Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Father Phillip W. DeVous
Guest
Not long ago I had a jarring epiphany when studying and praying on the question and the reality of Heaven. During my course of study and prayer, I was hit between the eyes with an insight from the biblical scholar, N.T. Wright, who pointed out a profound truth in his marvelous little book, “Revelation for Everyone.” It caused the scales to fall partially from my eyes.
Wright points out that our Jewish brethren were careful to never abuse or profanely utter the Holy Name of God. As a result, they developed practices for avoiding this sin while laboring to honor the holiness and otherness of God in their speech and references. So, when you read the Word of God and you encounter the word “heaven” or “kingdom,” understand that it refers not a place, but to God, to his Presence and to his reign among us, right here and now, as well as his future coming.
How often in our worship, preaching, and scripture reading have we heard “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand?” Probably more than we can count or remember. A more probing question is, how often have I grasped its meaning and its urgency? I cannot speak for the saints among us, but as for me the answer is not often enough. And therein lies the problem.
Jesus’ call to repentance at the outset of his public ministry reveals the urgency of the act of repentance. He is with us now. We are staring him in the face. He is speaking to us. He is fulfilling his promise to be Emmanuel, God-is-with-us, in the inseparable realities of Word and Sacrament. It is precisely because of God’s presence to us in the Holy Communion of presence, truth and grace, that we can exclaim with the Prophet Isaiah, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” As we make our pilgrim journey through this life, with its blessings and its burdens, the inseparable realities of Word and Sacrament reveal to us the way and give us the grace to live in imitation of Christ and towards his Kingdom.
Absent our deep and personal engagement with the Presence of God in the Word and Sacrament, we find ourselves dwelling in that “land of gloom” referred to by Isaiah. Much of the modern, technologized, anti-human, anti-theist world gives every appearance of being a land of gloom. We see soaring rates of anxiety, depression, personal disintegration, and despair. I think this situation has much to do with a deficient conception of ourselves as human persons, a conception that has closed us off from the “bounty of the Lord.”
In the first half of the 20th century, the theologian and spiritual writer, Monsignor Romano Guardini, perceived the drift of the emerging “technological civilization,” now nearly fully realized, which would reduce man’s dignity and culminate in a totally enclosed self; a self and a society closed off from God. He tirelessly reminded his readers and congregants, “the nature of Christianity is not just an idea, or a program-the nature of Christianity is Christ. When we lose him, no longer want to know, only shadows remain.”
Decades later, the philosopher, Charles Taylor, spoke of the “type” or concept of the human person that has come to exist in our age. He described it is as the “buffered self.” This type of person senses themselves as self-contained, self-enclosed, and not needing any input from outside the self. For such a self, reality consists solely of their interior feelings and their interior, totally individualistic renderings of reality. In this rendering of existence, life is understood as having no independently existing reality outside of one’s feelings about it. This closing of the self to ultimate Reality is a quick path to life in the shadowlands.
It is against this backdrop of the buffered, enclosed self of our contemporary shadowlands that we hear anew the command of Jesus, “repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”
We have every opportunity to take up the Word of God and lets its truth enlighten us. It is that Word that leads us to the house of Lord where we “may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate His temple” in the Most Holy Eucharist. It is only through our Eucharistic Communion with the Lord in Spirit and Truth that we can break out the land of gloom and escape the shadowlands. For in the Holy Eucharist, the Kingdom of Heaven-God-is at hand. Let us repent of our unbelief.
Father Phillip W. DeVous is the pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Parish, Flemingsburg, and St. Rose of Lima Parish, May’s Lick.
