Sunday reflections

In this week’s gospel, we witness the all-too-familiar story of Jesus by the Sea of Galilee calling Simon Peter and other fisherfolk to join him in his mission. Unlike similar call stories in Mark (1:16-20) and Mathew (4:18-22), the journey to discipleship in Luke is not a single moment of decisive conversion but rather a gradual process, marked by repeated encounters, personal challenges, and an evolving understanding of Jesus’ identity.

Have you ever wondered what God looks like? Various images might come to mind, but why not turn to the person next to you who is made in the image and likeness of God? But, what if God looks like this baby? A child whose crying wakes us and worries us at moments as we hold them close, a child who depends on us for life.

Returning home after more than eleven years ‘on mission’ overseas has been a challenging and confronting experience. So much has changed. I’ve changed. Society has changed. The Church has changed. So much is unfamiliar to me and I’m ‘unknown’. I feel like a foreigner in the country I call home.

Fresh from her encounter with the angel Gabriel, “Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country” to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was herself pregnant in her old age. This meeting of two Spirit-filled pregnant women, seeking to understand what God is doing in their lives, is remarkable in the way it captures their very human interaction and their prophetic voices.

The two themes of Sunday’s readings are repentance and joy. We do not usually associate these two themes with each other, but they go hand in glove in the kingdom of God.

At the year’s end, God comes – Christ is coming – as a baby at Christmas, coming into the dailiness of our lives, and at the end of time. It may seem odd at the beginning of Advent to hear Jesus speak of the second coming, but when Jesus says we’re to watch and stay awake, he doesn’t say it to play on our fears. Instead, he calls us to be alert to the signs of God’s presence in our lives, encouraging us to have faith in God who is present in the person with whom we are talking, and in the smallest act, though we may only come to understand this sometime later.

At the year’s end, God comes – Christ is coming – as a baby at Christmas, coming into the dailiness of our lives, and at the end of time. It may seem odd at the beginning of Advent to hear Jesus speak of the second coming, but when Jesus says we’re to watch and stay awake, he doesn’t say it to play on our fears. Instead, he calls us to be alert to the signs of God’s presence in our lives, encouraging us to have faith in God who is present in the person with whom we are talking, and in the smallest act, though we may only come to understand this sometime later.

What is the Kingdom of God? Gerald Darring, a retired high school and college teacher of theology, explains it this way: “The Kingdom of God is a space. It exists in every home where parents and children love each other. It exists in every region and country that cares for its weak and vulnerable. It exists in every parish that reaches out to the needy.

Next week, we will bring this liturgical year (Year B/Mark’s Gospel) to an end, with the celebration of the Feast of Christ the King. Another year has passed. It’s a fitting moment then to think about the passing of time and, indeed, of the end time and the passing away of the world.

If you sit in church long enough you will hear it read that Jesus brings a kingdom, or rather, the capital ‘K’ Kingdom—the Kingdom that never comes to an end, unlike all the others that have appeared in history. He’s relentlessly talking about it in the gospels.