Do you make up your mind once and for all when it comes to making commitments or do you tend to vacillate? When he was a boy, Ronald Reagan’s aunt took him to a shoe cobbler to get him a pair of custom shoes. When the cobbler asked, “Do you want square toes or round toes on the shoes?” Reagan hem-hawed around; he didn’t know what he wanted. The cobbler then said, “That’s all right, see me in a couple of days and tell me and I’ll make them for you.”
A couple of days later, the cobbler saw him and asked, “Do you want square toes or do you want round toes on your shoes?” And Ronald said, “I don’t know.” The cobbler replied, “Well, come back in a couple of days…your shoes will be ready.” When Reagan picked up his shoes, one shoe was square-toed and one was round-toed. The cobbler looked at him and said, “This will teach you never to let people make your decisions for you from this time on.”
Sometimes the decision to do nothing might be wise, but not when it comes to being a disciple of Jesus Christ. Many believe in Jesus; they go to church and go through the motions of being a Christian without allowing their lives to be transformed, unlike the people of Nineveh who didn’t hesitate to repent when Jonah went through their city.
Someone once commented to a professor, “So and so tells me that he was one of your students.” The professor replied, “He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students.” There is much difference between attending lectures and being a student. What is true in the classroom is true in any congregation. Many profess to believe in Jesus but like the people of Nineveh, are they willing to heed God’s message and change their lives for the better?
Becoming a disciple does not happen without effort. Since we have free will, we can wind up conforming to the values of our irreligious culture. That’s why we must heed Jesus’ words: “Repent and believe.” Repent means to examine, then change one’s life if necessary: Where have I strayed from Christ, or become disordered? Believe means to do more than simply repeat words and phrases – we must think about what those words mean. For example, in the Profession of Faith, we say: “I believe in God, the Father almighty.” What does it mean to say that God is my Father – and that he is almighty? A disciple doesn’t just say these words. He thinks about what they signify.
Judging by how few Catholics celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation, repentance is not a popular word. When you heard that line from the gospel, you may have thought to yourself, “I don’t need to do that.” But all of us do. Jesus’ call to repentance is a call to look at the direction of our lives. We are being called to be open to hearing God’s word. And if that word calls us to change direction, to change the way our lives are heading, to change the way we think and act, then we are being called to respond as the first disciples did.
Some of us hear an inner voice that prompts us to hem and haw about responding to God’s call. We convince ourselves that we can follow Jesus without following rules, which we consider to be arbitrary. We ignore certain commandments, convinced that there is no hell and that everyone will get to heaven. If that were the case, then why did Jesus begin his ministry urging anyone who would listen to repent?
Many people deny the existence of hell, but our Church tells us otherwise. In its Catechism, we are told, “God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God, a mortal sin, is necessary and persistence in it until the end.”
While our culture dismisses sin, Jesus does not nor should we. Notice that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions. God never said, “Keep my commandments unless of course you have a headache.”
In the course of the year ahead, we will hear Jesus speak not only of repentance but also of the “kingdom of God.” The challenge for us will be to redefine that kingdom from what we hope and expect it to be to what God calls it to be. Listen to the voice of God daily that is inviting you to embrace the happiness and fulfillment of his kingdom. Decide this time to be a disciple and endeavor to understand the wisdom behind what Jesus has been telling us all along.
Keep in mind that faith is a life long journey and that we all struggle at times with some aspect of our belief or feel unable to live up to high standards set before us. Sometimes we don’t understand what the Church teaches or accept the reasoning behind its teaching and principles. For this reason, don’t limit your learning to what you hear during a homily. Decide to study your faith and discover the potential within you to bring about the kingdom of God in your midst.
Jesus is calling us to abandon our “fishing nets” of self- interest and to seek, instead, happiness and fulfillment for others; doing so, we will experience heaven in this lifetime. He shows us a bigger world than our own little Galilees can ever be and invites us to follow him in establishing the reign of God through forgiveness, reconciliation, and generosity.
Don’t hem and haw about following Jesus. He would tell us, “No matter what your past may resemble, your future is spotless. And the saints are saints precisely because they kept on trying.” And so must we, no matter what others say.