Where your treasure is there your heart will be also

The liturgy of the third Sunday in ordinary time is based on the following readings: Jonah 3:1-5,10; Psalm 24; 1Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20. The main theme in these readings is a kind of detachment which requires us to be nourished, guided and enlightened by the light of God’s word while engaging in all the legitimate activities and duties that God has given us in this world; duties in the family, at work or school, in the community, in the society and in our world. The history of Christianity teaches us that Christians have responded differently to this principle of detachment in Christ’s teaching. There are those who respond by conforming to the world around them. Paul tells them to do it very carefully: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God; what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rm 12:2). Secondly, there are those who respond by flight, fleeing from the world. Some of the early monastic movement and spirituality was driven by a desire to isolate oneself from the world so as to draw near to God. Paul is not urging a flight from the world. He is saying that whereas Christians should engage in these necessary activities, they should go about them with a spirit of detachment. They should go about these occupations in a rather detached way so that they do not end up losing their own identity as Christians. In fact, Paul is expounding what Christ himself taught The third way of responding to the above idea of detachment is by applying the Christian principle which might be both the most demanding and the most faithful to the teachings of Christ. It is based on the principle of being in the world but not of the world. In one word you can call it a life style of detachment. This kind of faithfulness has not been easy always. We see this in the example of Jonah in the first reading. God asks him to be a prophet, but Jonah, knowing what horrors many prophets went through, he decided to run away from God. But on his journey he was swallowed by a big fish, and was spit out at the exact place where God wanted him to go; the great city of Nineveh. That how his project of being a solitary prophet ended. Unlike Jonah, Jesus is not a solitary prophet. He wants company! He knows he will need some companions to be encouraged and supported, and so he enters the lives of four people with the simple command: “Follow me”. He calls ordinary people, people who drop everything and follow him in any case. They become disciples. The word “disciple” means being with, accompanying Jesus, and doing the things of Jesus. There is a lesson here for us: If Jesus needed a community to support him, how much more do we need our communities and friends to support us. Here Paul teaches us how we should be engaged, or involved in the different activities which require the interaction of all members in order to foster Christian values in our society. Paul wants us to be role models who share our values in order to help others live their own faith heeding the words of Christ: “This is the time of fulfilment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the good news.” To repent means to ‘change one’s mind’, to open it up, to turn it around. Not only to be sorry for our sins, but in accordance with the original Greek meaning of the word; it means to turn back, change our mind and believe in the good news. Again, the original meaning is important. It doesn’t mean to believe in the Holy Scriptures only, but to change our mind and trust in the good news which is Jesus himself: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:19-21) What Jesus teaches us here is very obvious. While he wants us to live in the world taking seriously all our engagements, he wants us as well to be realistic and live knowing that the world with all its possession will pass away. Such an awareness calls for a life style of detachment, with the knowledge that at the end, the wealth that will be of great value to us on judgment day is the wealth of righteousness that we have accumulated through the acts of faith and love that we have done.