3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (2024)

A week ago Friday has the distinction of being known as Quitter’s Day. That is the day when the majority of New Year’s Resolutions makers have already given up on what they had resolved to change in the new year. It’s sad that it is so difficult to change the life habits we develop. While most of us have given up on changing our behavior, we still are hoping for a happy new year. The quest for happiness is something none of us give up. Everyone wants to be happy and are willing to go to extremes to find it. It is something we seek 365 days a year.

When we speak of happiness, we are referring to a wide array of human experiences. Humans receive pleasure from many different circumstances but they generally fall into three different categories. One grouping of stimulating occurrences are those that we experience with our senses. They stimulate our sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Things that appeal to our senses bring us happiness.

Our well-being is also stirred through our minds by feelings of excitement, felicity, and gratitude. These feelings come about as a reaction to events that occur around us. God created pleasure and happiness. They are good and when enjoyed in appropriate ways they are a blessing from God. Pleasure and happiness are things we can acquire on our own. Many people spend a great deal of their resources on things that bring them happiness and pleasure. God wants us to be happy so God bestows pleasure and happiness upon us. The problem with pleasure and happiness is they can be short lived. They pass away with time, time that can be all too short.

God wants more for us. God wants more than passing pleasure and happiness. God wants to give us joy. Joy is the experience that goes to the deepest part of our being. It settles in our soul. Joy is a sense of well-being that isn’t dependent on our circumstances. Joy isn’t a passing, temporary emotion. It is so unique because it isn’t a feeling that we can acquire for ourselves. Joy is a gift from God. 

In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul said: The fruit of the Spirit is joy. Joy comes from the Holy Spirit. Joy is a gift of the Holy Spirit and comes to us through a relationship of love with God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Joy transforms us when we make God the center of our lives. It is essential for living the Christian life. People found Christianity so attractive in the early days of the Church because Christians lived with joy. They were recognized as people who loved each other. The early Christians could endure persecution, suffering, and pain because they were people who lived with joy.

God wants us to use our gift of joy to evangelize and bring others to Jesus Christ. When we live with joy in our lives, we draw attention to ourselves. Since everyone desires happiness and people see we are happy, they will ask us for the reason for our joy. Living with joy despite our circumstances makes us compelling cases for others to want to have a relationship with God.

Grumpy Christians and grumpy churches are the number one reason people leave the Church and unchurched people want nothing to do with the Church. Our parish mission statement is, “Growing in Faith, Sharing in Faith, Living in Faith.” Our vision statement expresses our desire to be a sign of Jesus’ light here on the lower Cape. We can only do that if we are open to the gift of joy from God.

While joy is a gift from God, it isn’t something that will just happen for us. We need to be properly positioned to receive it. We need to be open to it, on the lookout for it, and ready to receive it. Joy comes from following Jesus. If we follow Jesus, He will lead us to joy. So, thrust a stake in the ground and make a new resolution to commit to strengthening your relationship with Jesus.

Since keeping resolutions like that are so difficult without support and encouragement from others, Holy Redeemer wants to offer you help. Over the last few weeks, we have been encouraging you to sign-up to participate in our Day of Reflection and Faith Sharing on Saturday February 17, here at Our Lady of Grace Chapel. Our program is meant to introduce parishioners to the possibility of joining a small faith sharing group. Faith sharing groups are an essential way for us to open our souls to receive God’s gift of joy and growing in our Christian faith. Signing up to come for the day does not mean you are signing up for a group. It only means you want to come and listen to Allison Gingras, a well-respected and inspirational speaker. It means you would like to receive a spiritual shot as Lent begins, and eat some free food. Over sixty parishioners have already signed up for the day, so you won’t be here alone.

If you have signed up, encourage your family and friends to do the same. Ask the person sitting near you at Mass today if they are planning to attend. If they haven’t enrolled yet tell them you have and encourage them to do so. At the end of the pews are flyers describing our Day of Reflection and Faith Sharing. It gives more details about our plans for the day and our speaker. Take one of the registration cards and sign up before you leave Mass today. You can drop it in the box at the back of church on your way out. It is going to be a day that transforms our parish and I want you to be part of it.

Being a member of a small faith sharing group might sound intimidating to some people. Faith is personal but shouldn’t be kept private. If we keep faith to ourselves, we are limiting our faith experience. Our faith life will never be a living relationship with Jesus if we keep it to ourselves. It will never influence or shape our lifestyle. Our faith will never grow unless we are ready to share it. When we share our faith with friends in faith, we progress in faith faster and further in our relationship with God. We will grow in joy, and who doesn’t want to be more joyful?

Today’s gospel passage tells us how Jesus came to help us see how to grow in joy. Mark tells us John the Baptist was arrested and imprisoned by King Herod. This precipitated Jesus to begin His ministry. Jesus’ ministry would be a turning point in human history. Jesus would preach that the Kingdom of God was at hand. Jesus never fully explains exactly what the kingdom is, but He demonstrates it. Jesus shows that the Kingdom isn’t a place, but a power and a presence.

Jesus demonstrates that the Kingdom of God is a movement. It is a movement focused on God’s great desire to share everlasting life with us. Everlasting life isn’t “pie in the sky when you die.” Jesus preached that God was up to something new and we have a part to play in that plan. The Kingdom of God is the lasting presence and power of Jesus Christ in our world today.

So, what do we have to do to share in this kingdom Jesus was preaching? Jesus tells us we must repent. The word repent doesn’t have that positive of a connotation in today’s world. It often raises some scary images of doom and gloom that can make people who don’t go to church afraid to consider coming because they think of it as a negative feeling and that they will be forced to think disparagingly about themselves. 

The Greek word that is at the root of our English word repent is actually positive. It is more of an invitation than a threat. It is an invitation to think differently about ourselves. It connotes an invitation to “Why not change your mind?” As He began His public ministry Jesus told the crowds that they needed to repent and believe the good news. That wasn’t Jesus scolding them, but offering them the suggestion to “Why not change your mind about God and listen to the good news I want to share with you?”

Jesus wanted to share joy with the crowds. He wanted to help them realize God was a god who loved them. Jesus wanted them to understand that He brought them the good news that God loved them so much He planned to have His only begotten Son die for them so they could have a deeper relationship with God. Jesus wanted the crowds to change their minds about God so they could accept that God would send the Holy Spirit into our world to be God’s abiding presence to lift us up when we fall and to know God never gives up on us. Jesus wanted His listeners to realize the good news that we can live in joy because with God, light triumphs over darkness, life over death, and good over evil. Knowing that, why shouldn’t we repent, consider changing our minds about life, and accept and be faithful to the good news Jesus preached?

Belief starts in our minds. If faith is to grow, we have to open our souls to the possibility of faith. If we open ourselves to the possibility that God only wants good for us, we can change our minds, that will lead us to change our behavior. It will transform our hearts and we will feel joy.

Ask yourself, am I living in joy today? If we are honest, most of us will have to admit we are not. We are living in anxiety, worry, fear, anger, sin and selfishness, and not joy. As Jesus proclaims in today’s gospel then, repent and listen to the good news. Open yourself to making a new resolution. Resolve to allowing yourself to begin to believe you can change your mind, your heart and your behavior. You can experience joy.

God wants you to open yourself to joy and grace. You don’t have to try to manufacture them on you own; you can’t anyway no matter how hard you try. What you can do is position yourself to receive God’s gifts of joy by removing the barriers you put in the way. The world can’t give us joy. It is God’s generous gift to us and once we open ourselves to it the world can’t steal it away.