(Homily 3rd Sunday in
Ordinary Time, Yr. B)
The liturgical readings of this Sunday
are beaming with diverse hints, ranging from the call to conversion, the
consciousness of the presence of God’s kingdom to the existential
transformation of those who have received this call and decided to follow Him. The readings enable us to understand that there are no enemies to defeat,
but only brothers and sisters to convert and to transform into friends. There are no situations so
desperate as to be stronger than the love of God, that invites us for a change
of mind and heart no matter how far we
have strayed.
The passage of the first reading (Jonah 3,1-5.10), is taken from the context where Jonah carried out
his mandate of preaching repentance to the people of Nineveh. This was historically a period not too long from the return
of the Jews from exile in Babylon, we can immagine the grudges every Jew bore
against those nations that enslaved them, and Jonah was not left out. Little
wonder, he attempted to run away from God. Jonah
could be seen from the lenses of our contemporary world, as one who refused to
pick God’s call or switched off his phone purposefully. One may therefore
ask: Why did God ask him to go to Niniveh? Niniveh then was the capital city of
Assyria, it was a commercial crossroads, there was an in flux of people, it was
also a “sin City”. God sent him to go and preach about repentance or they face
desturuction. On the account of this, Jonah decided to run away from God’s
presence, he walked away on God, the psalmist captured the futility of Jonah’s
attempt vividly well when he says “where shall I go to escape your spirit?
Where shall I flee from your presence? (Ps.
139, 7-12). On the bid to run away, God tracked him down. He has already
set out on his journey of escape. And on their way in the sea, they started experiencing turbulence, he did
not deny to be the one, he surrendered himself and he was thrown into the sea
and a big fish swallowed him. After
three days he was vomitted at the sea shore facing the city of Niniveh.
Viewd from the lenses of the recent happenings in our world today, are we not like Jonah sometimes? We are
like Jonah when we think that the Word of God is outdated and meaningless; when
we abandon His ways and follow our own human disegns; when we tend to put a
limit to God’s mercy. And that is the
syndrome of Jonah (the attempt to replace God’s logic with human logic),
the attempt and tendency to indicate to God who and who not to forgive, the temptation of categorizing certain
people to be out of the coverage of God’s mercy. Finally, the author of
this book stresses an important fact, and that is that the people of Israel
whom he thinks are upright are hard hearted, while the people of Niniveh, even
though sinners changed immedaitely they heard the word of God. Indeed, the
people of Niniveh teach us how to be
prompt in responding to God’s call, and precisely today, responding to
Jesus’ call for repentance.
In this Gospel passage (Mk
1:14-20), according to Mark Jesus started his preaching and ministry with
the words “the time is fulfilled”, which is no longer the time of prophecy and
of promises, but the time of realization, a time of God’s action. Afterwards,
Jesus announces the Good News per excellence: “The kingdom of God is near.
Repent, and believe in the Gospel”. Thus, the central theme of Jesus preaching
was the nearness of God’s Kingdom, as such with and through the
inauguration of Jesus’ ministry, the
Kingdom of God has become not only an eschatological, but also an existential
reality, a reality indeed to be lived and experienced in the here and now
through the value of inclusiveness. We
can create the situation or better the reality of the Kingdom of God wherever
we are, in as much as the individuals therein are ready to change their ways of
life and turn away from the sin of exclusiveness, which brings divisions and
discriminations between persons, tribes and nations.
This exhortation to the fulfillment of
time and to repentance is Jesus’ message, most probably taken from John the
Baptist, however, with a different undertone. While John says that God was to act soon, Jesus proclaims that God is
beginning to act. This is the fulfilment of time that the event in the Old
Testament is now beginning to happen.
We need to jettison the understanding of
the kingdom of God, only as a reward or something we will acquire at the end,
as an eschatological possession, and
make a spiritual paradigm shift to the understand of God’s kingdom from the
stand point of “being”. We are called to create Kingdom situation where we
are by living it out. The kingdom of God thus, is not just a reality that comes
at the end, rather it is a reality that should model and transform our lives,
our relationships and our world view in the hic et nunc of our
existence.
Furthermore, the call and challenge to
repent means more than to be simply sorry for one’s individual sins. The Greek
word for repentance “meta-noiein” throws more light on
this. “Meta-noiein” literally means change of one’s mind. However, we
may well presume that Jesus must have used its Hebrew equivalent: “shub”,
which means to turn around 180 degrees, a
radical change of mind toward sin, a conscious moral separation from sin. In
that bid, reorienting one’s life or attitude towards God. It is all about making Jesus and His
words the point of reference in one’s life. This invitation to repent has within it,
a demand of faith. Little wonder, our evangelist added “believe in the Gospel”.
The passage is closed with a sort of
fulfillment of Jesus’ preaching, with the call of the disciples, this indeed,
serves as an illustration of what it means to repent and believe in the gospel.
Repenting and believing entails
liberation from and liberation for respectively, it is has to do with being
attached to the person of Jesus and to journey along with him, following
him wherever He goes (cf. Rev. 14:4),
even to the cross. This second part of the gospel talks
about the call of the first four disciples, who will later become resurrection messengers of the gospel. As we
can see, the call here, occurred as they were going about their daily business
(fishing), not during a special moment per
se. The call of God is completely
gratuitous, “gratia gratis data”.
He calls freely and gratuitously and he expects a corresponding action from us:
to answer freely and with immediacy too.
They left everything and followed him, just like the inhabitants of Niniveh
that were given 40 days to repent and they did. They condition for discipleship
is to follow Him Here, Now, As you are!
The second reading (1Cor 7:29-31) on
its part enjoins us to treasure the present time and transform it into a time
of grace, by living in the spirit of detachment from the world, with heaven in
view. He emphasized that the form of this world is passing away. This world and
its realities are provisional. St. Paul is not inviting us to despise all material goods, rather
to give earthly things their true importance, he invites us not to make the things
of this world idles (life, position, wealth). We
should have our gaze and attention fixed on the Kingdom of God, which is both
an existential and eschatological reality.
Frankly speaking, the three enemies that
hinder the realization of God’s Kingdom are: division, discrimination and exclusion. At the time of Jesus many
people were discriminated and excluded, ranging from children, women, and the
disabled to those with contagious diseases, even ailments. Little wonder, Jesus came with a message of
transformation, a message that should bring about radical change and shift in
paradigm. Unfortunately even till today, the presages of these
discrimination, division and exclusion are still hunting us. Yet we are still
confronted with a veritable question that is still begging for answer: what is
the import of Jesus’ message in our society and in our world? What indeed, is
the import of the nearness of His kingdom in our societies, countries and our
world torn apart by the presages of violence, hatred, war, lack of respect for
human dignity and life? What is the import of this message in a country like ours,
where human beings are killed mercilessly with impunity? Indeed, we need to reecho strongly the clarion call of Jesus:
“Time is fulfilled. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent, and believe in the
gospel” (Mk. 1:14).
Yes! Time is fulfilled, not just an
ordinary time in the temporal process, but the time of grace, here, for time
Jesus uses Kairos and not kronos. Kairos is a time of
grace, a special and extraordinary time within time flux, a transformed time in
time that transforms people and situations. May the vitality of this
transformed time, transform us, our ugly human conditions and our society, even
the world at large!!!
(Fr. Vitus Unegbu)
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