A couple of weeks ago an old friend of mine (I\u2019m not referring to her age, obviously!) asked me by text whether I had really gifted her an Amazon voucher as claimed by an email she\u2019d received. A couple of days later a different friend of mine called me to check if I genuinely needed financial assistance as claimed by an email he had received. Both people were suspicious and rightly so because both cases were a scam. They were suspicious because they knew me well enough to know that I am not so generous as to give anyone anything for free; nor am I so shameless as to go round asking people for money. In other words, both those friends of mine asked themselves: \u2018Would Fr Tad do that?\u2019<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s gospel reading presents the story of Jesus offering two sets of brothers – all fishermen – a vocational re-training course: \u2018Follow me and I will make you into fishers of men.\u2019<\/em> They immediately grabbed their chance: \u2018at once they left their nets and followed him.\u2019<\/em> It\u2019s a very idealistic description of being called by Jesus, often used in priesthood promotion adverts, or as a theme of a popular modern hymn. It\u2019s idealistic but not realistic. When you think about it, such an immediate decision was reckless at best or fatally dangerous at worst. Imagine yourself being asked by a passer-by to leave everything you own, your family, your job, everything you depend on and jump headlong into the unknown, based on a dubious offer of vague future prosperity. Unless such an offer is made by a Nigerian prince, you\u2019d be silly to fall for it.<\/p>\n Thankfully, last Sunday the Church in her wisdom gave us a backdrop of today\u2019s story. Let\u2019s recall it briefly. At John the Baptist\u2019s remark, two of his disciples followed Jesus and spent an afternoon with him; in other words, they got to know him. One of those two was Andrew, who told his brother about Jesus and brought Simon to him. It happened around the time of Jesus\u2019 baptism in the River Jordan. Then the gospel of St John also mentioned Philip and Nathaniel being called by Jesus and travelling with him north, to Galilee. In other words, at least two of the brothers in today\u2019s gospel – Andrew and Simon – had already had quite a strong connection with Jesus at the point of leaving their nets. We can safely assume the same regarding the other two brothers, James and John. In other words, they didn\u2019t recklessly respond to a call made by a passer-by but made an informed decision based on their familiarity with Jesus.<\/p>\n One can think that this story applies only to a relatively small group of people called to a very specific way of life, namely the priesthood or consecrated life. But that would be wrong. St Mark didn\u2019t write his version of the life of Jesus for prospective priests, monks and nuns, but for everyone, regardless of their vocation, job or way of life. This story is a call to the radicalism of faith. Don\u2019t switch this stream off yet, please; I\u2019m going to explain what I mean, and it certainly isn\u2019t a call to arms in the name of Jesus.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s gospel reading opens with a call by Jesus: \u2018The time has come and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.\u2019<\/em> These are Jesus\u2019 first words in the gospel of Mark, and we can consider them his universal call. There are two elements in this manifesto. The first one is the prospect or offer: \u2019the kingdom of God is close\u2019<\/em> followed by the presentation of the way to become part of it: \u2018repent and believe the Good News.\u2019<\/em> The word repent<\/em> is an unavoidably unfortunate translation of the Greek word metanoia.<\/em> I\u2019ve been explaining the meaning of this word ad nauseam<\/em> but I\u2019m old enough to be repetitive\u2026 Metanoia<\/em> means a fundamental change in thinking that leads to a fundamental change in behaviour and way of living. Repentance (metanoia)<\/em> and faith (\u2018believe the Good News\u2019<\/em>) are the means by which one enters \u2018the kingdom of God\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n The instantaneous response of the four fishermen that follows illustrates how to answer the call. Some devious and fraudulent Christian leaders use this and similar passages to enrich themselves at the expense of their followers; such stories crop up in the media every now and again. So, the literal interpretation can be reckless at best or fatally dangerous at worst. Thankfully, we can rely on the spiritual meaning which can and should be radical to be transformative. We are called to submit to Jesus. The way we live our lives, the way we earn our money, the way we make decisions, the way we achieve our goals\u2026 We ought to submit everything to Jesus. In more practical terms, we should ask ourselves this mercilessly mocked and maligned question: \u2018What would Jesus do?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Here\u2019s the problem. How can we know \u2018what would Jesus do?\u2019<\/em> The answer is simple, and I flagged it up in the opening of this sermon. Just as my friends knew me well enough to evade the scammers, similarly, we need to get to know Jesus. When the four fishermen left their nets and boats and followed Jesus, it wasn\u2019t the final act. Over the course of following him closely, they learnt the new meaning of the kingdom of God and they learnt Jesus\u2019 ways; both turned out to be radically different from how they understood them at the start of their journey. Repentance – the metanoia<\/em> – is a life-long process of growing in a better understanding of Jesus. The Gospels are excellent sources of getting to know Him better. They are close at hand. Read them.<\/p>\n Image by orythys<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A couple of weeks ago an old friend of mine (I\u2019m not referring to her age, obviously!) asked me by text whether I had really gifted her an Amazon voucher as claimed by an email she\u2019d received. A couple of days later a different friend of mine called me to check if I genuinely needed financial assistance as claimed by an email he had received. Both people were suspicious and rightly so because both cases were a scam. They were suspicious because they knew me well enough to know that I am not so generous as to give anyone anything for free; nor am I so shameless as to go round asking people for money. In other words, both those friends of mine asked themselves: \u2018Would Fr Tad do that?\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-b"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n