First, a Prayer of Wholehearted Commitment:
Lord, you have the reputation of taking people to places they never wanted to go. Witness Jonah, delivered by whale to Nineveh, and Habakkuk flown by angels to Babylon. Also, I have heard that you do not consult. Abraham is suddenly ordered out of Haran and Moses called out of retirement for the Egypt assignment. Furthermore, Paul says you take a chiropodist’s delight in Achilles heels, spurn eloquence for the stutter and reveal yourself in the thorns of the flesh. And what was that unpleasantness with your Beloved Son shortly before his appointment to your right hand?
So, it is that to you my most resounding “Yes” is a “maybe” and it is with one eye on the door that I say, ‘Behold, Lord, your servant is waiting.’
(The Hour of the Unexpected. John Shea)
John is in prison, and, for now, Jesus is free. The torch has passed. God is working in history to bring about a better world. Jesus will need friends to work with Him, but where will He find them? I guess the answer lies in where He looked. In ordinary places among ordinary people. We might say that while the same urgency is in the air, it is no longer possible for us to leave it to the experts! The beautiful Document ‘Lumen Gentium’ speaks of a universal call to holiness and mission. What are we doing with this call in our own lives? Rumi, the Sufi Mystic, and poet, answers the question like this:
The Master said, “There is one thing in this world that must never be forgotten. If you were to forget everything else, but did not forget that, then there would be no cause to worry; whereas if you performed and remembered and did not forget every single thing, but forgot that one thing, then you would have done nothing whatsoever. It is just as if a king had sent you into a country to carry out a specific task. You go and perform a hundred other tasks, but if you have not performed that particular task on account of which you had gone into that country, it is as though you have performed nothing at all. So, each human person has come
into this world for a particular task and that is each one’s purpose. If one does not perform it, then that one will have done nothing.
(Discourses on Rumi. Trans A J Arberry. London 1961, p.26)
For Jesus, this one thing to which all are called is to follow Him, with a new mind, and join Him in His work of transforming the world. It does not matter that this urgent journey will be a roller coaster successes and failures, meeting and misunderstandings, ease and suffering or hope and regret. We never know what we are getting into with God! This might, as the prayer above suggests leave us squinting at the exit routes. However, I have never met anyone who really risked it who did not find a hope larger than their individual life.
