Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

Title

The World in its Present Form is Passing Away

Outline

Life seems so normal, so permanent

Typically one grows up, somehow ends up with a career, likely marries and so has a family, and, perhaps goes to church (or some other focus of meaning, such as a political group or a social service group). So there we have our compartments: self-care, family, career/job, church/meaning group.

If, therefore, there is a threat to any of these things we get anxious and/or angry. We may rank them in order of importance, but each is needed for normal life.

But Paul says, “the form of this world is passing away.” Therefore, everything in the life of this world must be held lightly, realizing that it is temporary and only to be valued for the sake of someone or something else: Jesus and the Kingdom of God.

Otherwise we are worshipping idols, i.e. valuing the creature or our own desires above the Creator.

Now that can be difficult

Jonah was a Israel nationalist; Israel was God’s nation, Jonah was committed to God, and therefore all which opposed Israel was irredeemably evil.

So when God commands him to go to Nineveh, the capital of what for him was the evil empire, he first flees from God and then reluctantly obeys. The message would have pleased Jonah: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” for he wanted to see Nineveh destroyed, yet he knew God well enough to suspect Nineveh would repent and be forgiven. That distressed him.

What was worse was may have been his suspicion that Nineveh/ Assyria would end up destroying his country (and, of course, the religion). He could not grasp that it and much else he loved must pass away before the Kingdom of God could come in Jesus.

Jesus came and in him the kingdom

His message is “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.” All that Abraham waited for, what Moses waited for, what David waited for, what Jonah waited for has come in me. You may think you are the chosen people, but you must repent, i.e. change your mind and behavior, and commit yourselves to this good news, thereby becoming citizens of God’s kingdom.

For Simon and Andrew and for James and John sons of Zebedee this meant leaving their jobs and their families and becoming disciples of Jesus. (He did not inform them that this was a seminary course so they could become apostles - and eventually die for him)

The point is that all else became secondary to Jesus. Peter’s house would become a church, but only after Peter had been executed in Rome. Their desire for a Messiah to restore Jewish independence had to go. In fact, if Judea and Galilee did not become dependent upon Jesus, Jesus said they would be destroyed and the Temple with them. It was passing away. Their whole world was turned upside down by Jesus, because Jesus knew that that was really rightside up.

[Sisters] [Brothers and Sisters] this is the gospel

Whether it be my happiness that is the center of my life, my family that is the center of my life, my job [my vocation] that is the center of my life, or even my church that is the center of my life, it is passing away. Jesus will either re-orient it under his kingly rule serving his purposes and our ultimate good (for the time being) or else remove it at the right time and in the right way as he sees fit. He will not tolerate it as an idol.

I believe it was as Joseph Ratzinger that Pope Benedict XVI said that he saw major alterations to the Church: not in doctrine but in size, level of commitment, place in society, and, if I understood him, beautiful structures.

We do participate in the divine liturgy in our worship, but we participate in it in part. Before the king arrives again, the “in part” will pass away or be transformed.

The question for us is whether we believe this - I myself am believing this more and more, but slowly - and whether will will embrace the the passing away of this age as good news since it the king is already here and we are already in the kingdom so the old must make way?