What do you make of this? ‘Those with wives should live as though they had
none.’ St Paul seems to be casting a shadow over married life (1 Cor 7: 29)! Yet
the context tells us something else. His theme is ‘our time is growing short.’ We
do not have much time. He is talking of having the perspective of us living a
provisional life. We are not to live as though this life is everything.
True, we are called to live this live fully; to develop all our gifts, to enjoy using
them, to enter fully into our relationships. But all these are not the whole story.
We are to be like sailors with their eyes on the seemingly endless horizon, aware
that there is another shore that will be revealed. No matter how satisfying our
relationships and our activities, they are not the full story. We are made for
something else.
There is a story, an amusing story, about Jonah and the whale. He runs away
from the task he has been set and gets swallowed by a big fish. Surviving that,
he has second thoughts and takes up the task and warms the Ninevites they have
only 40 days left. Oddly, they believe him and every man, woman and beast
begin to change their way of life. They respond to the bigger picture Jonah, the
unlikely prophet, presents to them.
Coming to Jesus’ time, we have the story of him calling Peter and his
companions. They too, like the Ninevites, ‘immediately’ – the word is used
eleven times in Mark 1 – change their way of life. Nothing wrong with fishing.
It’s a hard life but a rewarding one too if you succeed in catching fish. But Jesus
says, ‘I have something bigger for you.’ There and then they drop everything
and follow him. Surely, they should have taken time to consider the job offer?
But no, they act immediately.
There was something about Jesus that was overwhelmingly attractive. Once
they grasped it, they acted. And the early Church found it contagious and were
full of expectation that the Lord would soon return. Everything else was
provisional, precarious and a ‘valley of tears.’
We come to our own time. We are absorbed by our problems, our unease, our
tears. The news is relentlessly horrible. We see no end to our wars and our
problems – global, local and personal. Yet the gospel invites us to live with a
deeper perspective. We cannot brush away our worries. But we can expand our
vision to see the fuller picture. Our world is provisional – like a carpenter’s
workshop. What you see is not the whole picture. A future is being fashioned
that we can only imagine.
By Fr David Harold-Barry SJ
English