3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; January 21, 2024

When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.

The way God is described in Jonah could lead to some serious misconceptions. Someone might get the idea that God is some angry old guy who gets mad, makes threats, and then leaves off the consequences when he gets his way. That would be rather unfortunate mistake, yet it has been made.

The late 17^th century philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, excommunicated by the Jewish synagogue, has been very influential both as a pioneer in the modern method of biblical scholarship, which has sought to tear down and tear apart the Bible) and in laying the philosophical groundwork for the modern form of education as a system of secular propaganda. In any case, Spinoza would use a passage like the one we just heard to argue that the Bible teaches that God gets mad, learns new things, and changes his mind, just like we do. If you were to point to other passages of Scripture that affirm the contrary, he would refuse to interpret this passage in light of the other passages; rather, he would claim that merely shows that the Bible is contradictory and irrational. He refuses even to consider the contributions of either Jewish or Christian Tradition. Spinoza’s deconstruction of the Bible is very powerful, if one is forced to consider the Bible from the Protestant perspective of “Scripture alone,” without the guidance of an authoritative tradition. “Scripture alone” has built a contemporary tower of Babel of biblical interpretation that has brought contempt upon the word of God.

Indeed, none of these modern ways (either Protestant or Spinozan) of reading the Bible treat the word of God as though it truly contained words, in human speech, conveying the very thoughts of God, the Creator, of whom it is said, all the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare to him. (Is 40:17-18) Rather, they act as though understanding the word of God should be as easy as understanding your next-door neighbor, or as easy as understanding any ordinary person from 2,000 years ago.

Catholic tradition, however, has never taken the words of the Bible in isolation, after the manner of Spinoza, but has always read the books seeing a coherent meaning in the whole and all the parts, a coherent meaning through the Old and New Testaments. This is possible because Catholic tradition has never had to learn about God, as some unknown reality, from the pages of a book; rather the Church, the Bride of Christ, has always been in living contact with her Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to whom the pages of Scripture refer. Indeed, St. Paul is even able to refer to the living Church as a letter from Christ delivered by the Apostles written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (cf. 2 Cor 3:3)

So, in response to Spinoza, the passage from Jonah (and similar passages) must be read in light of St. James, who tells us that in God there is no variation or shadow due to change (Jm 1:17) and the book of Numbers: God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should repent. (Nm 23:19)

God’s eternal, stable, changeless nature is of vital importance for our relationship to him; that is why we can and must put our absolute, unconditional trust and confidence in him; that is why we can rely and count upon him. That is why we can join our voices to those of the Psalmist who cries out: The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in who I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. (Ps 18[17]:2-3)

When Scripture, therefore, speaks of God as “learning” something from what happens in the human world and “repenting”, this is a human way of speaking. It is a way of speaking that reveals more about our relation to God than about God himself.

It does, however, reveal that God’s providence should not be likened to “Fate” – que será será. It reveals that our free actions matter, for good or ill.

In the days of Noah, God is said to have “repented” of having made men on account of their wickedness. (Gen 6:7) God’s repentance reveals the flood as a consequence, a punishment, that results from man’s freely chosen wickedness. God’s repentance signifies a change in mankind’s moral status before God, a change from the normal course of divine protection to the suffering and destruction of punishment, from which only Noah and his family are spared, because Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. (Gen 6:8)

All this is foreseen and foreordained in God’s eternity, but it unfolds in time according to the free actions of man. Men did not pay heed to the warning given by Noah and so they perished in the flood.

In the case of Nineveh, the movement is in the opposite direction. Like the men in Noah’s time, they were deserving of punishment. They were given warning of the impending destruction. They repented and changed their ways. So also, God is said to “repent,” sparing them the punishment that had been their due.

We could ask, “What is the moral state of the world today before God? Of our nation? Of the Church?” I would suggest that at the very least we have been warned. We were warned by Our Lady of Fatima in 1917 and there is no reason to think that the warning does not still stand. God has been very patient with us.

On the matter of temporal affliction: it can be interpreted as a punishment from God, due to sin, or a warning to turn away from sin, or it could be God pruning the branches of the vine so that it produces more fruit. (cf. Jn 15:1-11) Which is it? Well, have we been walking in the way of sin or in the way of fidelity to God? If we are not producing the fruit of conversion of life and the practice of virtue, then we have no reason to think that God is pruning the branches.

God’s eternal providence is absolute, but human freedom is nevertheless real – within the limits of our created and historical conditions. It is a marvel of God’s greatness, before which we should bow in wonder and adoration, that he can know and order the free acts of his creatures, without employing violence or compulsion that would make those acts any less free. Those who freely collaborate with his grace merit their salvation; those who reject the gift of his grace are, through their own fault, lost. Yet all was foreseen and foreordained by God.

When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.

God’s forgiveness transforms our lives. By his grace we repent, we are forgiven, and our lives are changed. The changed life is evidence of the reality of our repentance and a sign of God’s forgiveness. Sometimes we are even spared the temporal affliction that we deserve.

We can think here of when Jesus heals the paralytic man. First, he said, My son, your sins are forgiven. (Mk 4:5) Then, That you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins – he said to the paralytic – I say to you, rise, take up your mat, and go home. (Mk 2:10-11)

We can consider this in relation to confession. Was I really forgiven? From the point of the view of the sacrament, yes, but have for your part have you received that forgiveness; have you obeyed the words of Christ?  Rise, take up your mat, and go home.

First, rise from your sins. Don’t go back to them. Stop wallowing in self-pity. So often we let ourselves become preoccupied with our emotional state, rather than keeping our focus on doing the will of God, turning away from sin, avoiding the near occasion of sin, and fulfilling the duties of our state of life.

Second, take up your mat. That is take up your cross and follow Christ. Stop complaining. Look at Christ; look at what he suffered and endured for our salvation; look at the way he obeyed the commandments of God and did the will of his Father. Follow him; seek to live as he lived, to love as he loved.

Beg him for the grace to do so; through him ask the Father, who grants all things in his name; ask the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mediatrix of all Grace. Prayer is not about asking God for the things we want, but for asking him for the things we need in order to live a life pleasing to him and so attain our salvation.

Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of change. Of his own word he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. (Jm 1:17-18)

Third: Go home. The world in its present form is passing. Our true home is not here; our true home is in the unchangeable eternity of God. If we are children of the heavenly Father, then our true home is in the Father’s house, where there are many dwelling places, where Jesus has prepared a place for us, so that where he is we also might be. (cf. Jn 14:2-3)