Homily Second Sunday of Ordinary Time January 17, 2021

 Homily    Second Sunday of Ordinary Time        January 17, 2021

           Today we have the Second Sunday of plain old, common, ordinary time.   And we are in year B, where we hear from the Gospel of Mark.  However, the Gospel of Mark is short and the year is long, so the Gospels get padded with passages from the Gospel of John, as we have today.

          Frankly, I think this Gospel is a mess.  For example, John mentions the time of the interaction between Jesus and the two disciples of John the Baptist.  John the Gospel writer interjects into the story the statement: “It was about four in the afternoon.”   Seldom does John mention time, and usually he has a symbolic purpose for mentioning time that is full of meaning.  But the Gospel commentaries I have checked do not give any deeper meaning to this rather random statement of the time. 

          Pope Francis has an interesting take on this statement.   The Pope states: “I take the call of Jesus’ first disciples as an icon. This experience made such an impression on their memory that one of them even noted the time: it was about four in the afternoon (cf. Jn 1:39). 

          Pope Francis has a point, but I find the exegesis a bit thin, shall we say.

          Also, John keeps translating names and terms.  Three times he translates terms, which seems kind of odd or at least distracting.

          So, what are we to make of this?  I think we have to “translate” this Gospel to speak to the actualities of our own lives.

          Here is what I get from this passage.  When the two disciples start to follow Jesus He turns to them and asks, “What are you looking for?”   This is a great question. 

What are you looking for? Hopefully not “Looking for love in all the wrong places,” as the song goes  But what are you looking for?   What are you seeking?  

          I find this a difficult question to answer.  On the surface it is easy to answer: I am looking for the Covid Vaccine, for Diocesan approval of our development project and a signed contract, for good health and even weight loss.  But the deeper you go with the question, the harder it is to answer.   What are you looking for?  

          This is an important question that demands our time and attention.  What do you want out of life?  What are you looking for?

          The two disciples in the Gospel I think are not sure either, so when Jesus asks them “What are you looking for?” they respond with a question, “where are you staying?”   This could be taken on a very literal level of what is your address, but in the Gospel of John there is almost always a deeper level.  The verb translated here as “staying” is the same word Jesus uses in chapter 15 when He says “Remain in me, abide in me, stay in me.”  I think we get some sense of the double nature of this question in the English phrase, “where are you at?”   It can mean where is your physical location, but also can mean what make you tick, what are you about, what moves you?   It is a deeper question than just what is your address.

          Jesus responds with a wonderful invitation:  “Come and see.”  The answer to where Jesus is at, what Jesus is all about, is much more than can be expressed in words and concepts.  The fullest form of this knowledge is experiential.  Come and see; come and experience what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  

          Today is also “Come and See Sunday”, an opportunity to talk about vocations, especially vocations to the priesthood, religious life as a sister or brother, and the permanent diaconate. 

          My own vocation story is that in high-school and college I wanted to be a lawyer, and maybe go into politics.  But the idea of priesthood would come back from time to time, I would ignore it, it would go away for a while, and then come back again somewhere in the back of my mind. 

          Eventually I thought I would take a year off from school before starting law school after I graduated from Washington University in St. Louis.  I went to spend the year at the Paulist novitiate.  But, once I accepted the invitation to “come and see” and I went and saw in the Paulist novitiate, I was hooked. 

          All of us in one way or another receive that invitation of Jesus to “Come and you will see.”   Following Him has its own logic and its own justification, and its own reward.

          After spending the one afternoon with Jesus the former disciple of John the Baptist, Andrew, went to find his brother Peter and told him, “We have found the Messiah!”    May we all, to our delight and joy, respond the invitation of Jesus, and find our Messiah and Savior.   God bless!