Gospel, Mark 1:14-20 Last Sunday we heard about the call of Peter from the gospel of John. This week we read the better-known account from Mark. Herod Antipas had been tetrarch of Galilee since shortly after the death of his father, King Herod the Great, in 4 B.C. Building the city of Tiberius, his jewel on the Sea of Galilee, and maintaining a full retinue of government officials, soldiers and construction workers required a substantial income. Herod’s government licensed fishing rights on the Sea of Galilee to fishermen who partnered together to form a syndicate large enough to make purchase of the license feasible. I have read that, for the best fishing techniques, two boats were needed for stretching the nets. Such boats were expensive, but business loans could be arranged with Herod’s government (a second source of income). Each day’s catch was also taxed according to the take (a third source of income). They would need a minimum of eight workers to help with fishing each night and hire others for during the day when the boats were used to transport cargo and passengers around the lake. By keeping the boats busy all the time, they could make ends meet. It is possible that Peter was head of the syndicate and title holder of at least one of the boats. If that were the case, leaving the nets behind was more complex than pulling a little runabout up on the shore. Peter would have had to figure out how to keep the business going, pay expenses, take care of his workers, and delegate out responsibilities while he, his brother Andrew and friends James and John dedicated their lives and much of their time to becoming disciples of Jesus. The reality of how Peter would have had to organize his responsibilities with priority to following Jesus is a good example for us today who must learn to do the same given the various responsibilities of our lives.
Reading 1, Jonah 3:1-5, 10 Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was located on the west bank of the Tigris River opposite modern-day Mosul, the city in Iraq of which we have heard so much in recent years. It was a large and beautiful city with many temples and palaces of the kings of Assyria. The book of Tobit in the Old Testament places Tobit as a Jew deported from Israel during the Assyrian conquest of that nation in 721 B.C. to Nineveh where he was eventually put in charge of purchases for the household of the king, a rather favorable and lucrative position for a deportee. Nineveh was eventually destroyed by the Babylonians in 621 B.C. and never rebuilt. The story of the conversion of Nineveh was likely written to bring home to Jewish people that, if a major world city like Nineveh could repent and do the will of God on the word of a single prophet, why don’t they, the people of tiny Judah, do the same, get rid of their petty nationalism and rejoice that the Lord God is lord of the whole earth, not just their small country.
Reading II, 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 Paul advises the Corinthians to not go about life with a “business-as-usual” attitude. What is deemed a reason for joy in the short-term may, in the bigger picture, be an obstacle to fuller blessings and vice versa, suffering in the present moment may be a source of blessing in the bigger picture of time (reminiscent of the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12).
Fr. Denny, I came upon your blog while looking for commentaries/homilies to discuss during our Small Church Community gathering. Thank you for your wisdom. I have subscribed to your blog!
Posted by: colleen | January 21, 2009 at 02:38 PM