A little boy and his father spent the morning making a kite, they spent hours carefully gluing together the pinewood slats, fitting the paper onto the frame, and fashioning the tail. On the following windy day, they set off to launch their paper and wood space ship. Dad instructed his son on how to hold the string tight and run as fast as he could as he let go. After a few false starts, the kite was finally airborne. The boy was in total control as his father showed him how to let out the string little by little. The kite flew higher and higher. The boy was mesmerized. Then to his father’s surprise, he let go of the string. With sheer joy, the boy watched the kite soar until it was only a speck in the distance.
Walking home together, the father realized that he’ll have to soon loosen the tie that binds him to his son, to let the boy go to make his place in the world and one day fly kites with his own child. And he wonders, “Will I release the string as unselfishly as that?”
Today’s gospel is about letting go…letting go of our anxieties and fears, letting go of our self-centeredness and our need to control, letting go the strings in our lives that tie us down and tie us up from living a life of joyful compassion and selfless generosity. Jesus calls the fishermen on the shore of Galilee, and he calls us, as well to abandon our “nets,” nets that will never “catch” what we truly seek and follow him to discover the life giving and healing love of God in our midst.
Most of us yearn for a life of peace, love, kindness and compassion. We yearn for the kingdom of heaven that Jesus promises in the gospel, yet in fact we are often drawn to do the opposite. We sin. We are reluctant to follow the advice we hear in this gospel, “Repent,” unaware that the kingdom of heaven is not a distant place, but an experience that will emerge when we recognize God’s just and rightful rule over all creation. When we repent, we are seeing the need for God’s rule in our lives. Now, we might not think of our priorities and choices in life as being sinful yet whenever they create confrontation, indifference, cruelty, or hatred, we are not bringing about the kingdom of heaven. Doing whatever we can to get whatever we want at the expense of someone else is a pathway toward sin.
We sin because, like the delicious tantalizing desert loaded with empty calories, wrongdoing offers us fleeting pleasure. As any dietician will tell us, our craving for sugar, if left unchecked, can threaten our physical health. Likewise, if left unchecked, our compulsion to sin will threaten our spiritual health, potentially harming our relationships with others and with God. Instead of building the kingdom of heaven, sin tears apart the world God has in mind for us.
At the very start of his public ministry, Jesus proclaims the secret for bringing about the kingdom of heaven, “Repent!” Now, you might be thinking, “But, Father, this isn’t Lent.” So true, but when you stop to think about it, repentance is not a seasonal activity; it characterizes the life of every faithful follower of Jesus Christ. We hear the message often so that we will make this our way of life. If we want to experience the kingdom of heaven in this lifetime, and that is something Jesus says we can do, we must consciously strive to include practices of repentance in our daily lives.
For starters, consider, if you are not already doing so, examining your conscience every night before going to bed. This need not be a formal, big deal. All we need to do is spend a couple of quiet moments thinking over the day. We might ask ourselves a few simple questions, “How was I faithful to Jesus’ call to repentance? How did I reach out to others, bringing the goodness of Christ to them? How did another person make me aware of Jesus’ presence today?” When we get into the habit of recognizing Jesus’ saving ministry in our daily lives, we are opening ourselves to his ministry of repentance. The kingdom of heaven is unfolding before us.
Secondly, the Church prescribes that every Friday is a day of penance that calls for repentance and conversion. Many of us grew up with the tradition of abstaining from meat every Friday; a practice that became voluntary except during Lent after Vatican II. The Church still expects us to observe all Fridays as days of penance as a sign uniting us to Jesus in his passion and death. A practical way to do this would be to keep Fridays as a day of fasting, prayer, and doing charitable works. These time-honored practices are sure ways to repentance and conversion, that is, bringing about a change of heart. If we can get ourselves into the habit of keeping Fridays as a day of penance, we will see a difference in our lives and our relationship with Christ.
There was a man who had a reputation for being the best fisherman around. While others would catch one or two fish, he always came in with the limit. The game warden, curious to know how he did this, went fishing with him early one morning. He noticed no fishing tackle. When they arrived at a secluded cove, the man opened a box, pulled out a stick of dynamite, lit it, then threw it in the water. When it exploded, a bunch of fish floated to the surface. The warden identified himself and told the man that he was in a lot of trouble. The man reached into his box, pulled another stick of dynamite. He lit it and handed it to the warden, saying, “Are you going to just sit there or are you going to fish?”
Jesus is urging us to repent, acquire a new heart, and make a decision. One of the hardest things for us today is making a firm decision. We have so many options and we like to keep them open. That is fine if you are shopping for a new car, but disastrous in our relationships with God. In that most vital area we have to make a decision. Like the boy, are we going to let go and let God? Like the guy in the boat, are you going to sit there or are you going to fish? The kingdom of God is not something up in the skies, but down here on earth; ours to be discovered when we heed Jesus’ advice and dare to repent.