The primacy of the Word of God
By Fr. Marcel Uzoigwe, CSSp.
(Jonah 3:1-5,10, Ps.24:4-9, 1Cor.7:29-31 & Mk. 1:14-20)
Today we celebrate the Sunday of the word of God. The Holy Father, Pope Francis, announced on September 30, 2019, which was the liturgical memorial of St. Jerome, that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time would be celebrated as the Sunday of the Word of God. His Apostolic Letter, “Aperuit illis: Instituting the Sunday of the Word of God” reads in part, “It is fitting, then that the life of our people be constantly marked by this decisive relationship with the living word that the Lord never tires of speaking to his Bride, that she may grow in love and faithful witness. Consequently, I hereby declare that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time is to be devoted to the celebration, study, and dissemination of the word of God.” This apostolic letter emphasized the importance of the word of God in the life of the Church, detailing its richness. It went on to recommend the various ways the word of God can be brought to life, celebrated, and deepened in the life of the faithful. The Scripture is, indeed, central to the life of the church. The readings of today concentrate on the power of the word of God to bring a change to our lifestyle.
The first reading deals with the call of Jonah to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh. It begins as follows: The word of the Lord came to Jonah, saying: “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you.” This implies that the command to preach to the Ninevites is a command from the Lord communicated to Jonah through the word of the Lord. More importantly, Jonah is to announce only the message that the Lord gave, and not his own message. What is to be preached must emanate from the Lord, who commands. Preachers are not to preach their own ideology, but the truth that sets free. The power of the word of God is greater and above the idiosyncrasies of the preacher. This fact is seen in both the refusal of Jonah to go and in the immediate repentance of the people of Nineveh at the preaching of Jonah.
Ordinarily, one expects that Jonah would be happy to see the people he preached to repent. But the converse was the case, simply because the people of Nineveh were considered enemies of Israel. The human desire for vengeance created an obstacle to Jonah accepting the call of God to take his word to them. When he was eventually forced to go, he did, hoping that they would reject his preaching. That explains why he was expecting to see the country destroyed, even after delivering the message of repentance, and becoming angry when God decided to forgive the people of Nineveh (cf. Jonah 3:10; 4:1, 10 -11).
The word of God embodies the very wish of God for his people to repent and return to Him. It is never the will of the Father that any of his little children get lost (cf. Matthew 18:14). The failure of Jonah to rejoice in the conversion of the Ninevites is contrasted with the genuine preaching of repentance that ushered in the ministry of Jesus. It is a call to repentance and to believe in the Good News. The themes of repentance and believing in the Good News summarise the demand of God on the part of his people. God expects us to accept his word like the people of Nineveh and allow it to transform us, aligning our lifestyle to its principles. This is so important that Jesus had to recruit and train his disciples to carry on with this divine project in every generation. We see the call of the first disciples in the Gospel reading; a call that resulted in their change of profession. One striking characteristic of those called is their readiness to “leave everything” to follow Jesus. It is a sign that they considered the message of Jesus as overriding every other thing. Otherwise, they would not give up their livelihood to follow Jesus, especially at such a time that he was considered a poor itinerant preacher by many of his contemporaries.
The word of God calls us to repentance and to believe the Gospel. Repentance is about letting go of whatever is holding us back and pulling us down. Things that are keeping us away from God. The Bible calls them sin because they are offensive to God, but more importantly because they constitute an obstacle to our being united with God. Letting go is a means of growth and advancement toward our real self: the image, and the glory of God. The Greek word for repentance, metanoia (μετάνοια), meaning “after-thought or beyond-thought”, is commonly understood as “a transformative change of heart; especially as a spiritual conversion”. Repentance is the first step to action to which the word of God calls us. The urgency of repentance is echoed in the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor 7:29-31) that forms the second reading. He was direct in pointing out that “the time is running out.” It is vital that we put our priorities right because the world in its present form is passing away.
Repentance is not just for its own sake. Otherwise, we would constantly relapse to the very things from which we repent. Repentance serves to turn us away from the direction of death and destruction so that we can walk toward life and joy in God; to turn away from darkness to light. The component of repentance is acceptance of the Good News of salvation. The Good News is God’s divine plan for humanity and the very reason for the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. By accepting the Gospel, we commit ourselves to live according to its principles.
As we celebrate the Sunday of the word of God, it is important to reflect on what role the word of God plays in our daily lives as Christians. This celebration is meant to revive the attention we should pay to the daily devotion of reading and reflecting on the word of God in the Bible. God speaks to us in his word. As St. Jerome is quoted to have said, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” I pray that we make the word of God the center of our Christian inspiration and the reference point of our lifestyle.