3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

          “Forty days more and Nineveh will be destroyed!”  “I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out…For the world in its present form is passing way.”  “This is the time of fulfillment.  The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”  Maybe not the most cheerful way to begin the New Year or the new semester.  This feels more like the end of Ordinary Time, as the readings in the cycle of the lectionary at that time of year always become a little darker in tone, a little more apocalyptic.  Either that, or all this talk of repentance might make us feel like we have “jumped the gun” on Lent, which is still a few weeks away.  But I would submit that despite the initial gloomy tone of these readings, there is good news here.  In fact, it’s not hard to find at all.

Let’s start with that passage from the prophet Jonah.  We need to be reminded of a little backstory here.  Jonah was called to be a prophet of the Lord.  He was told to go to the city of Nineveh (which, by the way, is on the outskirts of the modern day city of Mosul in Iraq).  And so to Nineveh Jonah went…eventually.  Before the passage we heard today, however, we know that when Jonah was first called to go east by land to Nineveh, he did the exactly opposite: he fled west by sea.  As we know, that voyage didn’t really work out so well, as they encountered turbulent seas and his shipmates tossed him overboard and, as the story goes, he was swallowed by a giant fish and then spewed upon the beach.  Jonah got the picture, and then went along with God’s plan to go to the great city of Nineveh.  And that went very well. But one day’s journey into this enormous city that took three to walk through, preaching the message of repentance, and the Ninevites repented.

And so, this is really a story of conversion – not just of the citizens of Nineveh, but first of Jonah himself.  The message is that when we try to outsmart or outrun God, we shouldn’t be surprised that things don’t turn out so well.  But when, in our free will, we seek to align our wills with the will of God, great things can happen, and often more quickly and perfectly than we could have ever imagined.  So, yes, despite what we might perceive at first as “alarmism” and “fear-mongering” in this story, there is good news here.

The section from Saint Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we hear in our second reading also seems very dour at first, as we are told that time is “running out,” the “end is near.”  And so, weep as not weeping, rejoice as not rejoicing, buy as not owning, use the world as not using it fully, for “the world in its present form is passing away.”  But, again, I would submit that there is good news to be found in this message.  This is not just another “chicken-little-the-sky-is-falling” warning.  The core of this message is not to be obsessed with or possessed by the world and worldly things.  Perhaps a more positive way of putting this might simply be: this life, this existence as we know it is not all that there is.  And so, we should not live just for today, as some many would have us do, but for eternity.  Temper both your joys and your woes; possess, but do not be overly attached; be in the world, but not of the world.  There is great freedom that comes from this way of living and, therefore, great happiness too.  And so, ultimately, Saint Paul’s is a message of how to find true fulfillment – true happiness – in this life and in the next.  And that is very good news.

          I am reminded of the saying of C.S. Lewis, the popular 20^th century English apologist and author, who once wrote: “Aim for heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’; aim for earth and you will get neither.”  There is, in other words, an interesting thing that happens when we follow Saint Paul’s advice not to live just for today or for this world, but to look beyond, and that is that this life becomes all the more vibrant and beautiful.  If we put our stock only in earthly happiness, we are sure to be disappointed.  But if we put our stock in eternal happiness, then we will not only obtain that, but also come to enjoy the good things of this life and this earth that much more!  For this reason, another earlier 20^th century English author, Hilaire Belloc, could quip:  “Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, there’s always laughter and good red wine.  At least I’ve always found it so.  Benedicamus Domino!”  We are not a sad lot for our faith in God and our hope in eternal life – quite the opposite.  And if this isn’t the case, then we have some soul-searching to do.

          Then, there is the Gospel.  It seems that Jesus comes charging out of his forty-day retreat in the desert with “fire and brimstone.”  “This is the time of fulfillment.  The kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent, and believe in the gospel.”  But again, there is joyful news here.  Notice first that Jesus says, “This is the time of fulfillment,” not “This is the time of destruction” or “the end of all things!”  Even the word “apocalypse” doesn’t mean “destruction,” but revelation, literally unveiling.  And so, in a sense, the curtain is just opening, not closing, on this great drama of human life in relationship with God.  Jesus isn’t saying that “everything is coming to end,” but in fact, “We’re just getting started,” as He introduces Himself in this passionate first preaching of the Gospel. 

To follow this up, Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is at hand.”  Again, he’s not saying the end of the world is around the corner, but that the kingdom of God, “a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace” has come already in Himself.  Jesus is already the beginning of the kingdom of God on earth.

Lastly, this Gospel passage ends with yet another story of call and conversion, like that of Jonah, as to help Him in the establishment of this kingdom, Jesus summons His first disciples.  We know, in time, what they will do.  They will go out to all the world and proclaim the good news.  They will become “fishers of men and women.” We are here because of it, and that is also very good news.

And so, my brothers and sisters, let us not be discouraged or put off by the initial tone of these readings, but find in them the good news of grace and conversion, of call and mission, of life lived on God’s terms.  Then, when indeed the “end is near” we need not fear, but may be full of hope.