U-TURNS

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HOMILY, Third Sunday in Ordinary Time JANUARY 22, 2012 U-TURNS

U-TURNS


We call this liturgical year, "the year of Mark," because, for the most part, his is the gospel we will be hearing these Sundays. And Mark begins his Gospel with the first preaching of Jesus: "This is the time of fulfillment; the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the good news." The time is ripe; it is a gifted and graced opportunity; what people have waited a long time for, is coming to fruition - God is acting decisively on our behalf. Let’s look at those main three points of Jesus’ preaching:

"This is the time of fulfillment”: Mark focuses on Jesus’ identity. In Mark people don’t seem to understand who Jesus is and what is important about his message. Even Jesus’ disciples don’t comprehend. Mark is focused on proclaiming "Jesus Christ IS the Son of God" (1:1). Later, Peter will make his dramatic confession of Jesus (8:29) and finally the centurion at the foot of the cross will confess, "Truly, this man was the Son of God" (15:39). The time is ripe; it is a gifted and graced opportunity; what people have waited a long time for, is coming to fruition. “This is the time of fulfillment.”

Therefore, Jesus’ second point: the kingdom of God is at hand. As Paul urges vigilance for Christ, so Jesus’ entrance into the lives of the fisherman or into the lives of you and me, compels us to make a decision – now! Wait until the second quarter, or until I get the promotion, or until the kids are grown. No! It can’t wait because the Kingdom of God is at hand. It’s here. "No more waiting" Jesus seems to be saying.

Jesus, the Son of God has come to perfectly reveal the Father. It compels us to make a decision – now! And what is that decision? That’s Jesus’ third homiletic point: Repent and believe in the good news.

That’s the point I’d like to focus on today because, our faith, God’s grace and ultimately our eternal lives depend on it. In all three of our readings, the time is short and conversion is consequently an urgent matter. Conversion is a "turning from" evil and a "turning one’s life towards" the kingdom of God that is imminent. It's a complete eorientation.

Like Jonah and the prophets, Jesus preached repentance, "metanoia." He invited people to have a change of heart and return to God. He invited them to make a critical, necessary U-turn. After all, confession—whether it’s a confession of faith as in the Creed or the confession of the penitential rite, or confession in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, confession without repentance is merely bragging.

The springboard to this metanoia, this conversion--this repentance-- must be the recognition of sin—of our specific imperfections and rebellions and the recognition of the fact that, in principle and per se, as St. Paul points out in his letter to the Romans: “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23)

During the period after the university examinations, when an unusually large number of students flunked, one of the boys went to his professor, and said: "I don't think this is fair, sir; I don't think I should have a zero on this examination." "I know it," replied the professor, "but we do not have any mark lower than that." : “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

This metanoia, this conversion, this repentance, this U-turn, must begin with the recognition of sin in our lives. There was another classroom, a theology class. As the professor began his lecture on repentance, he asked the class, "What must we do before we can expect forgiveness from sin?" After a long silence, one of the men in attendance raised his hand and said: "Sin?" Of course. Without the recognition of sin, what is there to expect forgiveness from?

Metanoia is the most common Greek word used in the New Testament for repentance or conversion. It means a fundamental change in one's thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and actions. It is a process of regeneration that comes by faith in Christ who urges us to cooperate with the work of this new kingdom by repenting and believing in the good news. And it always has a positive connotation because the focus is always on the superior state being approached, rather than the inferior prior state being departed from.

As I mentioned to the folks at Catholic Scripture Study Austin who were studying the penitential book of the prophet Baruch this week, a good model for metanoia for us as Catholics is the elements of making a good confession in the Sacrament of reconciliation. There are three of them; Three things are required of a penitent in order to receive the sacrament worthily:

4. He or she must be contrite—or, in other words, sorry for his sins.
5. He or she must confess those sins fully, in kind and in number.
6. He or she must be willing to do penance and make amends for his sins. In other words—to make a u-turn.

Brian was lacking in all three areas. Ducking into confession with a turkey in his arms, Brian said, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I stole this turkey to feed my family. Would you take it and settle my guilt?" "Certainly not," said the Priest. "As penance, you must return it to the one from whom you stole it."

“I tried," Brian sobbed, "but he refused. Oh, Father, what should I do?" "If what you say is true, then it is all right for you to keep it for your family." Thanking the Priest, Brian hurried off. When confession was over, the Priest returned to his residence. When he walked into the kitchen, he found that someone had stolen his turkey. There’s a little of Brian in all of us I’m afraid.

God is delighted to forgive our sins, not once but each and every time we turn to him for mercy and forgiveness. But that is with the condition that we do sincerely regret sinning and we intend to turn our life around. We cannot expect forgiveness from our sins if we are planning to live as we lived before.

Repentance means acknowledging one's sins and seeking forgiveness. Jesus links repentance with believing the good news. Two sides of the same coin. "Repent and believe the gospel." What good is repenting if we do not believe we will find forgiveness? The good news that Jesus proclaims is that we do find forgiveness. Those who heard Jesus’ preaching find forgiveness and are invited to turn their lives toward him and change whatever keeps them from accepting and following him.

Jesus' call to metanoia sets the stage for what comes next, the call of the first disciples. Their response to his invitation is a concrete illustration of the radical change required. Metanoia means that a person going in one direction makes an about face and goes in the opposite. A person responding to the call of Jesus must reorient his/her life; take on a new way of being; rededicate energies and see and judge things from a new perspective. And what a huge turnaround the first disciples made.

There is something about Simon, Andrew, James and John's response that touches a deep place in us. Like them we want more in our lives: more of God; more fidelity, a prompt response to the call God; more spontaneity when a chance to serve shows itself; more joy about having less to weigh us down and inhibit our ability to get up and follow Christ; more whole-heartedness in our ministries; more satisfaction in God's service; more wisdom to know how to respond to life's current challenges; more clarity to see our jobs as ways of following Christ and more courage to face sickness and its limits.

For most of us, the call to follow Jesus has not nearly been as dramatic. There was no special moment, as in today's Gospel, when He approached us and asked us to be His disciples. Most of us were baptized, and raised as Catholics in our younger days. We went through the motions of prayer and church and sacraments. We learned the basics of Christian doctrine.

And maybe after some years of questioning and wandering, or maybe just laziness and indifference, we reached a point in our adult life when we began to take our Catholic faith seriously. But many of us have not consciously, purposefully and with the full-force of a radical change in life orientation, really engaged the metanoia Jesus is talking about.

In the original Greek the word for repentance is "metanoia." The root of the word refers to the eye of the heart. So, Jesus is inviting us to an entirely new way of looking at ourselves and the world. If "the eye of our heart" is changed, we will live with vision guided by the light that is Christ.