3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) – January 25, 2025

St. Joseph – Wichita, KS

Isaiah 8:23-9:3; Psalm 27:1, 4, 13-14; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17; Matthew 4:12-23

Entrusting Yourself to the Master

One of my favorite movies growing up was The Karate Kid. Killer soundtrack. Total classic. And it even gave us a phrase—have you ever heard someone say, “He totally Mr. Miyagi-ed him?” In the movie—we’ve all seen it—Daniel is getting bullied. One day, as he’s taking a beating, Mr. Miyagi intervenes. And Mr. Miyagi—this Japanese karate master—he decides that he will teach Daniel. Ok. And what happens? Well, when Daniel shows up thinking he’s gonna learn, Mr. Miyagi just has him doing all of these chores: wax the cars, sand the floor, paint the fence, paint the house. “Wax on, wax off!” And Daniel—after days of doing all of these chores—after all of this, Daniel wants to quit! He’s angry, he doesn’t understand why he’s been wasting his time doing all of these tasks. He just wanted to learn karate! But then, Mr. Miyagi shows him, he reveals to him, what is really going on: by learning these motions, he actually has taught him the pattern, the motions of karate. And with those ingrained in him, Daniel actually just has to make a simple shift in perspective and intentionality—and he knows karate!

The entire time, Daniel through he needed to learn karate, be taught. But he got “Miyagi-ed”! By just doing what Mr. Miyagi told him to do, by simply following his direction, he actually did learn—everything changed. Ok, keep this in mind as we look at the Gospel today.

Metanoia

Here in the Gospel—very famous scene—Jesus begins his public ministry. First homily, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And then that famous moment where he’s walking by the shore of the Sea of Galilee and calls Peter and Andrew, James and John: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And they leave their nets, they leave their families, and they follow him. Here in this scene are two of the most famous and most important commands Jesus gives.

But take a new look at that first one. Jesus very first homily, his first sermon—first word: “Repent.” What do you think of when you hear “repent”? First thing? Exactly: “Stop doing bad things. Stop sinning. Repent. Go to confession!” Yeah, exactly. We hear that and immediately think: “I get it, I need to stop doing bad things.” And ok, sure, yeah.

But a little more precisely—so the Gospels were written in Greek, not English—the Greek word Jesus uses there is metanoia—“Metanoiate” is the command. What does that mean? Metanoia is just a combination of two Greek words: meta and nous, a “going beyond the mind.” Like the meta-verse is going beyond the universe? Facebook is a subsidiarity of Meta, beyond this world. Ok? Metanoiate is actually the first command out of Jesus’ mouth! We usually translate it as “repent,” but literally it means, “Go beyond your current mindset, meta-nous, have change of mind, a change of heart.” We see the world one way, we think and operate one way—and Jesus says, “No…you need to see things a little differently.”

So like, for example, do you remember the day you found out that the Sun doesn’t actually rise and set? That is doesn’t rotate around the Earth every day? That the Earth is actually the one rotating around the Sun? Or the day you found out that the Moon actually doesn’t produce any light, it just reflects it?

Or think about all of the crazy things we used to do and accept from the medical field as “healthy” and “safe.” For instance, there is that one ad from a newspaper about a cure for the common toothache: cocaine. Or everyone’s favorite cough drop: heroin. Or milk transfusions! You know when you need a blood transfusion? They thought milk could be used as a substitute.

But think: why did they do such ludicrous things? Why? Because they had a certain understanding of the human body, of anatomy and physiology; they had a certain understanding of what blood is and what it does; a certain understanding of these drugs. Right? They had a certain mentality, a certain mindset, a certain way of seeing the human body. And because of that? Well, they did some things that we now know are pretty…ludicrous! A metanoia was needed! 

So here is Jesus—comes onto the scene—first homily. And his first command: metanoiate, meta-nous, go beyond your current mindset, go beyond the way you see things, see things differently, respond differently, begin to act differently because of it.

“Come, follow me”

Ok, great! So how does this happen. Where can I go to learn, to be taught? What book should I get? What podcast will fix me up? Well, let’s take a look at Jesus’ method.

“As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew… He said to them, ‘Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.’” What is Jesus’ invitation? “Come, follow me. Come after me.” Literally, here he is walking and he says, “Come behind me.” Jesus is inviting them to what? Just to go wherever he goes. Stick with him, follow.

Does Jesus say, “Come here and let me teach you something”? Does he say, “You look like you commit a lot of sins. Let me help you stop doing that”? No. No. He says, “Just come hang out with me. Do the things I’m gonna go do. Just follow along.” This is the key, this is the method: they begin to follow a person, live a relationship with a person—concrete, flesh and blood.

Why is this Jesus’ method? Why doesn’t he just have them register for a class? Well, because the single most effective and enduring way to change someone’s mind, but also to change someone’s life—it’s through relationship. When you just try to change someone’s mind, all of their defenses go up. You have to “Miyagi” them!

Think of a seventh grade kid. Hates school. And even though you can talk to the kid, and reason with the kid, argue with the kid—even threaten the kid—he still hates school. And even though you force him to go, and the law requires that he go—doesn’t mean much. He is not changed. But then one day—well one day, that cute girl in his class looks at him and smiles. And all of a sudden everything changes, his life is transformed! He jumps out of bed every morning to get to school, he showers before school, uses deodorant—he loves to be at school!

Our faith, being Catholic—faith is not just an idea, or a belief system, or a political structure we agree with or accept, no. Faith is “a love to which we adhere, a presence to follow more and more with all ourselves” (Giussani). (“Why are you always learning so much about her and talking about her?” Because I love her. “Why do you plan your life around her? Why do you always put her first?” Because I love her. “Why won’t you come do this just once? She will never find out.” Because I love her. “Why do you spend so much money on her, buy her flowers?” Because I love her.) That kid got Miyagi-ed. By beginning to follow that girl around, get to know her, live in relationship with her—everything changed. When you just tried to convince him? Nothing doing. In this encounter, in a relationship with a person? Everything.

What is Jesus’ method? Inviting us into a living relationship with him. That will change everything.

The Challenge: Leaving Our Nets

The problem, though—“Father, beautiful stuff, as always. But what does this mean?” Well, this is where it gets uncomfortable. Because listen closely: “They left their nets…[and] they left their boat and their father and followed him.” What are these nets? What are these boats? Well, fill in the blank here: They left their comfortable, normal life; they left the security and stable life they had set up for themselves; they left behind one way of seeing and operating—and instead, they began following him.

For us, this scene isn’t just a scene of Jesus calling people to be priests. This is Jesus inviting each and every one of us into relationship with him. And we shy away from it because it’s not safe, it’s not our normal life, it is going to radically shake things up. Like Daniel in the Karate Kid, we know we’re going to be asked to do a bunch of things we think we don’t want to do, we think are dumb or a waste of time or we don’t understand. My advice? Try it anyway.

The challenge is that vast majority of us—whether you think so or not—we follow our own ideas, our “own heart,” which usually means we’re just following what social media or the news or a bunch of other people tell us. We think we need that new house, or car, or vacation, or experience—whatever—to be happy. We’re following someone else. And we’ve kinda made peace with that, we’re comfortable with that.

But the Lord invites us to leave our nets, our boats—and instead, to follow him by following the Church. Let him “Miyagi” you. Metanoia: change how you look at things, re-evaluate the things you think, the people you follow, what you think is important. Follow him. Concretely, follow him in and through the Church, what the Church proposes, the life the Church proposes. Because even though the growth can be painful, uncomfortable, frustrating—one day you’ll wake up and discover, “I know karate. I know his life. I live his life. His life is within me. He is the life of my life.” And everything has changed.

Here, today, the Lord is inviting you—you!—in a way no less real and no less dramatic than that day on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He invites you to begin to see things differently, to lay down your nets—whatever those are for you—and to follow him.