3rd
Ordinary Sunday (Year A)
First
Reading: Isaiah
8:23-9:3 Second
Reading:1 Corinthians
1:10-13, 17 Gospel
Reading: Matthew
4:12-23
“THE
LORD IS MY LIGHT AND MY SALVATION!”
The
story is told of a little girl who was shivering her way along a main
street in one of our great cities. Seeing the beautiful lights of a
church building and hearing the music coming from within, she went in
and warmed herself as she listened. The preacher's text was, "I
am the light of the world."
At the close of the service, she went to the minister and said, "Did
you say you are the light of the world, sir?"
The minister replied, "No,
dear child. Christ is the light of
the
world, and I am one of the lights."
The little lass looked at him for a moment, and then solemnly said,
"Well,
sir, I wish you would come down and hang out in our alley, 'cause
it's awful dark down there!"
Christians are, indeed, as the Master said, "the
light of the world."
As one of those lights, are you "hanging
out"
in some dark
alley?
Today
is the 3rd
Sunday in Ordinary Time. On Sundays the First
Reading and the Gospel Reading are usually coordinated with each
other. But, in this particular Sunday there is more synchronicity
because a part of the First Reading from the Book of the Prophet
Isaiah is quoted literally in the Gospel Reading from St. Matthew.
The Church reads this text of Isaiah as a preparation for our hearing
St. Matthew describe the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. St.
Matthew quotes this passage of Isaiah directly, thus invoking its
aura of triumphant expectation as an appropriate response to the
Messianic age ushered in by Jesus, whose vocation and destiny it is
'to fulfill what had been said through
Isaiah the prophet.'
Two words come
through strongly in the Scripture Readings of today. They are 'light'
and 'unity.'
In the First Reading and the Gospel Reading there is the image of
light
shining in the darkness, light bringing hope, freedom and joy, of
burdens being lifted, or prisoners being freed. God
wishes to redeem all people through Christ, who dispels the darkness
of the world. Jesus
is that light that shines in the world
and brings the world renewed hope, joy, forgiveness and peace. And
in the Second Reading in his First Letter to the Corinthians, St.
Paul asks the Corinthians to overcome all divisions existing in their
community and implores them to
foster unity
and concern for each other.
“THE
PEOPLE WHO WALKED IN DARKNESS HAVE SEEN A GREAT LIGHT!”
In
the First Reading of today from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, we
have the Messianic
prophesy
of Isaiah giving hope to the people of Zebulun and Naphtali, who
dwelt in the land of gloom and walked in darkness. On them, the
prophet says that great light has shone. Zebulun
and Naphtali were two of the original twelve tribes of Israel. Joshua
had assigned them to the northern area of the country. Zebulun
settled to the northwest of Galilee and Naphtali in the northeast.
They were the first provinces in northern Palestine to be conquered
by the Assyrian empire in the eighth century B.C. and the inhabitants
were taken away in exile. They became known as part of 'the
Lost Tribes of Israel.' For the next several centuries the
region was called 'Heathen
Galilee.'
The prophets considered the area to be a 'land
of death.'
Isaiah offers instead a vision
of hope,
based on what he sees as the certain intervention of God. He predicts
that the landscape of gloom will change, and light and peace will
again come to the region. The prophecy could be pointing to an ideal
king, one who will bring rejoicing.
St. Matthew interprets
it as a sign that the Messiah will come there. Jesus is the
fulfillment of this prophecy. It is significant that the
first provinces to fall to the Assyrians would be the first to see
the full light of Christ´s ministry.
THE
BIGINNING OF JESUS' PUBLIC MINISTRY:
Today’s
Gospel Reading tells us about the beginning of the ministry of Jesus.
The Evangelist Matthew tells us that after John the Baptist had been
imprisoned by Herod Antipas, and as spoken by the prophets, Jesus
withdrew to Galilee, his home province and began his own
proclamation. John the Baptist is in prison and with his voice
silenced, his ministry came to an end. It was thus opportune for
Jesus to fill the void. So, he leaves Nazareth for the town of
Capernaum. The motive for Jesus making this move seems to be the
arrest of John the Baptist. While no details are given about the
arrest of John, it looks as if Jesus is continuing the work started
by him, his own mission of God’s Kingdom.
a)
“The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light.”
St.
Matthew says that Jesus left his home town of Nazareth and went to
live in Capernaum, a town in Galilee, which, he tells us, is on the
shore of the Sea of Galilee 'in the area of
Zebulun and Naphtali.' This reminds the Evangelist of a
prophecy from Isaiah which he now sees being fulfilled in Jesus,
“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, ...
the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light; on those
dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen."
That is to say that Jesus
is the Light that comes to those living in darkness. To emphasize
this fact, today's Liturgy uses as the First Reading the passage from
Isaiah, which St. Matthew quotes in his Gospel and which, interesting
enough, is also used as one of the readings on Christmas when we
celebrate the birth of the Savior, 'The
Light of the world.'
At this time Capernaum
was an unlikely place for Jesus to begin his ministry. It was
regarded as a 'remote' province. It was a rebellious region where
even Jews were not noted for their observance of the Law. Yet the
prophecy suggests that 'The Light of the
world' is to be found in Galilee. And it is precisely in
this Galilean town of Capernaum that Jesus, the Messiah, begins his
mission.
b)
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
“Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This was the
keynote address of Jesus upon the start of his public mission. Like
John the Baptist, Jesus also uses the word 'Repent'
in his initial utterances. There is thus a continuity in their
ministries. But while John asked the people to repent to prepare for
the coming of the Promised One, Jesus, told the people to repent
because 'the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'
Repentance is the response to Jesus’ call to us. ‘Repent’
usually means to be sorry for, to regret some wrong actions we have
done in the past. Jesus, however, is asking for much more than that.
The call is not just to be sorry for past sins and not to do them any
more. It is a call for a change of direction from now on and into the
future. The Greek word for repent is 'metanoia,'
which implies a radical change in one’s thinking; it means looking
at life in a completely new way. It is only when we begin to make
this radical change that we begin to become part of that Kingdom,
that we begin effectively to come under the influence of God's power
in our lives. We begin to see things the way God sees them and our
behavior changes accordingly.
Now, 'the
kingdom of heaven' can be a very misleading term. To many,
it may be identified with 'heaven,' the
place up there where we hope to go to after death, if we have
behaved ourselves. Again, 'kingdom'
for us suggests the territory ruled over by a king. But actually, it
indicates more the power of being a king than the place over which
one is king. To be in the kingdom, then, is not to be in a particular
place, either in this life or the next. Rather it is to be living
one's life - wherever we are - under the loving Kingly and Fatherly
power of God. It is to be in a relationship of loving submission to
one's God and Lord and to be in an environment where values like
truth, love, compassion, justice, freedom and peace prevail.
c)
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
As
Jesus began his public ministry his first act was to gather some
disciples who would share his work and his mission. They are not the
Pharisees or Scribes, not scholars or influential members of the
community, but fishermen who may have been quite illiterate. It is
significant that the call takes place right in their working place
and the initiative for the call comes from Jesus. Jesus
had obviously been watching them at work. He
knew he would need others to help him in spreading the news of God’s
Kingdom.
While the Evangelists
Luke and John allowed time for the disciples to find out more about
Jesus before they were called, Matthew did no such thing. He
immediately showed Jesus calling two set of fishermen brothers —
Simon (later renamed Peter) & Andrew and James & James. And
except for telling them "Come after me,
and I will make you fishers of men," He gave no
indication about what following him entailed — where they were
going and what they would do. Matthew was not concerned with those
details. His concern was that Jesus was about to begin his public
ministry and he needed help so that he could make himself, the 'great
light,' shine on people.
How did the first four
disciples respond to Jesus' call? In St. Matthew's words, "At
once they left their nets and followed him." Even
though they had no previous knowledge of Jesus, they put their total
trust in him, leaving behind everything, their fishing nets, their
parents and family, not knowing where it would all lead. Jesus
himself had already taken this step in leaving Nazareth, his family
and his livelihood as a carpenter for the sake of his mission. From
now on their life would consist not in worrying what they could get
and keep but in service to their brothers and sisters, especially
those in greatest need.
The call to follow Jesus
establishes a relationship between what the disciples are now, and
what they are to become. Jesus
tells them they will be fishers of men. Their
ordinary work, drawing sustenance from the darkness of the sea,
becomes a sign of a deeper reality, drawing men and women from the
darkness of sin and death. It's all about gathering together those
who are waiting for the kingdom of heaven. These chosen people now
share the ministry in which Jesus was engaged and is summarized as
teaching, preaching and healing those who were sick in the context of
the kingdom. For the moment 'Jesus is the
Light' which the people in darkness are rejoicing to see;
but he will soon say to his followers, 'You
are the light of the world,' and that is his purpose in
choosing his followers.
ST.
PAUL IMPLORING FOR UNITY IN THE CORINTHIAN COMMUNITY:
In
the Second Reading of today from his First Letter to the Corinthians,
St. Paul implores the Corinthians, in the name of Jesus, that there
be no factions among them, rather they be united
in mind and judgment.
The
Corinthian community was divided; it was bickering and fragmenting;
ambition and rivalry were brewing. The Reading tells us that people
were taking sides along the lines of various personalities in the
community, instead of the message of the gospel. Paul's
success in winning converts in Corinth, Greece attracted considerable
interest among other missionaries. One of these was an Egyptian Jew
named Apollos.
The latter knew only a limited amount about Christianity, having been
a disciple of John the Baptist. In Ephesus Paul took him aside and
explained the full range of Jesus' teachings. Apollos then went to
Corinth and founded a second church. Peter
also seems to have followed this pattern. Eventually there were four
separate Christian communities in the city and a jealous struggle
developed between them. St Paul warns them against the danger of
divisions, or literally, of schisms.
He teaches that there should be only one church that of Jesus Christ.
It is Jesus Christ, only one person, the one who
suffered, died and rose for all, the one in whose name all of them
have been baptized and he cannot be divided. Hence all bickering
among them is deplorable.
CONCLUSION:
We
too, are called to follow Jesus. No matter what our circumstances, or
what we do for a living, we must do our part in bringing the Good
News to those we live with, work with, and meet each day. So, we each
have a hand in spreading the news of God’s
Kingdom.
By our baptism, we have
received the light of Jesus and have thus been called to
discipleship. In this regard, we have to begin with ourselves in the
task of making the light of Jesus shine. We can do so by first
uncovering the many dark areas within us - our selfishness,
weaknesses, hurts, and inclinations to greed, power and fame. But as
we continue to do so, we are also to bring that light to others. If
Jesus came to us as the 'great
light,'
we are to be 'small
lights'
to others for the same task - to disperse the darkness that continues
to envelope the world. This is what our following of Jesus should be
about.
Too
often, though, as we learn in the Second Reading that our light is
diminished due to divisions, factions, rivalry or infighting among
ourselves and our efforts to bring 'the
Light' and be 'the light'
are often fragmented and uneven. Let us then be of one mind and of
one purpose and foster unity and peace.
Let us accept Jesus' invitation and announce to others by the way we
live, "The
Lord is my light and my salvation,"
and he wants to be yours too! And this is the Good news of today.
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