Endless knowability

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 21, 2024

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Endless knowability

There was this guy named Jonah. God called him to Nineveh to give those evil folks a chance to change. Jonah did his best to stay away, but here he was anyway.

Nineveh was an enormously large city; it took three days to go through it. “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.

Jonah might have had a sandwich board on him while he walked and shouted those words.

The people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and all of them put on sackcloth. And God did not destroy them.

You might think Jonah was thankful but he was not. As far as he was concerned God should kill those Ninevites because of what they had done to Israel. His story is short, but he never seems to get over his anger at God for being gracious and forgiving. Maybe Jonah just wasn’t a people person.

Jesus proclaimed in Galilee, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent!”

Like Jonah, he might have worn a sandwich board. Everyone listened to him.

Jesus saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they were fishermen. Jesus spoke up to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Then they abandoned their nets and followed him. A little farther along the shore he saw James and his brother John who were in a boat mending their nets. And he called them also.

I know at times Jesus has also called me. Is it so I can be a fisher of men? Hmmm. What is a fisher of men anyway? It’s obvious … but then it’s not.

Fish for people

I don’t think he meant for us to catch them,

haul them into our boat with some evangelistic net,

capture & manipulate them.

 

I think he meant to change our focus

from fish to people.

Fishers know where the fish are and go there;

they learn to think like fish; they value fish.

Their lives are centered around fish.

 

Become attentive to people, Jesus meant,

go where they are,

let their beauty flash before you.

Center your life around them and their well-being.

 

He might have said to Matthew,

pay attention to the details of people like you do to taxes.

Or to an auto mechanic, that’s great,

now can you do that for people?

 

What do you know a lot about?

Imagine becoming that adept

with souls, with relationships,

with how we live together.

Follow Jesus, and you can become

an investment banker of souls,

 

a painter of people, a gardener of society.

Just follow, and you’ll discover what it means. – Steve Garnaas-Holmes

 

Jonah might have read this poem and “discovered” what God was doing. We don’t know because the story ends with a reference to Nineveh’s many animals. What did Jonah have to say about that? Is it OK if we just don’t know?

My friend Anthony, who loves theology, loves mystery more, I think. He calls himself far more “gray than black and white.” Me too.

Richard Rohr calls mystery …

endless knowability. Living inside such endless knowability is finally a comfort, a foundation of ultimate support, security, unrestricted love, and eternal care. This is surely what we mean by “growing” in faith.

Much more than finding quick certitudes and rushing to closure, the source of spiritual wisdom is to hold questions and contradictions patiently. Self-created solid ground is much less stable than the mysterious solid ground of the abyss … how do we keep fire afloat on water?

Sundays are days to go to church for the sacraments, for fellowship and for teaching. All of this moves in and out of certitude, in and out of mystery, or it should. Leaving church I want to have some sense of the “endless knowability.” And trusting that while God knows me more and more, I don’t have to reciprocate. Let me jump unknowing, and headlong, into God’s embrace any day.

(Jonah 3, Psalm 25, 1 Corinthians 7, Mark 1)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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