In today’s gospel (Mark 1:14-20) we hear Jesus calling those first disciples – ordinary people just like us – to work with him in drawing people to God, to be prophets in the world, to deliver a message of love, hope, and redemption. 

And in today’s Old Testament scripture (Jonah 3:1-5, 10) we hear the story of one such prophet in a much earlier time.  We hear about Jonah, the “disobedient” prophet, who was called by God to deliver a message of repentance to the people of Nineveh. 

Initially Jonah could not make sense out of God’s desire to allow the Ninevites – a pagan people and sworn enemy of Israel – to repent and be saved.  It was only after first disobeying God’s command, only after running from God, only after spending three days in the belly of that whale, only after being rescued by God, that Jonah set out to do the work God asked of him.   And after delivering the prophetic message, after seeing the Ninevites turn towards God, and after receiving further enlightenment from God that penetrated his stubbornness, Jonah came to realize a profound truth – that it is God’s great love and mercy that moves people to seek forgiveness, that all are offered the chance for redemption and salvation, that God is God for all people.

Like Jonah and those first disciples of Jesus, we are also called to be prophets in the world, to help make God known and his message understood.  Like those first disciples we may be a bit unsure of what we are getting into.  And like Jonah, we might initially question God’s ways.  But like the prophets that came before us, when we open our hearts and minds to God’s Spirit, when we dispose ourselves to God’s call, we come to see how God’s love trumps all.  Like Jonah we come to see that love, mercy, tolerance, forgiveness, and reconciliation are much higher virtues than self-righteousness, pride, exclusion, vindictiveness, and retribution.  And with all this in mind, we go out into the world as “modern-day prophets” living lives that reflect these higher virtues, helping those we encounter come to know and love our God.

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One response to “

  1. Jim Zinsmeister

    Gratias tibi ago. <

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