January 21, 2018
The word that struck me in the Gospel of today is the little word “at once”, unfortunately replaced by the rather vague word “then” in our liturgical books. Jesus calls the fishermen Simon and Andreas and “at once they left their nets and followed him”. There is a sense of urgency in this scene. The Kingdom God Jesus had preached about is something so important that it can’t wait. Everything else is secondary. It requires an immediate answer. Usually we don’t take such an important decision that changes life completely in a hurry. Supposing Peter would have answered Jesus: “Thanks for the invitation. Let me go home and discuss it with my wife.” She would probably have said: “Are you crazy? Who is going to provide the food for our children? And what about me?” And had Peter consulted the village Rabbi, he probably would have said something like this: “We don’t know this fellow Jesus. His statements are sometimes a bit unbalanced. Wait till we have more information about him.” Had Peter followed his reason and not the intuition of his heart, his story would not have been told this Sunday morning. The first reading of today tells a very different story. It is about a prophet by the name Jonas who also gets a call and also seems to answer immediately. But the reading leaves out the most important part of the story, namely that Jonas goes indeed to the harbour, but then he takes a ship sailing in the opposite direction. He simply runs away from God’s call. Don’t we often react like Jonas when God sends us a gentle invitation? We tend to push it aside and do something else. Last Sunday we heard about another reaction to God’s call. In John’s Gospel Andrew asks Jesus: “Where do you live?” He wants to find out first who Jesus is before committing himself. Usually that is a wise thing to do before taking an important decision. Get more information, consult other people about it, take time to think and pray about it, go through a process of discernment. While this is prudent in most cases, there are situations, which call for an immediate reaction. And if we do not grasp the chance there and then, it passes never to come again. Here is an example. On his flight from Chile to Peru last week, Pope Francis was served by two stewards, a man and a lady. Looking at the man the Pope pointed to the lady and asked: “Is this your wife?” When the steward said yes, the Pope continued the conservation. “Are you married?” “Yes, but only in the registrar’s office.” “Why did you not marry in Church?” “Well, the church we wanted to marry in was destroyed by an earthquake.” In his spontaneous way the Pope surprised them with the invitation to get married then and there on the plane.” And so, it happened. If they had hesitated and insisted to consult first their families, this opportunity to be married by the Pope would have never happened again. In some situations, it is now or never. If Peter and Andrew had not responded at that moment, Jesus may simply have passed on. Such occasions, where we have to decide at once or miss our chance, happen rarely. But there are little invitations and inspirations through which God calls us almost on a daily basis. We see someone in need and have the feeling: I should go and help that poor person. If you do not do it on the spot, you may never meet that person again. Or something says in you: I should write that difficult letter now, but then you procrastinate and escape into other occupations and forget all about it. Or you may go to your work in the morning and you feel a subtle urge to lift up your heart in prayer to God for a moment. If you do not respond at once, that chance may never come back during the rest of your busy day. Maybe we could try to become more aware of these little invitations we receive and like Peter and Andrew respond at once.
Fr Wolfgang Schonecke, MAfr