From the beginning of time, with time having always been, God’s focus is on human, particularly our response to his claim on our lives.
Much like in the case of Jonah, God called Jonah to give good news to people that, to be quite honest, Jonah didn’t like. In fact, Jonah rebuffed God.
As it was in Jonah’s case, it is in ours, nothing we do can thwart God’s will. God’s mercy is universal and not reserved for the Israelites alone. And God’s mercy is universal and not reserved for Christians alone.
Augustine writes in Confessions that we are made for God. And with that being the biblical witness “our hearts are restless until they find rest in you [God].”[1] Notice Psalm 62:5, “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.” From the beginning of time, God wired human to have faith that God knows best and that we should bank our hope on and rest in God.
Mark 1:14-20 shows us how Jesus called his disciples to an encounter; an experience. Jesus was walking along the Sea of Galilee. But this was more than just a casual afternoon stroll. Jesus was looking for people. He found Simon and Andrew, James, and John. They were fishermen. They were not from the religious elite. They were common people like you and me.
Paul references the struggle of being in the world, but not of it in the text from 1 Corinthians. Paul desires followers of Jesus to be focused and prepared, not distracted by spouses, grief, joy, possessions, and isolationism. It appears, at first reading, that Paul’s a killjoy. Not so.
God’s claim on us is from the beginning of time. We belong completely to God, not any person or any particular item of our stuff. A challenge? Yes. Freeing? For sure!
Scripture readings are taken from the two-year daily lectionary cycle which follows the liturgical calendar and begins on the First Sunday of Advent.
[1]Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, translated by J.G. Pilkington (Edinburgh: The folio Society Ltd, 1993), 13.
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