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Pentecost 5, 06/15/2008
Sermon on Matthew 9:35-10,8, by Hubert Beck
And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."
And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, "Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay." (English Standard Version)
HEALING AGENTS FOR THE HARASSED AND HELPLESS
Two things stand out in the three lessons we read this morning.
The first thing is that the Lord is always taking the initiative, actively pursuing his ends in a very aggressive fashion:
In the First Lesson God makes clear through Moses, his servant, that Israel is who she is by virtue of the fact that God makes her who she is. "You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself." The Lord makes no bones about it: Israel was brought into being by the act of God.
In the Second Lesson it is clear as day that God initiated the reconciliation necessary to make us children of God. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God." We humans needed redemption. We could not provide it. God did that!
The Gospel for today also makes it clear that Christ is fully and totally in charge. "He called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. . . . These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them . . ." Nothing of any consequence happens in the Gospel apart from the authority that Jesus exercises.
The second thing that stands out in all three lessons is this: Not a single one to whom the Lord addresses himself is a likely candidate to carry out that to which God calls them.
Moses, the mediator between the people to whom God addressed himself in the First Lesson, had to be prodded and pushed into taking up the task. He had all kinds of excuses for not doing what he was supposed to do to the point where God, almost in anger, thrusts him out of his "comfort zone" to do what God wanted him to do. He was hardly a likely candidate for the job . . . although by retrospect it is clear that God had been preparing him for this task over the course of eighty years. Nor, for that matter, is Israel a likely candidate for receiving God's favor. She resisted God's offer through Moses just as much as Moses, himself, resisted carrying that offer to Israel even though she knew from her ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that God had made great promises to her.
Paul makes clear that those whom God justifies are not likely candidates for God's grace either. The very concept of grace, in fact, makes it plain that anyone who is claimed by God, has no innate claim on God in any way. "While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. . . God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. . . For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life." "While we were still weak . . . while we were still sinners . . . while we were enemies!" What kind of candidate were any of us to be called the children of God?
The Gospel presents us with the listing of those to whom Jesus gave authority over the unclean spirits, the diseases and afflictions that so harassed the helpless crowds. While the pure humanity of those disciples unfolds throughout the telling of their relationship with Jesus, Matthew stops twice in naming them to suggest how unlikely these candidates were! One of them is Matthew, himself, whom he goes out of his way to describe as a tax collector (and one must recognize how despised the tax collectors were in his time, for they were collaborators with the hated Roman rulers) and Judas, who is described so simply but so very vehemently as the one "who betrayed him."
And there you have it . . . the two strains that run through all the lessons: God's initiative stands behind everything that happens in the kingdom of heaven which we are to proclaim . . . and we are to make it clear that none of us are likely candidates for citizenship in that kingdom of heaven. These strains are undoubtedly not new to you, for they run through the whole of the Scripture. We have laid them bare through these three lessons for today, however, in order to look a bit more deeply into the Gospel which holds the front and center of our attention today.
A LOOK BEHIND THE SCENES
It is important to note how the Gospel accents the way Jesus insistently goes among the people, seeking them out. He does not wait for them to come to him. "Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction." He is pro-active, moving among them with his ministry of healing and wholeness.
As he went, "he saw the crowds. He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." He saw their deep need and moved squarely into the midst of it. Their "helplessness and harassment" touched him deeply.
Had you asked them, however, what would have been most helpful for them in the midst of this helplessness and harassment, it is doubtful that they would have responded with requests for that which Jesus was most interested in offering. It was clear to Jesus what they needed, but their requests would very likely have been for better stocked pantries (had Jesus not fed thousands with only a few loaves and some fish?); monetary assistance to cover their indebtednesses; freedom from the Roman yoke (had he not incorporated Simon the Zealot, a member of a rebel group devoted to throwing off the Roman rule, into his little band of twelve?); a health plan of monumental proportions (was he not constantly healing the sick?); protection from the demonic possessions that so threatened them (did he not regularly toss demons out of people?); and so on and so on and so on. Granted that they were not twentieth century Americans who may well ask for such things, it is nonetheless very likely that first century Palestinians would have wanted something of the same sort for themselves.
Although it is true that Jesus did address health and hunger needs, the emphasis in the text itself lies in "teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom." I am reminded of an incident to which Kathleen Norris makes reference in her book Amazing Grace, subtitled A Vocabulary of Faith. (Riverhead Books, New York, 1998, pp. 3, 4) She thought she had completed a question period after a lecture on "The Vocabulary of Faith" when the moderator saw one last hand. The questioner said, "I don't mean to be offensive, but I just don't understand how you can get so much comfort from a religion whose language does so much harm." Whatever harm Christian language had perpetrated was not signified, but Ms. Norris recognized the sincerity of the question since she, herself, had earlier been so long separated from the faith. Taken aback momentarily, she "realized that what had troubled me most was her use of the word ‘comfort.'" Almost as by inspiration she said that she didn't think it was comfort that she had been seeking . . . nor even that it was comfort she had found in the faith. "'Look,' I said to her . . . ‘As far as I'm concerned this religion has saved my life, my husband's life, and our marriage. So it's not comfort that I'm talking about but salvation.'"
I wonder how many of us, if we were asked what we most needed in the midst of our harassed and helpless life, would answer with that word "salvation" or a related word!?!? It was this, however, that Jesus was "teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom." While those listening may have been hoping for quite other things, there before them stood and spoke the Savior of the world, seeing their hopelessness and harassment, offering them the shielding and defending and caring arm of their heavenly Father. This, when all is said and done, is what "salvation" is all about. It is to be able to stand in the midst of helplessness and harassment with the sure foot of one whose life is secured by the God from whom we came and to whom we go. It is not a word whose meaning is found only at the end of our lives. It is the word that speaks of our security already right here in the midst of the trials and terrors of this life as Ms. Norris made clear, making it possible to weather all those storms that threaten us so that we can safely find the eternal harbor of life at the end of our journey.
APPOINTING HEALING AGENTS
As Jesus looked about and saw the widespread needs surrounding him, he recognized the need for healing agents to represent him.
In a sense it was nothing new. It didn't take long for Moses, even before the event we hear about in today's First Lesson, to discover a need for "extensions" of his role in Israel. (Exodus 18:13-27) The specific calling of the twelve mentioned in the Gospel is, in a sense, an "extension" of Jesus' ministry.
similar to that which Moses had to employ although on a very different level. There is just too much for one person to do. "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."
The calling of the twelve was, to be sure, a special calling of sorts. They had been under the tutelage of Jesus for some time before this. They had heard what he had to say and had seen what he did. They could hardly have been called "novices." Nor were they called as bystanders to whom Jesus just pointed "out of nowhere" They were trusted men to whom Jesus turned, "giving them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction."
They were men, though . . . frail men. As we noted earlier, already here, in naming them, Matthew points to their frailty - a tax collector and a traitor! He will let us in on other of their frailties as he spins out the events of his Gospel. Jesus did not seek out heroic men, people whose character was above most others, those whose intellect soared over the average, those who were experts in evangelism, men whose lives were clearly more godly than most! He entrusted his ministry to agents who were all too human - but whose humanity had been touched by the divine presence of him who called them!
Even Paul, this monument of faith, this evangelist par excellence through whom the Holy Spirit extended the Gospel into all the world, called as the last of the apostles after Judas' death and Jesus' ascension, had to speak of himself in these ever-so-human terms. "I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom . . . I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." (I Corinthians 2:1, 3-5) God's agents are who they are by virtue of God's grace, not because they were so superhuman or above normal human frailties!
Yet they made such an impact on the world that, by the second or perhaps third, generation they were spoken of in terms like these: "Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of humankind by country, speech, or customs. . . They conform to the customs of their country in dress, food, and the general mode of life, and yet they show a remarkable, an admittedly extraordinary structure of their own life together. They live in their own countries, but only as guests and aliens. They take part in everything as citizens and endure everything as aliens. . . They are in the flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh. They live on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. . . They are poor as beggars, and yet they make many rich. They lack everything, and yet they have everything in abundance. They are dishonored, and yet have their glory in this very dishonor. . . In a word, what the soul is in the body, the Christians are in the world." (from Letter to Diognetus 5, 6 [end of second century] quoted in The Early Christians in Their Own Words, selected and edited by Eberhard Arnold, The Plough Publishing House, pp. 114, 15) The Healing Agent for the Harassed and Helpless had very quickly multiplied himself! Healing Agents for the Harassed and Helpless were appearing in every part of the then-known world - and the world took note - sometimes, perhaps often, against its own will!
THE "US" IN THE TEXT
Have you not seen yourself in this Gospel by now?
We are, ourselves, first of all, those who have been "harassed and helpless," have we not? The entanglements in which we find ourselves in this world seem to trap us at every turn. The economics of our time have driven us to re-think almost everything we have thought was securely tied down for us financially only a few months ago. Health is a constant issue of our time. It is hard to pick up a paper or magazine or watch a news show for long without the issue being raised in one form or another - and few of us escape some kind of threat to our physical welfare for very long. Greater powers than we are able to comprehend surround us - often seemingly demonic powers, in fact - and we feel a frustration at being able to get a handle on what those powers are, how they operate, or how we could or can resist them if and when resistance is called for. There is a great sense of being lost in a rapidly changing world with which we find ourselves increasingly unable to fully cope.
Do we not see that which is called "sin" at the heart of all this? It was sin that first called forth the word, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. . . Cursed is the ground because of you, in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. . . By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:15, 17b-19 ESV) Tortured and broken relationships cause immense pain for us and within us. Our helplessness is felt as we walk through the thorns and thistles of life. We feel the "curse on the ground" in the frustrations of life time after time. It is here where we see that sin is far more than mere "moral breakdowns from time to time," but a deep-rooted alienation from the one who made us and the one to whom we go. Our needs are far more, far deeper, far greater than those "surface symptoms" that we often name as our most urgent needs. It is here where we see the true need for "salvation," that word of which we spoke earlier. It is here where the Seed of the Woman who crushed the head of that serpent through whom the alienating word had been spoken becomes our Healing Agent.
It is he of whom Paul spoke in the Second Lesson for today: "Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God." If we recognize ourselves among those who are the harassed and helpless of life, we also recognize ourselves as the recipients of the grace of him who himself overcame death and has thereby become our Healing Agent. He now calls us to join him in being healing agents to this wounded and worn world.
It is not as though, by following him and carrying out our own role of healing agents, we can or shall rise above the trials and tribulations of the world. It is Paul, speaking further to us in that Second Lesson, who assures us that we can "rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
If the one who healed us did it by pouring out his life on the cross in our behalf, we can most assuredly be confident that our lives will become healing agents only when we pour out our lives in turn for those around us. We speak his words, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." We wish, in so many ways, that we had the immediate power given to the twelve to "heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons." In the absence of such immediate access to powers such as these we feel a return of our helplessness. Then we hear about the way these commands were carried out in the faithful loving care for one another that so impressed those who lived with the early Christians as was noted earlier. There is an inner sense to these words that help us recognize the importance of holding the hand of a sick brother or sister, of speaking the word of life to those whose lives are rushing headlong to death, of being the living presence of Christ for those around us whose lives are depressed and desolate. The words "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" become living words through the lives we bear in our very own everyday bodies as the children of God already now living as citizens of that kingdom.
"You have received without paying; give without pay," Jesus says. God's grace has, indeed, made us who we are, but it is not a gift to be stored up, a stream of loving mercy to be dammed up in our hearts creating a pool of ready-at-hand grace if and when we feel the need for it. The more we try to store it up the more it becomes a cesspool within us. And it is amazing how easily we accommodate ourselves to the smell of that cesspool as it gradually turns from the rich aroma rising from God's grace into a self-righteousness that smugly refuses to pour it out in turn upon those around us.
Grace is a stream running through us, though. It is never to be stored up. It is always to remain an openly flowing rivulet of God's love running through us. It is received in order to give it. It is life given to be given to others. It is mercy delivered so that we can deliver mercy. It is healing offered to the wounded, the helpless, the harassed of the world so that through us others, too, can be healed.
May grace, therefore, and mercy and peace be yours in this place so that you can deliver grace, mercy and peace wherever you go when you leave this place as healing agents of God.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.