Reigned by God with Love

We are in the Third Sunday of the Ordinary time. All the readings of today have ‘call from God’ and ‘the response of people who are called’ as their crux. In the first reading through Jonah God is calling the people of Nineveh to repentance. But this call to repentance is not explicitly mentioned, because in the Old Testament people understood God as punisher of humans for their wickedness. Therefore, God’s warning to destroy the city of Nineveh is taken as a call from God to do something to amend the evil ways. In the New Testament God through Jesus straight away calls people to repentance.  Jesus is not like God in the Old Testament to inflict fear in the people. The incarnation is a revelation that God is not a punisher but a merciful father who forgives His sons and daughters. The people who used to amend their ways out of fear is now with the coming of Jesus invited to amend their ways forever with love for God and neighbor. In the Old Testament the people of Israel did not have holistic view about their God, Yahweh, and the way He deals with His people. In the New Testament Jesus shows them the way God wants to deal with His people; not vengeance but through forgiveness.

On this Sunday we have the call to repentance, the proclamation of the kingdom of God as the Gospel passage because Jesus started this mission after receiving baptism from John. Last week we celebrated the feast of baptism, and so this week we have the beginning of the proclamation mission of Jesus. The kingdom of God that Jesus preached is a reign of God in each soul. Each of us has to be reigned by God. God reigns in us when we have love for Him and for our neighbor.

In the second reading we have St. Paul calling the Corinthians to lead a life that is worthy of inheriting the coming world. The three proclamations in all the reading of today is for repentance. We need to amend our old, evil and wicked ways not by fear of God but through our love for God and our neighbor. When we amend our ways through love it becomes conversion. The conversion is a moving away from something and turning toward something. Conversion is split point that breaks the past and new. Conversion is a change of heart, which happens after much disturbance and reflection. St. Augustine is a great example for conversion, once moved away from old ways and turned toward new ones, no turning back! Such is the conversion that God is asking from us today. To remain with the new ways is difficult and challenging. To face that like St. Augustine we need to be in constant touch with God and follow his commandments. In the Gospel we have Jesus calling the first disciples – Peter, Andrew, James and John. They followed Jesus after the call. Today He is calling us to follow His ways, to walk in His footsteps so that we may remain firm in Gospel values against all evil attractions and be reigned by God.


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