The prophet Jonah was not excited about the mission God set before him; in fact, he initially ran in the other direction, away from the great city of Nineveh, where he was to announce the Lord’s message to the enemies of the people of Israel: Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed! Jonah expects to be rejected out of hand by the Ninevites; he is sure his efforts will be wasted in a futile attempt to change the minds of this enemy people. But after one day, everyone accepts the message, even the king. This is utterly beyond Jonah’s expectations – indeed, it’s mind-blowing, extraordinary! Jonah is slowly opening to change and learning the Lord’s ways, as described in Psalm 25; perhaps he will now remember that the Lord’s compassion and love are from of old, and always with extraordinary results.
Jesus’ call of his disciples is no less extraordinary, and with similarly extraordinary results. Simply approaching these fishermen, Jesus says, Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men… and they do! Simon and his brother Andrew abandon their nets and follow Jesus; James and his brother John leave their father in the boat and follow Jesus as well. Like Jonah, they do not understand everything right away, but in Mark’s Gospel, they respond without question, ready to believe that, This is the time of fulfillment; the kingdom of God is at hand – a compelling message if ever there was one! The four men know a trade; their skills will be useful to the Lord as they shift their focus from capturing fish to capturing the hearts and the imaginations of their fellow human beings. Like the Corinthians to whom Paul writes, we would do well to open ourselves, following the model of Peter and Andrew, James and John, not contenting ourselves with doing what we are supposed to do, but rather acting as though we truly believed that the world in its present form is passing away, so that the kingdom of God might be realized fully.
God will ask us to do many things in this life, some of them easy, others hard. We don’t know, going into it, how any of them will be received. We know we are loved; we know we are called, but how much of our response to the Lord is based on whether we think we will be successful? Are we ready for our behavior to disrupt the status quo, the ordinary? Are we ready to be tremendously successful? If our mission to bring the good news to our world touches a single heart, that will be extraordinary! If we are thoughtful in all we do, conscious that Christ is at work in us, we will beat the odds in a world that doesn’t necessarily understand our mission… provided we are ready and open to doing the extraordinary for the Lord.
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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