homily notes: third sunday of ordinary time

We all know the story of Jonah, right?


He was this guy who God called to go on a mission for him. He was supposed to go and preach to the people of Nineveh, warning them that God was going to punish them for their sins.
Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire - this was an empire that ended up conquering the kingdom of Israel and sending its people into exile. It was not a place that Jonah wanted to go.


So, we get to the famous part of the story: Jonah gets in a ship heading the completely opposite direction. A storm comes up and the crew of the ship decides that it is because Jonah is running from God that they are in danger of sinking. To fix that they throw him overboard, then Jonah is swelled by a "great fish." He stays in the fish for three days and then it spits him out on coast.


That's probably the story that most people know, but it's only the introduction to where we pick up today.


Once again, God tells Jonah to go and warn Nineveh. This time he goes, but when he gets there, he doesn't exactly put his heart into it - he just walks through saying, "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed." - no solutions or ways to get out of it, they are just doomed.


But, somehow, it works: the people of Nineveh repent and they are spared God's punishment.




Our gospel today also tells the story of an announcement of repentance. Jesus is in Galilee, his home territory, and he's proclaiming that "this is the time of fulfillment, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel."


This is a different message than Jonas was proclaiming and it's proclaimed in a different way.


It's about more than avoiding punishment or destruction. Gospel means "good news" and this good news is that the time has now come: everything promised by God in the Old Testament was coming to completion because of the coming of Jesus.


But, just like Jonas, Jesus preaches repentance.


Repentance is not a popular idea in our culture, at least not for ourselves. Like Jonas, it's easier for us to say about someone else, "You are wrong and you should be punished." That feels good, but it's a lot harder to look at my own heart and say, "I'm wrong and deserve to be punished."


Fortunately, Jesus offers a solution and that solution is himself. Like the disciples who dropped everything and left everything behind to follow Jesus, he calls us to abandon what holds us back, what makes us unloving, and follow him wholeheartedly.


It's only when we turn away from the darkness in our lives that we can turn and follow Jesus. That's what repentance is: turning around, making every day a moment of conversion.


This is especially meaningful today/this weekend. Thirty nine years ago today/this Sunday, the Supreme Court of our country made abortion legal. It made the killing of a helpless, innocent human being legal. That is a grave evil. It is a sin that cries out to God for justice. It calls for repentance.
I'm not saying that we're all responsible for that - and I am definitely not trying to condemn any woman who's had an abortion, our response as a Church has to be one of love to anyone who's been put in that situation.
But, we as a people, as citizens of the United States need to repent. We need to change our minds and our hearts so that, law or no law, an abortion is an unthinkable act.


We need to pray for women considering an abortion, we need to pray for the men in their lives, for the men and women who work in the abortion industry, for our leaders and for ourselves, that our actions and words tell the world that this is an evil that must end.