What is our response to God’s call?

Jan 20, 2023

                   Reflecting on our Sunday Readings with Archbishop Emeritus John Ha

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)
Readings: Isaiah 8:23 – 9:3;
1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17;
Gospel: Matthew 4:12-23

Today we celebrate the “Sunday of the Word of God.”

The Word of God is His communication in love with His children aimed to establish a relationship of love with them. By creating all human beings in His own image God desired to strike this love relationship with them. God has been faithful to this relationship of love down through the ages of human history.

Today’s Liturgy of the Word bears witness to God’s unfailing fidelity to His relationship with humankind. The first reading from Isaiah talked about the people of Israel living under Assyrian domination about 700 years before Christ. They felt they were living in darkness. But there was a greater darkness enveloping them: it was the darkness of their sin, their rebellion against God. In fact, this darkness of sin brought about their oppression by a foreign power. Left with no apparent hope of liberation, they felt they were living in the shadow of death. God came in to promise them a great light to come and fill them with joy.

Today’s Gospel presents Jesus as that light. In narrating the appearing of Jesus, it quotes Isaiah’s prophecy in the first reading. It also times Christ’s coming with the arrest of John the Baptist, the last prophet to prepare the people’s hearts for Christ’s coming. Thus, Jesus started His public ministry after John and all the Old Testament prophets had prepared the hearts of people for Him.

All these years of preparation were necessary because people were hard-hearted, they preferred to live in darkness, the darkness of sin. They must now decide to turn away from their sinfulness to be ready for the coming of the Messiah and be bathed in His light.

What was this light brought by Jesus? It was the kingdom of heaven. Jesus proclaimed it in His call to the people: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.” The kingdom of heaven amounts to a life of love relationship with God. God first took the initiative to desire this relationship and offered it through Jesus. God’s offer called for acceptance – a response from people and indeed from us. The response takes the form of repentance, a turning away from the darkness of sin to a life of love with God. It amounts to God walking in the light of Christ.

After proclaiming the kingdom, Jesus proceeded to call His first four apostles from two sets of brothers, Peter and Andrew, James and John. They responded. Their response was first of all to Jesus’ call of repentance and acceptance of life in the kingdom. While all this was personal to the first four apostles, their call and response also reflected God’s deeper and far-reaching Will, the Will to extend the call to all humankind in every corner of the earth and of every generation.

These Apostles were fishermen. Jesus called them to drop this occupation of theirs to become “fishers of men”. Jesus called them to “fish” people for Him and to draw them to the kingdom of heaven. In the kingdom all will enjoy God’s love and live in the light of Christ. With this call of the Apostles and their positive response, the Word of God started to transcend the boundaries of space and time.

Today, we are so privileged to have received and responded to the Word of God proclaimed by the prophets of old, fulfilled by Jesus and entrusted to the apostles to extend to all nations of all time. With this great privilege there comes a responsibility. We have been given the responsibility to proclaim the Word of God to others.

As we celebrate the Word of God Sunday, we are reminded of this call Christ has given us: “Go out to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to all nations.” In His fidelity to His love relationship with all His human creatures, God wants to involve us. What is our response?

(Archbishop Emeritus John Ha is from the Archdiocese of Kuching)