Being sent by God to people we do not like: Homily for Sunday, January 21, 2024

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We miss in this version of the first reading most of Jonah’s “no” to God. But like Jonah, we too might be sent to people we do not like.

Being sent by God to people we do not like

As I mentioned, I love the story of Jonah. And in fact, we lose a lot of the story here in the first reading. The book of Jonah is short. It’s four chapters, I think. It’s not very long, and it’s a very interesting picture of Jonah. We get a real clear idea of what kind of person he is and what he’s like.

And God wants him to go to Nineveh. Now, Nineveh was not Jewish, and it was not a very nice place. It was a place where not so great things were happening. And it would have been quite understandable for Jonah to say, “Well, now, wait a minute. I’m not going over there. I’m not talking to them. I don’t want them to convert. I don’t like them.”

We have any number of groups or people we might feel that way about in our life, too. “I don’t like them. I don’t want to talk to them. I’m not going to listen to them.” So Jonah runs away. But ultimately, there’s a lesson in what happens to Jonah. Whether or not this story is true, most scholars think it’s probably not literally true.

But nonetheless, it is something where we know the dangers when we run away from God. People who run away from God rarely find things better off than they did before, and often, almost always, it gets much, much worse. And that’s the story with Jonah. It gets much, much worse for Jonah. So bad, in fact, that even though he doesn’t want to go, and even though he doesn’t like Nineveh, he goes.

And that’s what we hear today. So we get to this point. I can’t imagine he was the most enthusiastic of preachers when he went through Nineveh. I have kind of a picture of Jonah going, “Forty days more and Nineveh will be destroyed. Forty days more and Nineveh will be destroyed.” I don’t think he was enthusiastic. I don’t think he was loud, because he was aware of what was going to happen.

God was going to do something magnificent. See, we have a real… I’ve said this before. There’s an American problem, I think, certainly a Western world problem, but there’s an American problem, that whenever there’s a problem, it’s all up to us to do something, and we know the only right way to do something about it. We’re not a little bit, but a lot, sometimes arrogant in that regard. I know I am anyway.

Nineveh repents. Everybody repents. Every aspect of their society is in a sign of repentance. I don’t know that cows, for example, really appreciate being in sackcloth and ashes, but they were. Every aspect of their life was repentant. And that’s exactly why Jonah said no. He said, “I know you, God. I know you’re a forgiving God. I knew you were going to cause this to happen, and I didn’t like it.”

I think Jonah is a good lesson as we prepare for a year that I dread. And here’s why I dread the year. It has nothing to do with the parish or my life here or whatever. It has to do with the fact that yet again we’re headed into an election year. How is it that we could begin to understand one another a little bit better? How is it that we could actually say yes to God a little bit more? How is it that we could see the center of our life is not political activity?

It’s our relationship with Jesus. That’s the most important thing. Everything comes from that reality. I saw Father Mike Schmitz, who I mentioned in a Bible in a Year podcast, talk about Mass. He said, “You know, Mass would be valuable and infinitely valuable if only one person came.” Because it’s not about the community first.

It’s about God and what God does for the community. We first and foremost come because when we come to Mass, it’s an act of worship of God. If you wonder, “Well, what about all these animal sacrifices and things in the Old Testament?” This is what it became, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, so that we could live forever.

We had sinned. We had rejected God. We had fallen short. We were in justice. God would have been right to condemn us for all eternity. But, as we know in this first reading, He loves us. And so He doesn’t just forgive us in any old way. He forgives us by becoming one of us. He forgives us by becoming Jesus Christ. [Well, not becoming, because Jesus existed from all eternity. Don’t talk to the archbishop that I just committed a little act of heresy there, but anyway.]

There’s the divine Son of God, and there’s Jesus who became human, taking on our human form, suffering and dying for our sins, so that we could live forever. And so, if we want to know what it is that we need to do, we need to understand how we should see the world.

And that’s the only way the second reading we heard makes any sense. I would certainly not give this as marriage advice to a couple preparing to be married. “Let those having wives act as not having them.” Hmm. That seems like that could end very badly. But, at least for the husbands who decide having wives, they should act as if they don’t have them.

But it’s an odd expression here. Weeping as though not weeping, rejoicing as not rejoicing, buying as not owning, using the world as not using it fully. Why does Paul say that? Why is it that he is suggesting that this is, in fact, the way we should go about living our lives? Why does he say that? Again, this cuts to the heart of what I call the American problem.

Because it’s never most important what we do. It’s always first what God does in us. Then we respond out of that call. So we can’t, I’m not suggesting we can be couch potato Christians where we just sit on our couches and not do anything in the world. That’s not my point.

But we always have to remember that even if we’re doing tremendously wonderful things, if we don’t have love, and if it’s not centered in love, and who is love but God, then Paul tells us it’s worthless. If I have not love, then there’s a whole bunch of dramatic, wonderful, tremendous things that he says, and God is love.

We know how God reveals himself to us. Paul is saying, this is how you need to see the world. I’m still getting no commission for this, but that’s the biggest reason why the Bible in a Year is started. To help us to see the way in which the world is seen in the Bible. It’s the biblical worldview that we then adopt and see.

Particularly, the deep interconnected reality of the Old Testament to the New Testament. They’re deeply connected, and we can’t understand the New Testament without really understanding the Old Testament, and how God foresaw this great act of salvation, this great act of fulfillment for us.

And so if we’re going to be able to say yes to God, I’m going to again offer two critically important things. The first is recognizing that when we come here, when we come to Mass, it’s first to help us to recognize more clearly the person of Jesus Christ himself. Body, blood, soul, divinity. That is the hallmark of what it means to be Catholic. The Eucharist.

There is nothing, nothing, nothing that supersedes our belief and our knowledge in the Eucharist. And so we come to Mass first and foremost so that we can know and see the presence of Jesus Christ on this altar. Body, blood, soul, divinity. And when we come into church, we’re reminded of it because Jesus Christ is in the tabernacle. Body, blood, soul, divinity.

Now why does that matter? It matters that we can’t recognize Jesus here and act accordingly. It is so much harder to recognize Jesus in the poor. It is so much harder to recognize Jesus in those in need. It is so much harder to really act and work for the changes that are necessary in our world. It is so much harder to recognize what Jesus says that the kingdom of God is here in our midst. And we have to act according to that kingdom.

That’s the biblical worldview. One last thing. It’s important, I think, for us to recognize that we’re entering into a time where people are going to disagree. It’s just the nature of things. But we can’t let ourselves off the hook. We can make no change in someone if we don’t understand why the people with whom we disagree believe what they believe. We have to listen to each other.

And we have to listen to each other even when we don’t like what the other person is saying. The biggest threat to this country is not what people are saying it is. It’s our inability to listen to each other. It’s our inability to recognize that just possibly I’m the one that’s wrong. Understanding why people believe what they believe.

It doesn’t mean we have to believe everything that people believe. Far from it. In fact, we shouldn’t. We’re gospel people.

But today, today, God might be asking you to be the next Jonah. Talking to people that you don’t like. Praying that they might come to know the love and mercy and forgiveness of God through your example of recognizing your need, my need, of that same love and forgiveness from God.

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