3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Gospel this Sunday seems to be a series of small incidents almost like different dishes on a buffet table. Matthew has carefully orchestrated these stories as a setting for the sermon on the Mount.

First there is the arrest and death of John the Baptist. This causes Jesus to move out of the region and go to Capernaum. Here he picks up on the Baptist’s challenge to Repentance. However this is not an examination of our sins in preparation for confession. The Greek word for Repentance is “metanoia” which is a radical change of mind. It is a challenge for a total change of life’s direction, a totally new way of looking at life.

We have then the call of the famous four: Peter and Andrew, James and john. Their action of following Jesus immediately is a visual aid, a model of what it means to change their life’s direction. If you look at the Bajan Fishermen next door. They come home after a long day’s work. They do not just pick up a beer and relax. First they clean their nets, then they tidy up their boat from bow to stern, they clean out their lunch boxes, they scale the fish and only then will they relax. Here we have the four fishermen, just leaving their nets and the fish and follow Jesus. Jesus then proceeds to do miracles as a sign to back up the teaching of the Apostles and the preaching of the Kingdom of God. Those who are open to the Gospel, will no longer walk in darkness, but in the Light.

We are introduced to this Light in the first reading from Isaiah. It should sound familiar because we heard it on Christmas Day. The People of Israel were taken into captivity in Assyria. They are in the darkness of despair as their entire life is in shambles:

Politically: they are nonentities. They have no king, no army.

Socially: they are in shambles. Their families have disintegrated. There is intermarriage and with it comes: adoption of the gods of their foreign rulers, their customs, and an abandonment of their own culture and faith.

Religiously: they are in chaos. They have lost trust in Yahweh and now put their hope in strange alliances

But Isaiah gives them hope because a New Light has dawned and they will no longer walk in darkness, because the Light of God will shine upon them once again. The early Christians identified this light as Jesus Christ who came into our world.

• Our Second Reading has a similar chaos and darkness. In fact Paul was constantly having to rein in the wild Corinthians. They were given in to excesses and paying attention to trivialities. Paul scolds them in the letter. Actually they were no different from the Apostles in Jesus’ own time. The Apostles were constantly arguing who was the greatest among themselves. Here the Corinthians had formed different cliques: Paul, Apollo, Christ. Each of these were claiming superiority over the others.

• Perhaps you and I might say and what has all this got to do with us here at St. Francis in 2008. We are not like them. But is that true? These Corinthians do mirror and reflect our own attitude today. Don’t we Catholics think we are the best, and all others are flawed? We even have the Vatican saying that to the dismay of other Christian denominations and to the insult of other faiths. And within our own church, don’t we say I come to Church each Sunday and I am not like those Catholics that only come at Easter and Christmas and for Funerals and weddings.

It is time for our own Metanoia. It is time for a repentance. It is a time to look at the Eucharist we celebrate and realize that each time we celebrate Mass as a community, as individuals and as a Community we are called to Repentance, to a totally new way at looking at ourselves and our communities around us.

Have we really paid attention to the words of Consecration:

Take this all of you and eat. (All: not just some of you, not just you who are holy and those who have their act together.) Jesus himself said, I have not come for the righteous but to call sinners to repentance. I have not come for those who are well, but to heal those who are sick.

The relevance of Paul’s letter is very, very pertinent to us today.

Story: An old and very saintly priest was asked what would he have done, if he had all the experience and wisdom he has now, if he had it at the beginning of his priestly ministry. He replied, “I would be more free with the grace of God to those who came seeking for it. I would not have put barriers and obstacles, forms to be filled and minor regulations to be followed – as they came seeking forgiveness. Many came with a desire to walk out of the darkness of despair into the light of Christ. I would definitely have helped not hindered them.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.