3rd Sunday Year A - Homily 5

Homily 5 - 2020

At this early stage in his Gospel, Matthew was still setting the scene for his readers. He had shown Jesus down at the Jordan with John the Baptist, taking on himself, as it were, the sin of the world, in the hope of taking away the sin of the world. After Jesus’ baptism, Matthew next described in picturesque language a remarkable transformation within Jesus. He pictured God’s Spirit descending on Jesus and remaining within him, and a voice revealing to him from the heavens. “You are my son, the beloved”.

To sum up his personal idea of what Jesus would accomplish during his brief public life, Matthew used the words of an ancient prophet, Isaiah, to help him, “The people that lived in darkness has seen a great light; on those who dwell in the land and shadow of death a light has dawned”. Then at last, for the first time in this Gospel, we had Jesus proclaim personally his sense of the truth he wanted to share, “The kingdom of heaven is close at hand”.

Jesus’ proclamation triggered in my mind words from the wonderful address that Martin Luther King Jnr gave at the climax of that mind-blowing march to Washington of thousands of mainly black Americans in mid-summer, 1963. It was then that King transfixed his audience with the repeated refrain, “I have a dream…” - a dream in fact of freedom for his people, and an emphatic affirmation of their human dignity.

With Jesus, it was more like, “I have had a vision”, than King’s future-oriented “I have a dream”. Jesus’ vision was of people’s now reality, and its source was the irrepressible love of God. And, as far as Matthew was concerned, what Jesus was saying was relevant, not just to Jesus’ own Jewish listeners, but to all humanity, dwelling as they were “in the land and shadow of death”.

Jesus would himself be their “light”, and the light he would provide to the whole world would reflect the wonder and beauty of God who is love. The delightful thing about true love, God’s love, is that it is necessarily unconditional. In a context of inevitable sin and imperfection, God’s love is equally and necessarily forgiving, unconditionally and totally so. Being utterly loved will be the eventual experienced reality in the “Kingdom of heaven”, but already it is “at hand” for everybody, there for the taking, and almost too good!

However, that can sound like ‘pie in the sky when we die’. What about now? Most people are either quite ignorant that they are loved by none less than God, or for myriad reasons they fail to engage with the reality of it all. As well, and this is the sad thing, their experience of life in this world, on this side of the grave, seems to be of mutual hostility rather than mutual loving. As Isaiah put it, they are living “in darkness” and in “the land and shadow of death”.

That is why Jesus entreated people to “Repent”. Ultimately, it is an invitation to open our eyes, to clean out our ears and, most especially, to open our hearts. We need to touch into the power of the vision that energised Jesus down at the Jordan. We could do with more of Martin Luther King’s dreaming. The energy sustaining our world is love. Loving is inherently attractive. We need to be convinced enough of its beauty to give it a whole-hearted go. Let ourselves be loved by God first, believe it, trust it, do our best to experience it, be open to experiencing it. Love doesn’t need to be reciprocated to still be good news. Even when one-way, it can be delightful.

Repenting requires our noticing ourselves, letting go of first reactions [that are so often hostile], and only then responding from the love that we thoughtfully and consciously choose.

“The Kingdom of heaven is close at hand”. God really does love us!