Third Sunday
after the Epiphany (Year B)
Jonah 3.1-5, 10; Mark 1.14-20
St. Gregory’s, Long Beach
Live Streamed
on Parish Facebook page (beginning at 19:05)
As
I noted in my sermon last week, the key Scripture readings for both last Sunday
and today focus on how God and Christ reveal themselves to us through “call
narratives.” Stories that focus on someone being invited or called into God’s
service. In actuality, when you go back to the Sunday before last, to the feast
of the Baptism of Our Lord, the Gospel for that Sunday is also essentially a
call narrative. Although, rather than focus on our response to call, it is
really the story of Jesus’ de facto call to public ministry—the event that
began his public ministry. So, we really have the first three Sundays in the
season after Epiphany in which the focus is on call to ministry. Sending a
pretty clear message that one of the key ways that God is manifest in Christ,
that God is manifest in our own lives, is through being called into his
service.
As
you may recall, our readings for last Sunday contained essential three call
narratives. The call of Samuel in our Old Testament reading and the calls of
Philip and Nathanael in our Gospel reading. From these, we were able to glean
some key characteristics of how God calls and how we respond. In terms of how
God calls, we saw that God is, if anything, persistent; as he was with Samuel
and Nathanael. We also saw that the way we are called into God’s service is as
unique as we are. God meets us where we are in our own lives. He came to Samuel
in the middle of the night in the tabernacle. Jesus ran into Philip on the
road. God worked through Philip to invite Nathanael. And then we saw that there
are differences in how individuals respond. Some are able to respond
immediately, as did Samuel and Philip. And some need a little time or
information, as did Nathanael.
This
week in our Old Testament and Gospel readings we have more call narratives.
While it may be harder to pin down a central theme for these narratives, one
that could be made has more to do with the inner machinations that occur within
the individual from the time they receive a call from God to the time they
respond—be that responding “yes” or “no.” What we today refer to as the
discernment process—exploring all the facets of the call as related to our own
lives, and only then making an informed decision as to how to respond. But to
get there, we need to dig a little more into the stories, as the discernment is
not readily apparent on first reading. And as with last week, the two call
narratives—the call of Jonah in our Old Testament reading and the call of Simon
Peter, Andrew, James, and John in our Gospel reading—really couldn’t be more
opposite.
Read more!