3rd Sunday B

Jeff Bagnall • 19 January 2024

The Biblical story of Jonah and the whale is a fascinating story with many sub-plots and deeper meanings within it, dealt with very well on the website of the American Catholic Bishops’ Conference. We, unfortunately, only have a very short extract ( 3:1-5,10 ) from the whole story. Jonah, whose name means dove and indicates peace, is told by God a second time to deliver His message to the Ninevites. He must go and preach God’s anger to the wicked people of Nineveh, a huge city east of Israel and the capital of their longtime enemies. He had been told this before but tried to avoid both God and doing as asked – that’s the bit about the storm at sea and the whale. This time Jonah obeys this request from God and these enemies of Israel repent, for every single one of them believes in God (whom Jonah thought was just the God of Israel). With this show of repentance and the people giving up their evil ways, God has mercy on them. Even just this small bit of the story has something to say to you and me – listen, discern and heed!

In the Second Reading ( 1 Cor 7:29-31 ) written about the year 50 AD we detect how Paul thought then that the time was very soon for the final fulfillment of God’s plan in Christ – for the end of the world as we know it. But in later parts of his writings and other parts of the New Testament the delay in this actually coming about had made the early Christians think otherwise. However, the passage holds for us the message of the urgency of preparation for our fulfilling of our part in God’s plan for us. Not for us the abandonment of normal human activity but rather full engagement with our role in life in accord with the will of God in so far as we can discern it. But the rate of change we experience in technology and in the international situation does remind us that the world as we know it is continually coming to an end. Again the change in understanding God’s ways with humanity which this passage in the context of the New Testament indicates, must teach us to be cautious about any certainty we feel in respect of God’s plans for our world and for each of us at this time; before the mystery of God we must have due humility!

The Gospel (Mark 1:14-20 ) tells us of the end of the work of John the Baptist and the beginning of the public mission of Jesus in Galilee. Mark is emphasising that not only are the two people and their roles different, but that when Jesus started his preaching and teaching, the work of the Baptist was over. Then we read of the call of the first few disciples. It was only last Sunday that we heard an alternative version of this story. We need to be aware that a gospel is not the same as a plain history. The word gospel means good news, and the evangelists are trying to communicate to their audiences, and through this Word of God, He is trying to communicate with us something of what our life should be like as a follower of Jesus. So, unlike John’s version which we heard last week, the other gospels emphasise the immediacy and the completeness of the disciples’ response to Jesus’ call. Of course there is an historical basis for it – Jesus did have special followers – but the good news for us is that we too are called and should respond at once and wholeheartedly! Mark probably heard the call described by Peter when preaching to potential converts. Now Mark speaks to us.

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Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

by Jeff Bagnall • 18 September 2025

The first reading is from a section of the book of Amos ( 6:4-10 ); it is introduced with the opening words of the chapter: “alas for those who are at ease in Zion.” Strong words against the city dwellers come from Amos, the country fellow – words and woes against the northern kingdom of Israel. We hear the third and last woe against the excessive luxury in which they are living although their prosperity is declining visibly; they seem to live for the moment and care little of the future, even their own. They are, unusually, referred to as a group under the eponymous name of Joseph; this could be because of the account of Joseph’s interpretation of the Pharaoh’s dream (Exodus 41) of seven years of plenty followed by seven of crop failure, and his wise management under the Pharaoh of storing up supplies for the future. The exile that will come will be the disaster that follows this decadence. In the second reading ( 1 Timothy 6:11-16 ) Timothy is addressed as a ‘man of God.’ Unlike the people of the first reading and in contrast to those addressed in this letter just before this section, Timothy is chosen and enabled by God to be a minister in the Christian community. Paul’s athletic imagery appears here also, saying “compete well,” that is, ‘run the race’ or ‘fight the good fight.’ The Christian at baptism made confession that “Jesus is Lord”, and Jesus made a similar confession before Pilate according to John’s gospel (18:37); Timothy was baptised but was also a leader in some way, and that meant not to be a covert Christian but to speak the truth even before accusers, as Jesus did before Pilate; the writer could be referring to either of these situations. The requirement to keep the commandments or ordinances is most likely not to the ten commandments of the Jewish religion but to the requirements of being a Christian or, more likely, the specific orders for acting as a minister. He must act as a servant of the King who will eventually appear, and he must be selfless in his work towards the kingdom of God. In today’s gospel reading from Luke ( 16:19-31 ) we have the parable often call that of Dives and Lazarus; but ‘dives’ is just the Latin word for rich man. In many ways the story is straightforward once we accept the different understanding of the afterlife that it portrays. However, whereas the rich man is anonymous, the beggar at his gate is named Lazarus. Luke is writing about 40 years after the resurrection of Jesus but still there are people who aren’t believers; and John’s gospel, uniquely, has the story of the raising of Lazarus which Luke’s readers may have known; but Luke’s point is not about accepting the truth of the resurrection, of Jesus or of Lazarus, because believing is more a way of living than accepting facts – of loving God and your neighbour as yourself, which the rich man in the parable didn’t do.

25th Sunday In Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

by Jeff Bagnall • 11 September 2025

The Sunday readings only use the prophet Amos three times; this and next Sunday are two of those. Amos was a country man used to living a simple life: a herdsman tending sycamore trees. Somehow he came to be a prophet of God in the city of Bethel, though he wouldn’t claim the title of prophet and was different from most of them. Such a man coming from the country to the big and prosperous city just had to speak what he thought in order to deliver a ‘scolding’ from the Lord, for the hiking of prices, lowering of measures and fixing of scales (Amos 8:4-7). His natural reactions to the corruption that he saw is described as visions from God, and they are nearly always expressed with an impressive literary style: matching couplets and triplets. Yet it is the language of wrath and condemnation, though elsewhere Amos does tell of a remnant few who will be spared and at the end of the book there is a very positive prophecy though this ‘epilogue’ may have been added later to end on an upbeat note of hopefulness.