Immediately below, a quick insight on Sunday’s Gospel.
Below that, this week’s posting of the “Not the pastor’s note” from my Sunday email to friends and family.
As he passed by the Sea of Galilee,
he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea;
they were fishermen.
Jesus said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Then they abandoned their nets and followed him.
Mark 1:16-18
Why would Jesus call them “fishers of men”? Because as adult Jews, long familiar with their Scriptures, Simon and Andrew would have heard something similar before. Jeremiah the prophet, describing a time when God would seek out the many Jews (10 of the tribes) who were exiled and bring them back. Under inspiration, Jeremiah says this:
Jeremiah 16
14 Therefore, days are coming—oracle of the Lord—when it will no longer be said, “As the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites out of Egypt”; 15 but rather, “As the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites out of the land of the north and out of all the countries to which he had banished them.” I will bring them back to the land I gave their ancestors. 16 Look!—oracle of the Lord—I will send many fishermen to catch them.”
In Nazareth and now in Capernaum, both Jesus and Peter and his family grew up in an area where the original Israelite population had long ago been uprooted and taken into exile to Assyria and to Babylon. “Fishermen” sent by the Lord, would bring them back, a harvest for the Lord. Of further interest is how Jeremiah continued in that passage:
“After that, I will send many hunters to hunt them out from every mountain and hill and rocky crevice. 17 For my eyes are upon all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor does their guilt escape my sight. 18 I will at once repay them double for their crime and their sin because they profaned my land with the corpses of their detestable idols, and filled my heritage with their abominations.”
A harvest for the Lord, brought in by fishermen or hunters, does NOT amount to a get-out-of-jail-free card. For some it will be a time of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Judgment for evil deeds follows harvesting–something that Jesus will repeat often in his teaching in the years ahead.
from the Sunday Note:
Last week, in our Gospel taken from John, we learned how Andrew, a follower of John the Baptist, brought Jesus to the attention of his brother Simon (later “Peter”). In our Gospel reading from Mark today, Jesus walks past Andrew and Simon as they are casting nets, fishing along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and at his call they drop everything—nets, livelihood, co-workers, dad—and follow Jesus into the 2½-3-year training of his public ministry, death, and Resurrection.
Read alone, this passage from Mark seems incredibly abrupt and unlikely. But keep in mind our Gospels give us only a minute portion of all the things Jesus said and did in his last three years on this earth. In conjunction with John’s note from last week, we can surmise an intermediate interval, perhaps a year or more, where Jesus and the family of Simon and Andrew got to know one another, and Jesus told the brothers to be ready when events indicated that now it was time to begin working for the advent of the Kingdom. That things would have to be kept on the q.t. until then was no surprise. Any talk of ‘kingdom’ where bloody Herod’s sons reigned, and the no-nonsense Romans loomed up behind them, was bound to be a risky business.
It would take every day of those years for Jesus to get these chosen few to grasp what he was about, much less how they were to live it out. Not surprisingly, it remains a long-term process for Jesus’ followers today. Scripture is a key element in developing our relationship with the Lord. We are introduced to it through regular teaching and liturgy, but that hardly covers everything available to us. We should be soaking in “the whole story” as told by inspired writers and prophets, priests of the first covenants, and wise people reflecting with the help of the Spirit throughout the history of Israel and on through the last letters of the New Testament.
Keep in mind that what we call the Old Testament is between 70% and 80% of the Scriptures. Almost all of it is still instructive for Christians, and it remains the basis for understanding the New Testament. All of it—wisdom literature, historical narratives, prophetic teaching—when read in light of Christ, helps shape us and form us more into his likeness. For Peter, Andrew, Paul, and the rest of the Apostles, the “Old Testament” was 100% of the Scripture they grew up with. That was the Scripture that enabled them to respond to Jesus. Jesus quoted it all the time and gave them a new slant on it. As for the New Testament, it took a generation and more after Jesus’ Ascension for it to be written, and still more time to collect all the books and letters together and hand copy them for distribution. Every paragraph of the New Testament was written with the expectation that its hearers and readers would be familiar with the Old.
It is exceedingly short-sighted not to realize how valuable even somewhat obscure elements of the Old Testament can be for us today, too. Ignoring some 75% of Scripture is not a mistake Christians made for the first 1900 years or so after Christ. Today, though, ignorance of Scripture reigns supreme. And “Ignorance of Scripture” as St. Jerome said, “is ignorance of Christ.”
Here is a suggestion. One way to increase your Bible reading and miss none of the Old Testament or the New and do it in one year is a paperback Bible-in-a-Year—Your daily encounter with God printed by the Augustine Institute. About 20 minutes of reading a day is what it takes, and that can be divided into 10/10 for morning and evening. It gives you variety with three readings each day, divided into history/prophecy, wisdom, and New Testament. It allows you to begin any day of the year, and has no distracting footnotes, introductions, or ancillary material beyond a brief paragraph after each day’s readings to encourage reflection. Not a verse is skipped. Each book is read straight through. Size is 6”x 9” with average print for a full-sized book.
Here is a link: St. Augustine Paperback – Bible in a Year (catholic.market) Checking it, I see they are printing a new edition using the newly approved English Standard Version Catholic Edition, which uses modern English but with familiar traditional wording. Amazon still has copies of their prior edition which uses the well-known and widely used Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition. (If you are Protestant, note that both editions include the so-called “apocryphal books” that were printed in Protestant Bibles and were well-known by Protestants up until the very end of the 19th Century.)
Yes, it takes commitment. It will certainly bring up difficult questions, things to ponder and to pray about. A relationship with God that is living and active will involve challenge and struggle (doesn’t any real relationship?) as well as comfort and hope. Why not try it?
Fr. Mike Schmitz and Jeff Cavins are doing the Bible in a Year. It is one of the top podcasts! We are 25 days in, but at 20 minutes a day you can easily catch up or go at your own pace.
https://media.ascensionpress.com/podcast/all-bible-in-a-year-episodes/?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BIY&utm_content=biy-launch&mc_cid=cefda83ecf&mc_eid=577fb444a2
The Facebook group Ascension Catholic Bible Studies has started a weekly question and answer with Jeff Cavins on Thursday at 2:00pm to go along with our reading. And we all know how awesome Jeff Cavins is!
Join us!
Have a great week!
Dear Patricia, Thank you so much for pointing me to this podcast. I am really enjoying it.
Sincerely, Gay Davis
Anonymous is also doing it and enjoying. So much to learn !!