Are you a distracted driver?

Homily for January 25, 2015 (3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 25; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, “Each day in the United States, more than 9 people are killed and more than 1,153 people are injured in crashes that are reported to involve a distracted driver.” www.cdc.gov The CDC notes that there are three basic types of distraction: visual (when we take our eyes off the road); manual (when we take our hands off the wheel); and cognitive (when we take our minds off of driving). 

While eating or using mobile phones and other devices while driving are commonly cited reasons for such accidents, so is using the very technologies (e.g. GPS, Wi-Fi) that car and truck manufacturers have installed in our vehicles to make them more functional and attractive. While “multitasking” may be the rage these days, most of us overestimate our capacity to do it well.  Sometimes we can’t even do it safely. In a world with so many distractions, including the ones we create for ourselves, we really need to pay attention to what’s most important.

That’s the central message of our scripture readings on this Sunday: Pay attention! In our reading from the Book of Jonah and the first part of our passage from the Gospel of Mark we are called to pay attention to our call to conversion. When Jonah finally answered God’s call to be a prophet and was sent to proclaim a message of doom to the Ninevites, he could only be shocked by their response: these gentiles, the hated Assyrian oppressors of Israel, quickly showed signs of heartfelt repentance. God, in turn, was merciful to them. 

When Jesus began his public ministry in Galilee with the cry to acknowledge God’s reign, repent and believe in the Good News, he was in a sense echoing the cries of Isaiah, Jeremiah and many prophets before him. It was also tacit recognition that, even after centuries, many of God’s chosen people still had not responded as readily as the people of ancient Nineveh.

In the second part of our reading from Mark, we are invited to pay attention to our own vocations, especially the common one of our baptism:  to follow Jesus.  At his invitation Peter, Andrew, James and John literally dropped what they were doing and became his disciples.  We may not be able to respond as quickly and radically, but can we bring ourselves—through prayer, discernment and action—to respond as whole-heartedly?  St. Paul admonishes us in 1 Corinthians 7 to consider something that is going on each and every day, even if we don’t recognize it:  “the world in its present form is passing away.” Are we paying attention? +