevent us from hearing and acting
on God’s word to us. It is not that husbands and wives must leave each other
and go off to a monastery. Rather it means that God is first in their lives,
their spouse is under God and their children are next. To follow Jesus is to
seek what is good, pleasing and perfect in the will of God for us in a given situation.
The world
may say one thing to us, but what God says should be the foundation for the
disciple. Whom will I really follow: the
world, myself or God? To follow the Lord is a daily call that requires a daily
response.
Reading 2:
The words of this reading are not meant to frighten us. These are given to us so that we can look at
our lives as a disciple from God’s perspective.
Paul, like
many of the first century Christians, really expected Jesus to return in glory
within their life time. At the same time Paul was very conscious of the reality
of death. So what he says can be looked at from either of these perspectives.
This world in
its present form is passing away. We
need to remember what Jesus said: We are in the world but not of the
world. We belong to Jesus as his
disciple not to the world.
While in the
world we have to do what is necessary to live adequately. But we must keep
everything in perspective of eternity. How will this relationship, this situation,
this decision impact my call as a son or daughter of God, as a disciple to live
with God forever?
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