Sunday, January 25, 2015

Homily: 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Captain Ahab & Jonah



The book of the prophet Jonah, from which our first reading was taken, is one of my favorite books in the bible.  And that’s not just because it’s only four chapters long and can be read in one quick sitting—it’s full of drama, humor, and insight.

Jonah has inspired painters, poets, and artists with its strong imagery.  The early Church fathers saw Jonah in the belly of the big fish for three days as a foreshadowing of Jesus buried in the tomb before his resurrection.

Herman Melville, the author of the greatest American epic, Moby Dick, was also inspired by Jonah.  Most of us are somewhat familiar with this story of Captain Ahab pursuing the great white whale. 
In chapters 8 and 9, before the crew set sail on their whaling voyage.  a few crew members go to Church in the small whaleman’s chapel of New Bedford.  Father Mapple, a whaler in his own day stands in a pulpit shaped like the stern of a ship a delivers a sermon about the reluctant Prophet Jonah.

We heard today how Jonah set out for the great city of Nineveh to announce to them a message of repentance.  He did not want to go to Ninevah.  The Ninevites were not Jews, and Jonah believed that he would be killed for pointing out to them how they were transgressing the commands of God. Father Mapple preached about the need to turn away from our own self-interests in order to serve God. 

Unfortunately, Captain Ahab was not attending Church that day.  Captain Ahab became bent on his mission of revenge to hunt down Moby Dick at all costs.  His obsession and hatred for the whale became the path of his own destruction.  For the story ends with Ahab being dragged down to a watery death by the whale.

Moby Dick in a sense is a cautionary tale of what happens when we become fixated on worldly pursuits, when we allow revenge and hatred to rule our lives.  We put our friends at risk, Ahab put his crew members at risk, Jonah bent on escaping God’s Holy Will led to a shipwreck. 

In our Second Reading today, St. Paul urges us to recognize that this world is transitory, it is passing away.  Nothing on this earth is worth losing our souls over: possessions, trophies and worldly fame, positions of power, moments of earthly pleasure, all of it is passing away, so it is important for Christians to be detached from these things, especially not to make them the center of our lives.  In the Gospel, Jesus himself says For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?  Captain Ahab settled on a whale.  Many of our contemporaries are settling for a lot less.

In Father Mapple’s sermon to the whalers of New Bedford, he encourages his listeners, like Jesus does in the Gospels today, to turn away from sin.  “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” are Jesus’ first words in the Mark’s Gospel.  God calls Jonah, and tells him to go to Ninevah with a message of repentance.

Repentance is such an important first step in the spiritual life.  Every Mass begins with an act of repentence.  Lord, have Mercy, Christ, have Mercy.  Lord, Have Mercy.  Our second graders, before receiving their first holy communion, first make their first confession.  To instill that repentance precedes communion.

In just a few weeks we’ll begin again the great season of Lent.  The Church gives us this wonderful season of repentance where enter into some serious self-examination.  We examine our lives in light of the Gospel, we look at our worldly attachments, our sinful attitudes and behaviors, and we repent from them.  We detach ourselves from worldly pleasures by practicing fasting and abstinence.  Worldly pleasures are not evil in themselves, but they can become evil when we place them at the center of our lives, or when we indulge in them or pursue them  to such an extent that we that we fail to serve God as we should.

When God sent Jonah into the Assyrian city of Nineveh, it was a very odd mission, one that he initially rejected.  At the time the Assyrians were the great enemy of Israel.  And God sends Jonah, a Jew to Ninevah to tell them to repent.  This would be like a Jew, during the second world war, walking into Germany, into Berlin, and telling Hitler that God was displeased, and if he doesn’t Berlin would be destroyed in 40 days. It is no surprise that Jonah is known as the reluctant prophet.
The messages and missions that God has for us are not always easy.  It was of course, not easy for Jonah, he even ran away from God there for a while.  Even when he saw that it would put his crew at risk, it was not easy for Captain Ahab to change.  And we see the results of his failure.

Sometimes we become so accustomed to our hatreds, our grudges, as unhealthy as they are, that giving them up is hard, it feels like dying.  I remember encouraging some 5th graders to give up television and video games for Lent, one year.  When I mentioned it, they let out this loud wail…not a Moby Dick whale, but a loud groan, as if I were asking them to cut off a limb.  Giving up the attachment is hard, but we do so, because the attachment is a cancer, that is causing selfishness to spread to our heart.   

In the spiritual life, sometimes it is our souls themselves that are resistant to the new life God wants for us.  So we cling to our whales, like Captain Ahab, and our whales drown us.  Sometimes, the resistance comes from outside. 

On one occasion, a group of priests were visiting St. John Vianney, the parish priest of the small parish in Ars, France, where thousands of people would come so that Fr. Vianney could hear their confession.  One night the visiting priests heard these loud crashes coming from Fr. Vianney’s room, like furniture being hurled into the walls.  They came to his bedroom door to make sure he wasn’t being attacked by robbers.  Father Vianney calmly answered the door, asking them what they wanted.  They asked about the loud noises, and he said, the worst assaults of the devil happened when he was on the verge of “landing a big fish.

A big fish…a big sinner would be coming to the sacrament of confession, and that angered the devil because he would be losing a soul that he thought was his.  Yet, this did not phase the saintly pastor.  He knew that to endure these torments would bring about even greater grace for souls.

For many of us, bringing up religion to family members who have left the Church results in surprisingly vicious and hostile remarks.  But sometimes we are delightfully surprised to find them ready and willing to return to the Church, they just needed an invitation.

Jonah, preached the message to the Ninevites, and the entire town converted, everyone from the king and his court, down to the lowly peasants, even the livestock. 

We can have hope that God is also at work, when he gives us difficult missions. 

This sort of hope led over 650 thousand people down to Washington D.C. for the March for Life this week.  Hope that God will work through their witness to the truth.  Hope that God will use their witness to soften hearts that have been hardened to the truth of the Gospel of Life.


May the Holy Spirit help us to be free from our sinful detachments, that we may embrace the work God has for each of us, and know God’s assistance what that work becomes difficult, for the Glory of God and salvation of souls.

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