Sunday Meditation: Uniting the Kingdom of God

In the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time in Year A we see Jesus starting His ministry.  But wait a second.  Didn’t we see Jesus in the First Sunday, two Sunday’s ago, being baptized.  Wasn’t that the start of His ministry?  And last Sunday, didn’t we see John the Baptist declare Jesus the Lamb of God after that baptism?  Wasn’t that the start of His ministry?  Well, yes to both of those Sundays and to this one too.  The Baptism is the start by God’s anointing; the second is start by John’s declaration; and today is the start by Jesus’s activities.

Three years ago for this Third Sunday in Ordinary Time of Year A, I embedded Dr. Prant Pitre’s explanatory breakdown of this Gospel.  One of the homilies I provide below will reference it, so it might be worthwhile to go back and watch it.  It is important to know that the significance of withdrawing to Zebulun and Naphtali was that those were the first two regions that went into exile when the northern kingdom was conquered.  So by Jesus going there, He will be reconstituting David’s kingdom, but only this time it will be a spiritual kingdom.

The Gospel passage divides into two parts.  We see Jesus in the first starting His ministry with the preaching of repentance.  And we see in the second, Jesus selecting apostles for His ministry.  In these apostles we the very turning away from ordinary life to a life in Jesus, which is exactly what Jesus is asking us to do.  We see the apostles giving up their business and their families, and we see them accepting their calling without knowing any details nor outcome.  Later in Matthew 19:27, Peter tells Jesus they have given up everything.  And Jesus responds, in  the Kingdom the twelve will be on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

 

 

Here is today’s Gospel reading.

 

 

When Jesus heard that John had been arrested,
he withdrew to Galilee.
He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea,
in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali,
that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet
might be fulfilled:
Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles,
the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death
light has arisen.
From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

 

As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers,
Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew,
casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.
He said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
At once they left their nets and followed him.
He walked along from there and saw two other brothers,
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.
They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets.  He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.
He went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people.

~Mt: 4:12-23

 

I have explained some up above, but I haven’t explained everything.  Fr. Cajetan Cuddy O.P. will explain the significance.

So with John the Baptist’s ministry over, Jesus receives the baton and starts His ministry, proclaiming the need for repentance as John had done.  “The Kingdom of God is the overarching theme of the entire economy of salvation.”  Jesus teaches, therefore, “the union of repentance and the kingdom.”  Since Jesus is the Kingdom, your turning—repentance—is a turning to Jesus.

Fr. Terrance Chartier provides an interesting pastoral homily.  If Jesus’s mission is to unite, those that create occasions of division are working against the Kingdom of God.

“Jesus of Nazareth comes to restore light and hope and unity to his people. He comes to reunite his people under one faith. He also comes to engraft...the Gentiles…Our Lord works to bring hope and unity and healing to places torn by division and destruction.”  The significance of this unity is that, as the second reading points out, the introduction of divisions into the Kingdom of God is working against the work of Jesus.  Beware of the schismatic elements you bring to the Body of Christ.  Surely fragmentation into denominations is working against Christ’s unity.  But so is obstinate fighting against the Pope and the Bishops, as we have seen in recent years.  Cum Petro et Sub Petro  (With Peter and Under Peter).  “The work of the devil is to divide and pit God's children against each other.  And the devil continues his work to this day.” 

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “He went around all of Galilee,

teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people.”

 

 

Let’s return to John Michael Talbot for the hymn, and this lesser know but still lovely hymn, “Walk and Follow Jesus.”

“I will walk and follow Jesus.”  How about you?