The Third Sunday after the Epiphany, January 21, 2024

I begin my morning walk with the biblical affirmation, “this is the day that God has made and I
will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24) This is the day! This is the only moment there is!
Now is the day of salvation! The kingdom, kin-dom, of God is near! For process theologians,
this is always the case. God is not far off, unrelated to our lives. God does not dwell in
unchanging perfection. God’s perfection is God’s relationality, God’s immersion in the ebb and
flow our personal, national, and planetary lives.
The Book of Jonah presents a radical contrast to the doctrine of divine predestination and
determinism or classical omnipresence in which God knows the future in its entirety. “God
changes God’s mind.” When persons change, God changes. When persons reform and repent,
new possibilities open for God and humankind. Faced with the prophesy of doom, the citizens of
Nineveh, the enemies of the children of Israel, including the domestic animals, repent, fast, and
commit themselves to a changed life. They are hoping against hope that God will notice, and
God does. The script is not pre-programmed. Their future is open, and so is God’s. When they
change, God’s action changes. A living God is responsive as well as creative. A living God’s
power is relational and contextual and not coercive and predetermined.
What we do matters. It matters to our fellow humans and companions on the planet, and it
matters to God. This was true for Nineveh, and it is true for us. If we change our ways
regarding justice, economics, and Earth care, our future may change and God may be
empowered to energize and enliven the moral and spiritual arc flowing through history and our
lives.
Further, God care for our nation’s enemies as well as for our nation. The hated Nineveh, capital
city of the oppressive Assyrian empire, is also the object of God’s care. God is also working for
our enemies’ salvation as well as our own. God will give Nineveh a second chance. We too can
receive God’s blessing despite our waywardness. All is not lost for Nineveh or the USA: we can
be redeemed, transformed, and ethically renewed.
The Psalmist asserts that in a constantly changing world, in which our mortality is only too
obvious, God is faithful and loving. Trusting God, we don’t need to forge ahead according to the
devices and desires of our hearts. We can pause, listen, open, and respond to God’s wisdom. We
can embrace God’s vision which is much larger than our own.
“The present world is passing away. Don’t hang onto what will pass.” Paul is not counseling
quietism or passivity for the Corinthian community or our own. Rather, he is counseling non-
attachment. We can have a vision and act on it, but we need not make our happiness depend on
the realization of our particular, finite agenda. For Paul, the time is short. While we may not
look toward a visible second coming of Jesus, we can still affirm that the time is short, that each
moment arises and perishes, and that in this perpetually perishing moment, we can follow God’s
way without identifying our way as the only way.

In the reading from Mark 1:14-20, John the Baptist has been arrested, making a way for the
newly anointed Jesus. The future belongs to Jesus and the only future that matters is God’s
future realm. Jesus’ message is simple: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come
near; repent, and believe in the good news." The good news is that God is with us, providing a
pathway to healing and salvation. God’s realm is as near as our next breath or the next liberating
action. God’s realm is not coercive. We have the freedom to join or turn from God’s vision of
reality. We can repent, turn around, change our ways, and “believe in the good news.” That is,
we can become good news people, living out God’s realm in our day to day lives. Incarnating in
our lives, God’s realm “on earth as it is in heaven.”
In the chaos of history, whether in occupied Judea in the first century or divided USA in the
twenty-first century, God is near. In the chaos of post-COVID church life, in which the church
has been further marginalized and many conservative Christians have morphed the rantings of a
prevaricating politician onto the way of Jesus, our churches wonder about the future. We must
take the statistics seriously as well as the visible evidence of our congregational worship
attendance. Still, even here, we can proclaim the “realm of God is near.” What would it mean for
us to repent? What does this mean in divided, impatient, uncivil, materialistic America? What
do we need to turn from and what do we need to turn toward? What is the good news that we
can believe in when we witness the marginalization of Christianity and the idolatry within our
churches? For process-relational preachers, the good news is found precisely ongoing divine-
human call and response. God is quietly working in our lives. We can intuit humbly the
contours of God’s presence, and when we align ourselves with God’s vision, new possibilities
and energies emerge.
Today, the preacher can chart the journey of a living God, who changes God’s mind and whose
“mercies are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:22-24) We can explore the turning around
that awakens us to divine wisdom and power, and in our “one wild and precious life,” living “this
day,” we can do something beautiful for God as persons and citizens, tipping the balance from
death to life for us and our planet. The “so what” of today’s lectionary is that we matter, we can
make a difference, and when we change our priorities, God changes his future vision for us, “for
good and not evil for a future with hope.”

Bruce Epperly is a pastor, professor, spiritual guide, and author of over seventy books, including
JESUS – MYSTIC, HEALER, AND PROPHET; THE ELEPHANT IS RUNNING: PROCESS
AND OPEN AND RELATIONAL THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM;
PROPHETIC HEALING: HOWARD THURMAN’S VISION OF CONTEMPLATIVE
ACTIVISM; MYSTIC’S IN ACTION: TWELVE SAINTS FOR TODAY; WALKING WITH
SAINT FRANCIS: FROM PRIVILEGE TO ACTIVISM; MESSY INCARNATION:
MEDITATIONS ON PROCESS CHRISTOLOGY, FROM COSMOS TO CRADLE:
MEDITATIONS ON THE INCARNATION, and THE PROPHET AMOS SPEAKS TO
AMERICA. His most recent books are PROCESS THEOLOGY AND THE REVIVAL WE
NEED, TAKING A WALK WITH WHITEHEAD: MEDITATIONS WITH PROCESS-
RELATIONAL THEOLOGY, and SIMPLICTY, SPIRITUALITY AND SERVICE: THE
TIMELESS WISDOM OF FRANCIS, CLARE, AND BONAVENTURE. He can be reached at
drbruceepperly@gmail.com.