The Third Sunday after the Epiphany [Proper 3] (Green)
Sunday, January 21st, 2024
JONAH 3:1-5, 10; PSALM 62:6-14; 1 CORINTHIANS 7:29-31; MARK 1:14-20
repent, and believe in the good news
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pastor and theologian, lived in Germany in a time after Adolph Hitler had risen to power; he was among the pastors who, in resisting National Socialist abuses of authority were losing positions in universities and in churches; he took a less-than-glamorous job teaching student pastors in the sticks of West Pomerania … despite all the loss, all the growing persecution, all the erosion of status he experienced …
Bonhoeffer still loved his suits. Bonhoeffer still loved his neckties. Bonhoeffer still loved tennis, and his tennis outfits. Bonhoeffer owned a convertible, and drove it just for fun through the Pomeranian countryside.
And so I imagine this Bonhoeffer, dressed in his favourite suit, perhaps after a leisurely drive through the countryside with the top down, maybe thinking about how to best beat his friend in the next round of tennis, sitting down for his daily devotions only to read our passage from 1st Corinthians …“let those who mourn [be] as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice [be] as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.”
It seems like Paul is saying “don’t get distracted by the silly stuff. This world is passing away anyway. So set your mind on godly things.” It’s a passage of Scripture that brings to mind the dour 19th century Danish Protestants in the film Babette’s feast. In the film, when the dour Danes learn that they would have to eat a lavish meal prepared by a Parisian chef of great renown—they gloomily decide, ahead of time, that they, under no circumstances, would ever enjoy the sumptuous meal put before them.
“For the present form of this world is passing away.”
And if so, why would one ever enjoy such a worldly thing as turtle soup, and quail with a Pinot Noir? This is at least one way to read this passage from Corinthians. If the present world is passing away, and we only live for the next one—then most certainly, love nothing in this world, not suits, not convertibles, not tennis, and most certainly not Veuve Clicquot Champagne.
“For the present form of this world is passing away.”
It hardly seems fair at all that we aren’t even in Lent yet and we are already getting all these readings on repentance. We have Jonah, finally obeying the Lord and calling the city of Nineveh to repentance. It is one of my favourite stories of repentance, not so much because Nineveh did repent, turning from their evil ways, and avoiding the calamity God was to call down upon them, the calamity Jonah was called to preach. It’s more that I think I can relate to this melancholic Jonah, who chooses not to rejoice that Nineveh had repented, but instead he goes and sulks about it under a very small tree. I can relate to the fact that Jonah does the work of the Lord but only with a deep reluctance, and then, despite the success of his campaign for the holiness of a whole city, he still finds a way to get depressed about the whole thing.
So we have Jonah preaching repentance. But this isn’t the only story this week about turning back toward God. We have the already mentioned passage from Corinthians about looking for the world to come (and perhaps not enjoying the good things of the world).
And then we have no less an authority than Jesus saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news”; and immediately calling his disciples out of perfectly good, and decently well-paying jobs as fishermen, by the way, in order to follow him.
And so what does it all add up to? Do the Lord’s hard, hard work, call a people to repentance, only to have God prove you wrong; apparently because this world is passing away, do not under any circumstances enjoy your suits or your turtle soup; repent … and follow Jesus into underpaid and undervalued work.
Thanks be to God?
The answer, I suppose, is yes. Like Jonah, do God’s work. Even when it’s hard. And if God is merciful to the people you’d rather see thrown into the ocean, and that gets you down, it’s ok; but take some time and remember too that this is also a moment of God’s grace and kindness to others. You are allowed to enjoy that. And yes! “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” And follow Jesus, perhaps even into a lesser paying job, or even one with less security, or perhaps even one with less distinction or prestige. Make room in your life for good holy work in the church. It’s ok to feel some loss and frustration, even as you feel the joy and satisfaction that comes with such work.
So this thing about not enjoying good things? I’m not for it. Unsurprisingly, neither was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And he lived in a time when it was clear—at least to him and other members of the Confessing Church, and those resisting the death-dealing policies of the National Socialists—that there was great need for repentance and the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom.
But for Bonhoeffer it did not mean living a life of dour severeness. Instead it meant embracing the complexity of human life, a life that can bring both the melancholy of Jonah together the joy of the Ninevites; Jonah’s fault was not in feeling down, but in not also sharing the joy that must have come to him when he saw the dancing in the streets of Nineveh in thankfulness for the grace of the Lord.
And take those former fishermen, too; surely difficulty and frustration came with leaving your life in fishing boats behind, a new life that wasn’t all that much like the old one. But surely there was joy, too, in this new life of friendship with Jesus.
Bonhoeffer called this the polyphony of life, where all the different melodies of life, the melancholic voices existing alongside and with the joyful voices, and all these things can exist within us because our lives are secure in God, the cantus firmus, the musical foundation of one piece of music, one piece of music that is like one life, a life with God that can comprehend mourning and joy all at once.
And in this sense, we are getting closer to Paul’s heart, too, who wouldn’t have us look to a future world and to ignore the present one, but rather to look to Christ. Because in Christ’s advent, in his incarnation, he is reconciling, in his very person, the things of this world with the things of the next: mourning with joy, and melancholy with gladness.
That is, in Jesus, the world is reconciled with God, and as we abide with him, so too do we abide with all things that belong together in him.