HOMILY SUNDAY 03 – Yr B

Living in the Kingdom of God

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

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“The time fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.”

With those words, Jesus is inviting us to experience his kingdom here and now through faith and repentance.

The kingdom of God was what Jesus preached about the most, and what he came to inaugurate here and now. “The kingdom of God is among you” – “Regnum Dei Intra Vos” – is my motto as an archbishop, from Luke 17:21. For St. Paul, the kingdom of God is the “peace, joy, and justice of the Holy Spirit” (Rm 14:17). Peace is not a fleeting emotion, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit that we can claim as baptized Christians. Joy is not a passing emotion like happiness, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit that we can claim as followers of Jesus. And justice is a right relationship with God, with all others in our life, with ourselves, and with all of God’s creation.

We enter that kingdom through faith and repentance. Our faith is first of all in God’s unconditional love for us. It is also in Jesus who as the Messiah had a two-fold mission – to redeem and to sanctify, to forgive and to heal. In faith, we can come to him for forgiveness of our sins. But the good news is there is more – we can trust that he will also heal our sinfulness, that which makes us sin. That sinfulness is our painful emotions like anger and resentment, our defects of character or negative attitudes like false pride, stubborn self-will and self-righteousness, as well as our addictions – for these we need healing more than forgiveness.

Jesus also calls us to repentance. That can mean change and letting go. The people of Nineveh fasted and put on sack cloth, while the apostles left everything to follow Jesus. But there is a deeper meaning, revealed by the Greek word for repentance, and that is metanoia. Meta means highest, like metaphysics. Nous means mind, so when Jesus asks us to do metanoia, he is asking us to put on our highest mind, to trust God completely, to be the best person that we can possibly be, to change our whole way of life, our world view. The Greek word for sin, on the other hand, is harmatia, which means to fall short of the mark, to be less than the person God asks us to be. Ultimately, metanoia means to be open to the transformation of our whole person.

Years ago, I was part of a team giving a leadership course in a community. Eventually, I became aware that one member of the team was giving me the silent treatment. When I asked her if there was something wrong, she shared that she was very frustrated with the way I was controlling everything, changing things that they set up. I apologized and asked what I could do about it. She replied simply, “Change your belief system.” When I asked what she meant, she asked if I really believed that my way was the only right way, that no one else’s way could be just as good. With chagrin, I realized she was right, and I had to do metanoia, change my whole way of being and acting as part of this team.

Metanioa doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, and involves living the Paschal Mystery pattern of passion, death and resurrection that Jesus gave us. I like to call it a Spiritual Spiral. Imagine a line across a page moving upwards, and circles diminishing in size suspended from and below the line. This is a blend of Jewish and Indigenous spirituality, the Abrahamic journey and the medicine wheel.

When we become aware of some defect of character for which we need healing, that painful truth is our passion, and a downward movement on the circle. When we face that reality, accept it and deal with it through sharing and prayer, and become willing to let it go, that is our death, at the bottom of the circle. And as we experience healing of that defect of character, we rise to the top of the next smaller circle, and that is our resurrection.

Each time we go through this process for different defects of character, or perhaps a second or third time for the same defect, it becomes easier, which is why the circles diminish in size, and the line moves upwards – to symbolize our healing.

Another example might help. A friend who is a religious sister just returned from a therapeutic centre for clergy and religious where she was working on some inner child and family of origin issues. There she was told the painful truth that she was carrying a lot of shame, felt that she was never good enough, did not believe in herself, and did not love herself. She felt overwhelmed, devastated, and afraid that she was beyond hope.

I pointed out to her that this was a very positive reality. That knowledge with its concomitant painful emotions was her passion, a downward movement towards healing, calling her to live the Paschal Mystery or Spiritual Spiral. Facing this reality, feeling those feelings, accepting this painful truth, and choosing to deal with it rather than medicate that pain through frantic activity would be her death, dying to it and letting it go. That would happen best through pondering it, sharing this struggle with others, and especially entering into a more contemplative prayer that would allow the Holy Spirit the opportunity to slip “between the marrow and the bones” and heal her at a deeper level than any psychology can go. I shared with her my favorite mantra for my contemplative prayer time: “Jesus, Healer, Make me Whole.”

Her transformation through this process and rising to a new quality of life will be her resurrection. As she forgives herself and any other hurtful person in her life, as she accepts herself as she is and starts to love herself, as she starts to believe that she is more than good enough, that will be her transformation into new life and a deeper experience of living within the kingdom of God.

The Eucharist is our food for that journey. It is a foretaste of the kingdom of heaven, an act of deep faith and an experience of metanoia. We are forgiven and healed, and sent out to be good news to the world.

So, remember, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near; repent, do metanoia, and believe that this is indeed good news.