Joke: A priest, a minister, and a monk sat discussing the best positions for prayer, while a telephone repairman worked nearby. "Kneeling is definitely the best way to pray," the priest said. "No," said the minister. "I get the best results standing with my hands outstretched to Heaven." "You’ve both wrong," the monk said. "The most effective prayer position is lying down on the floor." The repairman couldn’t contain himself any longer. "Hey, fellas," he interrupted. "The best praying I ever did was when I was hanging upside down from a telephone pole."

In today’s Gospel, Saint Mark repeats the word of Jesus’ preaching saying, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” which draws his first disciples to leave their nets and everything to follow him. What does he mean by the kingdom of God is at hand, repent, and believe in the gospel? And how do they recognize that the kingdom of God is at hand?

What is the kingdom of God if it’s not to believe in the Gospel and repent? What is the Gospel that we hear every time we attend the Mass? A simple and short definition of the Gospel is Jesus’ life, ministries, and teaching. Only reading and believing is not enough to recognize the Kingdom of God, but it requires a conversion of heart to repent to recognize the Kingdom of God is at hand. So, what Jesus meant is that the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent, and believe in the Gospel is to read the Gospel, to believe in what we read and hear, and to repent to be able to recognize the Kingdom of God is at hand.

We live in the blessed land of freedom of religion where we can practice what we believe. The Bible seems very familiar to all of us in this blessed land. There are many versions of the Bible since we are united from many different denominations. There are many versions of the Bible, but there is only one Jesus Christ, the Anointed One of God, and God himself that the four evangelists John, Mark, Matthew, and Luke inspired by the Holy Spirit reported Jesus’ life, ministries, and teaching. We might read the Bible, but do we believe in what we read? At the Diaconate Ordination, the bishop handed the book of the Gospel and said to the candidate, “Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach.” Why, in her wisdom, does the Church ask us to believe in what we read? The words in the Gospel, Jesus invites us to love our enemies, for an instant, but how many of us love our enemies even though we read the same Gospel, the same words of God? When the year 2000 approached, there were all kinds of news. Y2K would be the end of the world. All computers would crash. The planet would fall. There would be no electricity, no water. People began to go to Walmart and HEB to get all the water they could get. At the beginning of the year 2020, the whole world had to face this novel coronavirus. There had been all kinds of messages posted online… now, in the year 2021, the Gospel still proclaims, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” But look around us, how many people believe in the Gospel and repent to recognize the Kingdom of God is at hand?

We learn from the Old Testament, particularly in today’s first reading, taken from the book of the prophet Jonah, that the kingdom of God would be taken away when people didn’t repent and turned away from their evil deeds. When Jonah preached repentance to the Ninevites, they repented and God saw “by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.” Just as the people of Nineveh, they could only experience the kingdom of God, the kingdom of no destruction, when they repented, would we be able to experience the kingdom of God present in our midst, when we believe in the Gospel and repent, to turn away from our evil way?

We learn from the New Testament, particularly in today’s second reading, taken from the first letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthian community, which describes the passing of the world in its present form and encourages people to pursue the kingdom of God saying, “let those having wives act as not having them, those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning, those using the world as not using it fully.” Is it that true to experience the kingdom of God, a married man has to act as not have a wife; one is suffering from an illness or sickness has to act like not being sick; one rejoices in his peaceful and happy family has to act like not rejoicing; etc.? Wrong. What Saint Paul tries to encourage us here is that we should not allow these earthly alluring things like marriage, suffering, happiness, and earthly possession to dominate us, to block our vision to recognize the kingdom of God, the teaching of Jesus Christ and his church, but rather to focus our lives in following the Lord Jesus’ teaching and the teaching of his Church.

The kingdom of God in the Old Testament is to repent and to turn away from the evil way of life. The kingdom of God in the New Testament is to avoid the allurements of earthly things and to focus on the Person of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God present in our midst. The kingdom of God presents in our midst is an invitation for each of us to bring peace, happiness, and healing to one another and to those whom we come into contact each day. Is this kingdom of God present right here, right now? Or do we have to wait until we expire from this earthly life to experience the kingdom of God? Just as the kingdom of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, presents to heal the sick, to cure the disease, to free the prisoner and the oppressed, and to even raise the dead back into life again, have we experienced the kingdom of God present in our lives? If not, what should we do to experience the kingdom of God present in our midst? What are we looking for in this life and the life to come if it’s not the kingdom of God where there is no more sickness, illness, war, destruction, terrorism, division, brokenness, sadness, but happiness, peace, and joy? May we experience the kingdom of God when we believe in the Gospel, repent, and have the courage and strength to live our Christian life following the Lord Jesus Christ. The decision is yours.