Readings:
Jeremiah 15: 10, 16 – 21
Matthew 13: 44 – 46
What a positive and encouraging message we receive from Isiah today. Who we are, and all that makes us who we are, is and can be fashioned by God and turned to God’s purpose and design. Each day we can be a new creation – whatever we have made of ourselves yesterday. Today, God can take us up and shape us anew, using the good and the bad, the strengths and the flaws. We night begin the day feeling we are just a misshapen, ugly pot. Yet, God’s gentle hands day by day fashion us again into someone who is just perfect in God’s eyes. And perfect for the mission God has for us today. God, each morning, makes me anew, and I just have to be today is the best ‘me’ I can be. So I make my little space in the world just perfect, while God is busy attending to the other few billion on the planet, helping them to be the best they can be. And that’s how the earth itself become the Kingdom of God.
So, as we read the gospel, we recognise Jesus is being a little too dramatic. On this occasion, as the saying goes, ‘his bark is worse than his bite”. The dragnet brings in a haul of fish, good and bad, to be sorted with the good stored and the bad thrown away. I don’t think so.
We know in fact, that Jesus will never throw anyone away, ever! No matter how bad! Jesus, like God the potter, will just try again to win over our stubborn hearts. And then he will try again, till he wears down our resistance and wins our love.
Fr Tom McDonough is the current provincial superior of Holy Spirit province.