Reflection by Deacon Russ for 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Have you ever played Follow the Leader? I’m sure many of us have. I played the game when I was a child, my father played when he was a child, and his father probably played the game as well. Follow the Leader is a game that is played and enjoyed by children all over the world. The rules are very simple. You choose a leader and you follow wherever he goes and do whatever he does. You stomp through puddles, climb over fences, swing from a tree – all to stay in the game because nobody wants to be a quitter.

Jesus played Follow the Leader – and he was the leader. He was a stranger when he called Andrew and Peter, James and John. You have to imagine how they must have felt when this stranger came by and said, “Come after me.” One of the other Gospel accounts of this incident says that they left at once, immediately – dropping their nets and following Jesus. You have to wonder what made the fishermen respond the way they did. Can you imagine yourself doing that today? A stranger comes up to you and says, “Come on, follow me,” and you would just do it? In fact, we teach our children to not even talk to strangers, to turn and go the other way.

Jesus is still calling people to follow him today. Because we call ourselves Christians, Jesus also says to us, “Come follow after me.” Our call to follow him first comes at Baptism, but our response isn’t usually so quick and decisive as that of the apostles. When we follow Jesus the leader, he takes us to rub shoulders with the poor and the outcasts, to listen to and care for the sick and the lonely, to stand for values that are out-of-fashion in much of our world. None of that is very attractive. We are called to announce the Good News; our challenge is to hear and respond, to live it every day in all the circumstances of our lives. And that, we know, can be a challenge!

The call to follow Jesus is intimately tied to repentance. John said, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” Repent. What does that mean? Repentance is the hard task of facing the sinfulness in ourselves, facing the fact that there are some things in the way we live that need be changed. To repent means to accept an invitation, to open one’s hands, to turn around, to take a first step. To repent is not to regret something, but to turn and face Jesus. Repentance includes a conversion, a change of heart. Repentance means turning from darkness to light. Repentance means believing that God’s kingdom is here now and relies on us to be made manifest. It is not easy to repent and follow Jesus.

The Church also gives us the example of Jonah today. Jonah was told by the Lord to go to Nineveh and announce his message that the city would be destroyed if they didn’t repent and change their ways. He hoped that if he ran away from the Lord, the Lord will look for someone else. Of course, that doesn’t happen. And after only one day, the people heard Jonah’s message and repented and prayed that God would have mercy on them.

Aren’t we like Jonah at times? It is not always fun to be the disciple and the prophet. Sometimes we wish the Lord would choose someone else. But through our Baptism Jesus has chosen us to follow him. Our calling and the call that is extended to all of God’s children is the same as that of Peter: Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Follow me and feed my sheep. Part of following God is doing things that are out of our comfort zone, of sometimes being downright scared. It is by our lives that others will know that the time of fulfillment is at hand. Like Jonah – and like Jesus – we, too, must teach and heal, nourish and forgive, respect and admonish, and love and reconcile. God relies on us to bring repentance and healing, love and forgiveness to our world.

The world clamors for us to follow other leaders - the gods of materialism, of get all you can for yourself, the gods of moral relativism and pleasure, of golden idols and worldly comfort. Midst all that noise, Jesus says to us again, “Come, follow me.” Which leader will you follow?

If you have a brief faith reflection on today’s reading that you would like to share, please send it to me at deaconruss@holyspiritunoh.org.