Today's Gospel

Lead with Authenticity

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where each day we explore the genius of the Gospels, which is as radical as it was 2,000 years ago and is as relevant today as ever before. Today's reading is from the Gospel of Mark chapter 1 verses 14 through 20. Now, after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel." And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately, he called them. And they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed Jesus. What jumps out at you today? Jesus says, "Repent and believe in the gospel." Believe in the good news. And I think sometimes we don't realize how good the good news is. I think sometimes we become immune to it. And the good news is radical. The good news is relevant. The good news is-- it's overwhelming, it's abundant. It's what God has done for you and what God wants to do for you. And what He has done for us is infinitely more than we imagine. And what He wants to do for us is infinitely more than we can imagine. And so sometimes we just sort of, "Oh, yeah, the good news," or the gospel. "Yeah, that gospel thing." Or, "Yeah, that good news thing." But no, this is real. This is enormous. So Jesus is saying, "Believe in the gospel." That's the first part of today's reading.

The second part of today's reading is Jesus calling His first disciples. And these guys are just working. Imagine going to work today, wherever it is you work, and Jesus just shows up in the middle of the day and says, "Hey, come-- come and follow me." And they did. And that's extraordinary, right? Because we'd have so many questions, right? "Oh, Jesus, what about this? What about that? And what are the hours, Jesus? And what's your remote work policy, Jesus? And what about the benefits, Jesus?" We'd have so many questions, and we do when God calls us, right? We have so many questions. But here, there's just this-- this desire to follow Jesus and this-- this response, which is a beautiful thing. I read this thing last year. It's in Jewish Spirituality, and this rabbi was talking about generosity. He's talking about generosity and he talked about the idea that our first impulse is toward generosity. Something will happen or we'll witness a need. And our first impulse will be toward generosity. And he said, "That-- that's the impulse of the soul. That's the impulse of the heart. That's-- that's our best self in-- in that impulse to be generous." And he said, "What happens then is that our head talks our heart out of our generosity." So our impulse is to be generous, and then our head says, "Yeah, but what about this? What about that? What about the other thing?" And so our head talks our heart out of our generosity. And that doesn't happen here with the first disciples. Jesus says, "Come and follow me," and they have an impulse to be generous, to generously respond to Jesus' call, and they go. They don't let their heads talk their hearts out of their generosity, out of responding generously to God. Let's get out there in the world today and let's respond generously to whatever it is that God is calling us to today. Have a great day and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.