When God asks for
repentance, how do you respond?
To the great surprise
of the prophet Jonah, the response of the people of Nineveh is pretty much
immediate: Jonah has gone but a single day’s walk when the
Ninevites, a pagan people, open themselves to conversion to the God of
Israel: they believe God and turn from
their evil ways. The Ninevites
embody the openness of the psalmist in Psalm 25, who asks, Teach me your ways, O Lord.
In Nineveh as in David’s kingdom, the people have strayed and need to be
brought back. Knowing they have failed to understand God’s ways fully, they are
willing to learn, to listen, to do what is required to rely on the Lord, to be
changed by God.
Jesus’ message in
Mark’s Gospel echoes that of Jonah: The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel. The people of Israel are called to repent and
believe in Jesus – to believe in everything he is and everything he does, healing,
restoring to life, preaching God’s love.
They must rely upon the Lord who reveals his love, who is still
revealing that love, even (and perhaps especially) when we least expect
it. If we limit our love to what we
know, we won’t get very far – God’s love is so infinitely more than we can
imagine. Rather, we must remain focused,
and not miss any opportunity for conversion, any occasion for revelation. After all, as Paul tells the Corinthians, time is running out and the world in its present form is passing
away. Paul is voicing a requirement
for change, now, in this moment – he is calling the Corinthians to be more attentive
to God, to God’s will, to God’s call, than to the world at large. Jesus calls us to no less.
When Jesus asks
for repentance, how do we respond?
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
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