At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here. At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.” (Luke 11:29-32)
According to the Bible: The “sign” of Jonah is interpreted in two ways in the New Testament: His experience of three days and nights in the fish is a “type” of the experience of the Son of Man, and the Ninevites’ reaction to the preaching of Jonah is contrasted with the failure of Jesus’ generation to obey the preaching of one who is “greater than Jonah.” So, do we behave like the Ninevites who heeded Jonah? Let’ first listen to the story.
Jonah began his journey through the city, and when he had gone only a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.
When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh: “By decree of the king and his nobles, no man or beast, no cattle or sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water. Man and beast alike must be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; they all must turn from their evil way and from the violence of their hands. Who knows? God may again repent and turn from his blazing wrath, so that we will not perish.” When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out. (Jonah 3:4-10)
Have we turned from our evil way and from the violence of our hands? The Ninevites listened to Jonah. Will we do the same? I repeat the beginning of our Gospel. “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.” Are we an evil generation meaning we have let evil overcome us even though we have Jesus as our “sign?”
Calling us an evil generation is a bit too much and unfair. Every generation has its share of evil and good. Unfortunately, the evil disguises itself as explained by Father Richard Rohr in his 2019 book “What Do We Do With Evil: The World, The Flesh, and The Devil.” He said: "Evil is subtle and the evils that are killing us all are usually well-disguised (which is exactly why they are killing us!). Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) taught that humans usually do evil by choosing an apparent good, which means a good from the perspective of the small and unconverted ego.
Most people who do evil have fully explained it to themselves as good (meaning it is good for them), regardless of whether it is objectively good or good for society as a whole. Injustice, for example, is usually denied to a minority of some kind. All a politician has to do is put such a spin on it and people will often vote against their own legitimate self-interest to follow the demagogue or the group. Some theorists have called such voters ‘useful idiots.’ This is exactly and primarily why evil gains such ascendency in this world. ‘Good people’ do very bad things, symbolized by ‘when they kill [Christ and] they think they are doing a holy duty for God.”
Jesus is our sign. We must not be useful idiots.
Deacon David Pierce
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