Jesus as the Sign of Jonah Calling to Conversion, 16th Monday (II), July 20, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
July 20, 2020
Mic 6:1-4.6-8, Ps 50, Mt 12:38-42

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• In the Gospel, the Scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus for a “sign.” A sign was a miracle that pointed to something else, namely Jesus’ authority to preach and do what he was saying and doing. We know that Jesus had been doing nothing but miracles: he had immediately before cured a man with a withered hand and cured another who was blind, mute and possessed. But the Scribes and Pharisees didn’t want to accept what those miracles signified and the authority of Jesus’ words and deeds to which they testified. So they kept asking for other ones. Perhaps they were waiting until a supposed miracle attempt failed so that they would be able to feel justified in their rejection of Jesus. Jesus cut to the core of why they were asking for such a miracle, saying, an “evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign.” A good and faithful generation would have already taken seriously all of the miracles and words that Jesus had done and grasped that he himself was the sign for which the Jews should have been looking.
• But Jesus nevertheless says that the one sign that would be given to the evil and perverse generation that constantly seeks another sign is the Sign of Jonah. On the one hand this certainly points to his death, burial in the belly of the earth, and resurrection on the third day, the greatest of all his miracles. That sign would be given to all, but, as we know, some would refuse to believe it. The fundamental sign of Jonah, however, is a sign of conversion. Jonah was himself a convert — he had run away from the mission the Lord had given him, much as many of the Scribes and Pharisees were running away from the mission the Lord had given all the Jews in preparing for and receiving the long-awaited Messiah — and called the pagan Ninevites to conversion. And we remember how the Ninevites responded: they all repented, from the king down to the pets, and fasted in sackcloth and ashes. Jesus told them that he was greater than Jonah and a greater sign of conversion. If the pagans of Nineveh had changed their ways at the preaching of Jonah on the first day, then the supposedly “good and faithful” religious Jews of his day should have much more readily changed when they heard Jesus preaching “Repent and believe in the Gospel” and working all the signs to back up his message. Jesus added that the Queen of Sheba had traveled a great distance with many caravans in her retinue in order to hear Solomon’s wisdom — she had in fact traveled 1660 miles or, at a pace of 15 miles a day, over 110 days or nearly four months each way — but that his wisdom was greater than Solomon’s and they weren’t willing to travel any intellectual or moral distance.
• The chief problem with the Scribes and Pharisees is not that they didn’t want to convert “in general.” It’s not that they didn’t really consider themselves sinners in need of mercy. They marked Yom Kippur each year and piously recognized their need for atonement just like everyone else, but they wanted to convert on their own terms and in their own way. They didn’t want to convert in the way God wanted and to begin to do what he was asking. We see that problem laid out starkly in the reading from the Prophet Micah and in the Responsorial Psalm. God through Micah puts words on their lips about the type of repentance they were willing to do and were already doing: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow before God most high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my crime, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Those in Judah around 730 BC were bringing burnt offerings, year-old calves, thousands of rams, huge quantities of oil, even contemplating offering their first born children like Abraham was willing, as if those could atone for the sins of their souls. None of these signified the type of conversion God ultimately wanted. God speaks to this in the Responsorial Psalm. He says, “Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you, for your burnt offerings are before me always,” but rather he rebukes them because they were not acting on his words and living by his wisdom: “Why do you recite my statutes, and profess my covenant with your mouth, though you hate discipline and cast my words behind you?”
• That’s why God tells us through Micah that the conversion he wants is to do what he asks: “You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.” He specifies three things. First, to do justice, to treat everyone fairly, to give God and others their due. The fact is that many of them were treating others unjustly in myriad ways. God is always asking that conversion of us, so that we will love and sacrifice for our neighbor rather than hurt or take advantage of our neighbor. Second, to love mercy. The word translated as “goodness” by the New American Bible in the lectionary is really “mercy.” God wants us to love him in his merciful love, to recognize we need it, to come to get it, and then to share it with others as we have received it freely from the Lord. He wants us not merely to receive and reciprocate mercy but to love receiving it and love sharing it. So many of us in every age need a profound conversion on this point. Third, “to walk humbly with your God.”  God never tells us to stay where we are. He calls us to get up and follow him. He wants us not merely to know his ways but to walk in his ways. But once we’re moving, we’re called to walk humbly, letting God lead, knowing we need direction, receiving from him all the help that he knows we need. The Vulgate word that we translate as “humbly” is sollicitum, which basically means that we walk solicitously, seeking from God what we need rather than walk with an air of self-sufficiency. This, too, is a perennial point of conversion for us, because many of us prefer to stay put, and if we get up, to go our own way. God through Micah is calling us to follow him solicitously and humbly. And if the people of Micah’s day were summoned to act on his words, how much more do we need to act on the “greater than Micah” among us, who calls us to imitate his justice, love his mercy and follow him?
• The best place to begin this conversion each day is Mass. Mass is where we come to meet the Sign of Jonah, to hear his wisdom, to enter into the belly of the earth with him and arise with him on the third day. This is where we recognize our need to change and are strengthened by the Lord to go out as leaven for the world showing for all an example of justice, love of mercy, and humbly walking in the Lord’s footsteps.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Gospel
MT 12:38-42

Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus,
“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
He said to them in reply,
“An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign,
but no sign will be given it
except the sign of Jonah the prophet.
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights,
so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth
three days and three nights.
At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation
and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah;
and there is something greater than Jonah here.
At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation
and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon;
and there is something greater than Solomon here.”

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