Today’s gospel continues Jesus’ instruction to His Apostles for their mission. Jesus wants to prepare them and us for the real world, which will involve persecution. He compares the Apostle’s situation to sheep being sent out among wolves. However, Jesus doesn’t want them to have the passive posture of sheep.
Instead, He says that they and we should be as shrewd as serpents and simple as doves. Jesus calls them to prudently anticipate threats and find ways to survive and continue the mission.
But then He says that they should be as simple as doves. That’s the phrase that didn’t add up to me. I’ve always thought that the metaphor of a simple dove was like the sheep, ill-equipped to face the dangerous wolf.
However, what Jesus is getting at is that by “simple,” He means that the Apostles’ shrewd tactics for survival should be “unmixed.”
In other words, Jesus wants their motives to be pure and single-minded. He wants them to guard against having a shrewdness that serves their self-interest and, in the process, comprises their integrity.
We can imagine how the Apostles must have been revved up to go out and spread the Word of God and heal the people. However, it must have been tough to hear the reality of the persecution they would encounter … to know that there are people on a different mission who play by another set of rules.
The same can be said for any of us. We, too, want to serve God by leading others to Jesus, but how do Jesus’ hard truth of persecution and past experiences affect us? Do we feel overwhelmed or perhaps timid? It’s understandable, but the Apostles didn’t isolate themselves and abandon their mission. Instead, they listened to Jesus and, filled with the Holy Spirit, went out in Jesus’ Name with a fervor that continues to influence us today.
As Father Leo mentioned yesterday, they were the first “influencers.” And their example of faith and courage can give each of us both hope and purpose. Hope that we can be prepared to face persecution and obstacles common to our time if we stay close to Jesus, just as we are right now at this Mass. And purpose like the Apostles knew in their vocation and call by Jesus to a particular mission.
My brothers and sisters, Jesus has called each of us to a mission rooted in our baptism and vocation.
He wants us to go out with a zeal to bring His teaching and healing presence to others but to be prepared, to use the gifts of wisdom and prudence in how we reach out to our family members, friends, and co-workers so that we like the Apostles will offer Jesus to those who are in need, perhaps even wary of believing that there is hope for turning their lives around.
May God bless you and your families this holy day as we seek to embrace our mission with courage, wisdom, and inspiration from the Words of Jesus and the example of the Apostles!
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