January 23, 2009
Sunday Scripture
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
BY FATHER DONALD DILGER
The gospel begins with the arrest of John the Baptizer. The arrest was ordered by Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee and Perea east of the Jordan. We must assume that John was baptizing within Antipas’ jurisdiction and therefore subject to arrest by this son of Herod the Great. When Antipas visited his brother Philip, Herodias, Philip’s wife and niece, became interested in Antipas. About age 40 she left her husband and married Antipas. There was a problem. Antipas was already married to the daughter of King Aretas of Nabatea (Petra). Antipas divorced this princess and sent her back to her father. This resulted in a war with his former father-in-law, in which Antipas was soundly defeated. Popular opinion blamed his defeat on his execution of John the Baptizer.
Why did Herod Antipas have John executed? John had the boldness of any Old Testament prophet. He confronted Antipas with his illigal and incestuous marriage. The Book of Leviticus 18:6, 16, 20:21, condemns and curses marriage of an Israelite to his sister-in-law. According to the Gospel of Mark, Herodias retaliates this insult to her marriage by instigating the arrest and execution of John. First century historian Flavius Josephus gives a different reason for John’s death. John was too popular. Antipas was afraid John would eventually lead a rebellion against Roman occupation and had John executed. A clear case of a preemptive strike against a supposed enemy!
We can assume from the Gospel of John that, after his own baptism and the arrest of John, Jesus had been engaged in his own baptismal ministry. Now he changes his activity to a ministry of preaching. Mark gives Jesus’ message briefly, “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” When Mark was writing some forty years after the departure of Jesus, he was convinced, just as Paul was earlier, that Jesus would come back in their time. He did not. This is why the same Jesus will warn his disciples in Luke’s gospel, written fifteen to twenty years after Mark, that if anyone tells Christians that the time is at hand, “Don’t follow them!”
Before Jesus begins his ministry in earnest, he chooses disciples, Simon and Andrew, sons of a man named John, and James and John, sons of Zebedee. All were engaged in the fishing business. Luke’s gospel even adds that the latter two were business partners of Simon (later called “Peter”). To the first pair, Simon and Andrew, Jesus says, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of humankind.” No questions asked. No investigation of this wandering preacher. Mark writes, “Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”
It should be noted: “immediately” is a favorite word of Mark, a word he uses 42 times in his gospel. Historically speaking, the response of the first four disciples may have been not quite so sudden. Theologically speaking, Mark indicates how total the response to Jesus’ call should be. The response of James and John to the call of Jesus is just as immediate. Mark even notes that they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men. As God’s grace builds on nature, so a business or professoin can also be preparation for a call to ministry. Fishers of fish become fishers of people. God despises no honest work, and can hallow that work by calling a person’s talents to an even higher level.
This reading was chosen to accompany Mark’s version of the call of Jesus’ first disciples because it depicts God calling a man to ministry — to be God’s spokesperson to the archenemy of the Israelites — the superpower of the day, Assyria. Jonah is unwilling to live up to the call, but God persists and eventually wins out over Jonah by drastic means. When Jonah finally agrees to do God’s bidding, to preach repentance to the Assyrians in their capital city Nineveh, he is very successful. However, Jonah being a patriotic Israelite, hates the Assyrians and wants God to destroy them. A furious and unwilling Jonah sits on a hill in the hot sun to await the destruction of Nineveh. God deputizes a plant to grow and shade Jonah. The plant dies and Jonah is even angrier. God points out to Jonah that just as he was Lord of the now dead plant, so he is Lord also of the Assyrians. The story of Jonah is not only the call of a prophet and God’s persistence in that call, but a parable attacking racial hatred and exclusion of foreigners.
Paul is concerned with the impending (as he thought) return of Jesus as final judge. Therefore strange advice from a confirmed celebate: “The married should now live as if not married.” Isn’t there too much of that already? Mourners should no longer mourn nor rejoicers rejoice. Strange indeed! And then something of interest to chronic shoppers: “Those who buy, let them buy as if they had nothing!” Tell that to spouses who wonder where the money goes. Since the end did not come as Paul expected, we can at least draw something from his advice. Do not be too attached to the things of this world, because all will be left behind, just as the disciples of Jesus in the gospel left all to follow him.