First of all, we should notice that this is the “Sunday of the Word of God.” That was decided by Pope Francis in 2019 for this 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. Happily, this Sunday usually falls during this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, January 18th to 25th. Certainly, it is the Word of God that unites all Christians of whatever denomination, and we continue to pray and work for that union. It’s a union centered first of all on the eternal living Word of God, Jesus Christ himself, the Word made flesh and dwelling among us. But we also speak of the Word of God as spoken through the prophets and written in the Scriptures of both Old and New Testament.
Today’s readings are a good example of the Word of God coming both through an Old Testament prophet and in our Lord Jesus himself. Isaiah says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, and a light has shone upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom” (referring to Galilee as the District of the Gentiles). Matthew’s gospel quotes those words and applies them directly to Jesus as he leaves the area where he had been baptized by John. John the Baptist had become a victim of Herod’s wrath and was imprisoned, so Jesus left that area of his baptism and headed north to Galilee, where he could be free to carry on his mission from the Father. And so, the people of Galilee, “who sat in darkness, saw a great light.” That light, of course, was Jesus himself. And, like John before him, Jesus began by summoning people to “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” (Matthew prefers to say “kingdom of heaven” instead of “kingdom of God.”)
So, Jesus begins to gather people around him by calling four fishermen to leave their work and join him in his work. They are not scholars or even students, but local fishermen providing basic food for their people. Jesus calls them to be with him and help him provide a deeper kind of food for all the people of God—and that includes us. We, too, have been called to accompany Jesus in various ways—in our daily life of faith and prayer, in our struggle to become true disciples of Jesus, in our family life, in our workday life, and in our various roles in the life and work of the people of God.
With Jesus as the glue that unites us, we can take to heart what St Paul says in today’s reading: “that all should agree in what we say and that there should be no divisions among us, but that we should be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.” That brings us back to the theme of this Christian Unity Week—that we should be one body and one Spirit—that as Christians we should stand together as witnesses to Jesus so that he can be a great light to people dwelling in the darkness of our current everyday life, with all its threats of division and conflict and threats even of war.
The daily news is too full of examples of personal and public hate and revenge. There are too many items about people attacking others with guns or knives—too many items about people having to leave their own homeland only to be rejected elsewhere. Truly, too many people are still “dwelling in a land overshadowed by death.” So we pray and work together so that the light of Jesus may shine through us into the darkness brought about by this world’s lack of concern and respect for all the children of the same Father, who created us and who sent Jesus to show us how to live and love as brothers and sisters of one another—with concern and respect for all of us children of the same Father.
Robert Chiesa SJ