Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The Readings for Sunday, January 21, 2024:


First Reading: Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Psalm: Psalm 62:6-14 (Psalm 62:5-12 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Gospel: Mark 1:14-20

I'm interested that in this Gospel, people don't seem to hesitate. They don't weigh the cost of discipleship. They don't create a spreadsheet that compares the pros and the cons.

No, God beckons, and these men leave their normal lives immediately.

The story we get in today's Gospel seems like a young person's story. How hard is it to give up everything when you're young and don't really have all that much to give up? It's also a man's story--in today's Gospel, we hear about young men leaving the family fishing business. There are people left behind. One of the miracles of Jesus involves the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, which has always made me wonder about the wife he left behind. I'm assuming he left children behind too. There may be a reason why we don't hear about female disciples--someone must take care of the children, and it's not going to be people tramping across the countryside with Jesus.

In my younger years, the idea of giving up responsibilities and following Jesus sounded very appealing. Many days, it still does. But how might our world be different if we had centuries of emphasizing a different part of the ministry of Jesus? One of the reasons why these men were able to traipse around the countryside is because there were people funding the ministry. How might our world be different if we had had two thousand centuries of celebrating those who make ministry possible in this way?  For that matter, what if instead of celebrating the evangelizing apostles who went out with very little in their pockets, we celebrated the ones who stayed to build up the communities that the apostles created? We rarely celebrate settling deep roots into a community and staying put. We often see those churches as stagnant and out of touch, even if they're the ones supporting the local elementary school and teaching new immigrants and running the food pantry.

Most of us can't be the kind of disciple that leaves family and commitments behind to traipse the country. Many of us have been raised to believe that's what Christ wanted us to do--there's a Great Commission after all that tells us to go to all the lands and make disciples. We don't hear about the families that the disciples left behind. How are they supposed to cope?

Let us remember that there's more than one way to be missional. Today we celebrate a certain kind of disciple, and it's a kind of discipleship that has changed the world.

But let us also remember that God offers a variety of calls and invitations. At the root is always the idea that we'll be fishing for people. We have so many ways to fish for people.

How are you baiting your hook?