Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
At the time of Jesus and Paul, the risk facing a messenger was likely greater than someone today. Messages were delivered in person and so the distinction between the message and the messenger could be lost. So while the phrase “don’t shoot the messenger” might seem less relevant today we still are harsh on messengers. Today we might be quick to write someone off based on what messenger services they publicly share with others (America, Catholic Answers, NPR, Fox News, Life Site News, Commonweal, Catholic News Agency, Catholic News Service, Church Militant and so on). We label what kind of person someone is based on where they derive their messages. This reality is larger than the scope of my reflection, but I do want to ask about THE MESSAGE? How does sharing the Gospel differ from retweeting a BBC article?
The fundamental difference demonstrated in both Romans and Luke today is the role of witness. It was wrong of an ancient king (Tigranes) to behead a messenger who bore ill tidings because the messenger’s life was not wrapped up in the report. However, a Christian offering the Gospel is sharing the gravitational center of his or her life. A Christian should not merely share the tenants of the faith, but also the testimony of God’s real presence. We are offering more than ideas to call our own, but that we have given ownership to God to the set the ideals of our life. Martyrdom in Christianity makes sense because we are a faith that claims that message transforms the messenger.
This idea jumped off the page at me as I contemplated what Jesus meant by the ‘sign of Jonah.’ What was the sign of Jonah that the Ninevites received and that Jesus’ generation would receive? Was it merely preaching and the proposal of ideas that Jesus and Jonah held in common? I would propose no. Jesus never spends a few nights in the belly of a whale. However, he does spend a few nights in the belly of the earth. I would offer the thoughts of Dr. Brant Pitre, that we are not supposed to conclude that our childhood imaginings of Jonah alive in the belly are misconstrued. Rather, Pitre proposes, we are supposed to take from the Jonah story that Jonah died and was brought back to life to bear witness to the Ninevites. Thus the power of his preaching is derived from his restoration to life. The Ninevites heard not just fire and brimstone, but the witness of one who fled from God, even to the point of death, but in his repentance was brought to new life.
Do we share the message of new life or merely ideas? Are we reposting headlines and news articles that contribute to growing polarization or do we, like Paul writing to a polarized Roman church, first assert our allegiance to Christ and then build as many bridges as possible? Is our sharing the gospel separable from the witness of our lives?
- Spencer Hargadon