The readings from Amos and Mark tell about people who receive a mission. In both cases the people with the mission are rather ordinary: Amos is a shepherd and tree dresser, the apostles are mostly fishermen.

They symbolize the ordinary people through whom God works for the salvation of the world.

Many people stay out of the struggle for a better world, believing that only important people and the specially talented make a difference. They should remember this shepherd and these fishermen.

These messengers carry similar messages. The apostles preached the need for repentance, that is, the need for people to change their way of living.

Amos also spoke about the need to live differently, and that is why the priest was throwing him out of Bethel. The established religion of the Northern Kingdom, centered in Bethel, felt threatened by this prophet of social justice.

In the religion of Amos, “God proclaims peace to his people and justice shall look down from heaven so that justice and peace shall kiss.” Amaziah wanted nothing of that.

The apostles were to take nothing with them on the journey but their companionship (“two by two”) and the authority they received from Jesus. Their mission was to confront the evil embodied in society and to “reject what is contrary to the Gospel.”