Preposition trouble

I am a fan of Looney Tunes cartoons.  They were a staple of my childhood and I am therefore warmly nostalgic.  And I still find them funny - which cannot be said of other things I found funny in earlier years.  There are a few featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd all about whether it is duck season or rabbit season.  In one of these - well it's easier to show it than explain it.  Please note where Daffy Duck discovers the shift from "shoot me now" to "shoot you now."

He realizes that there is "pronoun trouble."  And indeed parts of speech do give us trouble from time to time.

Take prepositions for example.  They say (whoever "they" are) that the sure sign that you have mastered a new language is that you get the prepositions right.  Having studied one or two I would agree.  In English we say "I am going to school."  Translated into French it is "Je vais à l'école."  The tricky bit is that the little character "à" can be translated into English as "to" and "at".  Thus some francophones learning English might say "I am going at the school."  Preposition trouble.

And there is always preposition trouble in translation.  Take Jesus words in Matthew 4:17 "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at had."  The troublesome preposition here is "for", which in the original Greek text is the nearly ubiquitous "gar", translated "for" or "because".

Before I proceed, I want to give an image of what I see when I hear that phrase, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near."

You might have a similar image.  My point is that the line suggests generally to me "stop your bad behavior before it is too late."  It is a call to change to avoid the coming wrath.  But it is always worth looking at the context.

Starting in Matthew 4:12 we read:

Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
the people dwelling in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,
on them a light has dawned.”
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
(Matthew 4:12-17 ESV)

Context.  It matters so much.  Extracted from the context, the anticipation is coming wrath.  In the context it seems rather like something else.  "The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light,"  indeed "on them a light has dawned."  It feels rather more like good news than bad.

And this causes me to reconsider the preposition "gar."  Perhaps translating it as "because" helps a little. "Repent because the kingdom of heaven is near."  The invitation to repent is BECAUSE his gracious kingdom is at hand.  Repent because on us a great light has dawned.

And this makes more sense to me.  Because experientially, I am only really able to repent, to have the confidence to repent when I am first have seen the Great Light.  It is the nearness of the kingdom, granting us the capacity to have at least a taste of it that inclines us to repentance.  To be clear, repentance is and always will mean stopping bad behavior (or taking up neglected good behavior), but it comes BECAUSE the kingdom of heaven is near, because we have smelt its aroma and long for the better country.

St. John reminds us:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
(1 John 4:18 ESV)

True repentance is not a response of fear, but a response to love, to the nearness of the kingdom of God.