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Second Sunday after Pentecost, 06/18/2017
Sermon on Mattew 9:35-10,8, by Andrew Smith
35 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. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
10 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. 2 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; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
5 These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for the sermon today is the Gospel reading we just heard, “When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Jesus is the Good Shepherd who cares for His sheep. A flock of sheep without a shepherd is, well, it’s a mess. It’s chaotic. The flock isn’t being led to feeding grounds or even water and they are prone to attacks by wild animals as well as robbers who would take a sheep for the food and for the wool. And without that sense of being protected the flock would be paralyzed with fear. Jesus took a look at the crowds of people who met him in the towns and villages he visited and his conclusion was they were like sheep without a shepherd. No one was tending to them. No one was comforting them. After centuries of hearing God’s voice through the prophets, leading them by the truth of his word, they couldn’t hear clearly. And on top of that, by the time Jesus did come, they were occupied by yet another foreign army and their king was loyal to the occupation, not them or their God. It was a hard time. They looked helpless. They looked harassed and pitiful. And Jesus saw them and had compassion on them. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who cares for his sheep.
Helpless. That’s a bit what it feels like when your body doesn’t work the way it did. Right? You can’t do what you used to. Nobody likes feeling like they can’t help themselves. The word here is the same root as our word pitiful. Deserving pity. Most people I’ve seen as patients in the hospital can deal with pain, or the temporary setback of disease. What’s harder for folks are the chronic debilitating conditions. It will never be the same again for them. That’s hard. Jesus came and brought healing to the helpless. We know the healing stories and they are often powerful testimonies to the compassion of God for the pitiful people of this world. Jesus came and had compassion. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who cares for his sheep.
But Jesus came also for the harassed. This a powerfully descriptive word too. Jesus came to serve those who were persecuted and intimidated by the Romans and their taxes and lack of authority to govern themselves in a God-pleasing way. I know the political rhetoric can get pretty thick but the opposition party in control is not tantamount to the Roman occupation. Anyone who’s been bullied knows what it means to be harassed. Everyone knows that bullies act not out of strength but because they perceive themselves to be weak and by lashing out against others they shore up their weakness. The devil is a bully. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of him that way but he is. He has no real power. Oh sure, he has the power to hurt but not the power to heal. Any idiot can make something worse. The devil is such an idiot bully. The thoughts in our heads that we are not worth much, that no one would really miss us, that we deserve to be treated this way. Those are the bullies weapons. That’s how he harasses his victims. And their fear of him is his only power.
Contrast all that to Jesus who came into all those towns and villages healing people with all kinds of debilitating diseases, freeing them from lives of helplessness and their pitiful conditions. And remember that the healings were just the testimony that what Jesus was saying was true and that he was sent by God. Nicodemus, one of the ruling elders of Israel came and said to Jesus, “…we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” (Jn 3:2) And remember what Jesus said to crowd just before he healed the man whose friends had lowered him down through the roof and ceiling of the house where Jesus was teaching one day. “So that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” he then said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take up your mat and go.” Any two bit cynic can come up with a religion. Look at Scientology, for instance. That’s was L. Ron Hubbard did. Are we really surprised that a science fiction writer came up with a religion that had space aliens at the center of it? No, the testimony to the truth of Jesus teaching about the kingdom of God come near is the miraculous healings of the helpless and the defense and support of the harassed. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who cares for his sheep.
We may not often think of our sins as harassing us but let’s try that thought experiment for a minute. How about some easily identifiable sins like gossip and slander by which we harass others? Think of not just the bully’s victim, but the bully, acting out in fear. That bullying behavior is harassing the bully. The bully doesn’t know a moment’s peace either. The façade has to be kept going. What about sins like gluttony or lust? We can pretty easily see how those sins harm us as given them space in our lives. And whenever those sins kind of lose their power over us or we lose the ability to really sin well, then the devil is happy to harass with the memory of our past sins. Oh, the harassment power of sin.
Jesus came and saw all those sinful people, those helpless people, and his reaction was not anger. Jesus saw them and had compassion for them. He came and spoke a word of comfort and encouragement. The only judgment Jesus brought was against the ruling religious establishment of the time, something that I think we should always pay attention to. Jesus came to have compassion on the harassed and the helpless.
And then he told his disciples “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” Now here you have it right in front of you connected for you but let’s make it clear in our minds. The harvest of what? Who is Jesus talking about harvesting? The harassed and the helpless. God’s harvest is the harassed and the helpless. At least here it is. There is no talking about healthy plants bearing fruit, a hundred fold here. Jesus is talking about workers being sent out to harvest the harassed and helpless. Pray the Lord of the harassed and helpless send out laborers into His harvest.
I remember a discussion I had with my brother one day. He was very young, a teenager and was in that phase where we question everything. And we were actually in Canterbury, England visiting the cathedral there. He looked at it as a great waste of money. And we went in and heard the story about how the cathedral was build and how many hundreds of years it took to build it. And at one point I realized what an incredible opportunity for jobs and economic growth the building of that great church must have been not just in the era of its being built but in all the centuries after with maintenance, and tourism, and how many people’s entire lives were built up because that great church was built. It certainly wasn’t a waste.
What God does though us is never a waste. He is speaking. He is acting. He is doing it. It’s never a waste. It’s the activity of the God who is always creating and renewing and making good on his promises. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who cares for His sheep.
We often have a hard time seeing what happened in Bible times and connecting it with God’s activity today. Let’s try. What is happening right now? Are you not hearing the Good News of the kingdom being spoken to you? Have I not been sent especially by Jesus to speak these words to you? Have I not been sent to forgive those harassed by their sins and bring help and support to the helpless in the name of Jesus? Is that not what the Divine Service is for week in and week out? And if all that is true, what do you think Jesus is encouraging you to do today with his help and protection? Jesus is the Good Shepherd who cares for His sheep.
He meets is in the chaotic mess of lives to shepherd us and protect us and help us. And he does it so that we can be equipped to share that with others. Amen.