Ordinary Time Starts with the Extraordinary: Repentance

It is fitting on the first day of Ordinary Time, the Church reads Mark 1, citing Jesus’ very first words spoken in that Gospel: “The Kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent and believe the Gospel!”

          Some theologians think Mark’s is the oldest Gospel, which adds even greater gravity to those first words.  But, without getting into the questions of Gospel chronology or origins, suffice it to say that all three Synoptics – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – all begin with the same language at the start of Jesus’s public ministry.  They all acknowledge that John the Baptist was Jesus’s prophetic herald, that John preached repentance, and that Jesus immediately followed upon him with the exact same focus.

          The fundamental step of Christianity is repentance.  It is NOT “accompaniment.”  It is turning from sin (which means first identifying what is sin) and turning to God.  We need to keep perspectives straight.

          So, let’s look at Jesus’s words:

          “The Kingdom of God is at hand.”  It is at hand for me, the hearer of these words.  It is at hand because I have to decide where I stand vis-à-vis what Jesus is asking of me.  That makes this existential moment so important: “if today you hear His Voice, harden not your hearts.”  Because hearing God’s Voice is a grace, grace by definition is gratuitous, i.e., not owed.  God therefore does not have to keep talking until I listen: this moment, right now, is the moment of decision.  Because you are not guaranteed any other moments.  The Hail Mary makes clear what your guarantees are: “now and the hour of our death.”

          At the same time, the “Kingdom of God” is not wholly here, and won’t be until the Last Day.  The Kingdom of God is being built, it is slowly permeating human history like yeast influences dough, but that means it is in process, not a finished product.  It also means that, in a free world where men can choose against the Kingdom of God, we will never build heaven on earth in this world by our own hands.  Whether the “Kingdom of God” is or isn’t “here” can only be answered in this moment by an honest assessment of your own heart.

          “Repent.”  The Greek word is metanoia, which literally means “to change one’s mind.”  Repentance is an act of God’s grace, but part of its action is to change the way we think: about life, about how we live it, about what is right, what is wrong, and what God expects of us.  “Repentance” means measuring how I am living against the received Christian tradition.  It does not mean measuring the Church’s tradition against my life.  Jesus promised His Holy Spirit would be with His Church until the end of time.  He may no such guarantees to any individual.  The point: your life, not the Church’s teachings, may need to change.

          “Believe the Gospel!”  -- Believing the Gospel means believing the “Good News” of Christianity, which is not “I’m OK, you’re OK.” It is that that none of us (except Jesus and Mary) is OK but we can be OK by repentance.  That is why believing the Gospel is not believing some caricature of what “nice Christianity” is but believing what the Church, interpreting the Gospel, has taught and continues to teach.  Pace classical Protestant theology, interpreting the Gospel is not a solo sport: it happens normatively in the midst of the Church.

          Hearing Christ’s call to repentance and belief demands my response.  Just as Jesus asked His Apostles at Caesarea Philippi – who do people say I am and who do you? – the invitation to repent and believe because God’s Kingdom is at hand is not just a generic exhortation.  It is individually addressed to each one of us, who must decide on our response.  Do we follow Him, like Peter, Andrew, James, and John in today’s Gospel?  Or not?