Sadly, bad teaching by many priests means that when some Catholics hear the word “Repent”, as in our Gospel today, (Matt 4:12-23) they immediately start thinking in a rather gloomy way about sin. You can hear and see me give this Homily on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD3KrLoa-ck
But look more carefully at the way Jesus uses the word today and you can see that he doesn’t mention sin at all; and far from being an encouragement to be gloomy, he is actually telling them to turn from darkness and gloom and look out instead for light and joy. We know this because he has just read to them the passage that we have as our 1st Reading (Isaiah 8:23-9:3) which is very clear indeed. They may feel as if they are in darkness, and we may feel it too, weighed down by the worries of the world as well as our own troubles, but Jesus offers them and us new hope and joy, because “On those who dwell in the land and shadow of death, a light has dawned.”
Mind you, we Christians can and do get accused both of being too gloomy, when we use phrases like “Turn away from sin”, and of being full of false optimism as in today’s Reading. And it is true, for we both emphasise the awful realities of a world where humans are so often cruel and unpleasant to one another, but also insist that there is hope in the darkest places. The pagans in Jesus’ time very much felt themselves trapped, for their gods were a fickle series of irrational forces, and the only point of religion was to try to get the appropriate god on your side. This is why some of them, often called God-fearers, looked towards the Jewish faith with much envy. They longed to be part of a faith that believed in one God underlying the whole Universe and who would always in the end defeat the powers of evil. But they could not become part of this faith because only Jews could be Jews. So when the Christian version of this faith came along they were filled with joy as we hear in the Book of Acts. (13:44-48) Here St Paul gives them this message by quoting from Isaiah “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.” And their response is immediate : “When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord.”
Now I am not saying that we should always be joyful and never gloomy. We cannot know what joy it is to be loved by God, to be drawn into union with him, unless we are aware of the darkness from which he is saving us. Maybe this is why it has always been the poor of the world who are most enthusiastic about the Christian faith, whilst we who are relatively prosperous cannot see, until we face some real problem, what all the fuss and joy is all about. I think I may have told you that I follow on Twitter a priest from Malawi who posts wonderful clips of Catholic Masses where hundreds sing joyfully of the glory of God; but I also love to hear of a Churches here in England where a great choir sings some magnificent setting of the Mass from the great classical tradition. In different ways, both stir my soul, because both express the joy of being part of the kingdom of heaven.
And that is why the concept of the “kingdom” is so important. Jesus doesn’t just proclaim to us some good thoughts on God and his glory, he invites us to be part of it, to enter spiritually into a new place of light and peace despite the darkness of the world. It isn’t an escape from the world’s problems, but rather a springboard from which we can all play our part in helping the world be a little less dark. That’s why he doesn’t just say to his first disciples “Follow me” but “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” That’s why the Mass is never meant to be a place where we are lectured on sin, but a place where we are part of a praying community and are able to glimpse a little of God’s glory and peace. And that’s why I get angry when I hear of priests who moralise at people, reminding them again and again to try to be better, rather than telling them something of the glory which they are called to be part of. Indeed both Pope Francis, and Pope Benedict before him, often tell priests NOT to moralise.
This too is why we are called to be tolerant of people who are different from us, who hold different views, as we hear in our 2nd Reading. (1 Cor 1:10-13.17) St Paul writes of the way different groups within the Church have set themselves up as right whilst everyone else is declared wrong. In this he echoes Jesus, who so often confronts this attitude, the one he finds in many of the Pharisees. The kingdom of heaven is not an exclusive club for religious people. It is instead a place, a community, where all sorts of different people are welcomed; and above all it is a place where those who have been condemned by others as sinful or unclean can find a place of rest and peace. We have it in our Psalm today: “There is one thing I ask of the Lord, for this I long, to live in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life, to savour the sweetness of the Lord, to behold his temple.”
However, savouring the sweetness of the Lord may not be something easy to experience when we go to Mass. We can easily feel disheartened by the noisy children, or the badly sung hymns, or the boring sermon, or the lack of any sense of welcome. Some of these things are outside our control, we can only try and pray despite these distractions; but the last of these problems is something we can do something about. If there is no one at the door welcoming people as they arrive, volunteer to do this vital job yourself. It is no good moaning that there is no sense of a community at our church if we are not prepared to do something about it, and welcoming people, or volunteering to be part of a welcoming group if there is one already in existence, is something almost all of us can do, and will bring joy both to those who are welcomed, and to us as we welcome them.
This reminds me of the lovely image of welcome Jesus shares with us when he says “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” (Matt 25:34-36)
Yes, we do not have to holy or clever, or have all our beliefs worked out before we can be welcomed by God into his kingdom, but once we are welcomed then we have tasks to do, for the text continues; “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in etc.” The joy of the kingdom that we are all called to be part of is always something to share with others,
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