A Mission for Today

Matthew 9:35-10:8

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. 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 ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

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No city was too big, no village too small, no sickness too strong. Jesus makes it look and sound all so easy. It makes me wonder, did he ever get tired? When he laid down at night, did his feet hurt and blister from all the walking? Was his throat hoarse from all the teaching and talking? So far in Matthew Jesus has been hard at work: healing, teaching, setting people free from demons, but we don’t get to hear details about what he was thinking or feeling. Afterall, it is kinda hard to get that when someone else is telling the story.

Yet, today we get a little insight! From town to town and city to city, a crowd of people followed Jesus, waiting to hear the teachings, to see the healings, hoping they themselves might be on the receiving end. And as Jesus went to more towns, did more miracles, taught in more synagogues, the crowd grew larger and larger. 

Jesus turned, saw the crowd and we’re told: “he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless”. That word compassion literally means “to be moved in one’s bowels”, to be stirred up in one’s insides. Jesus saw their hurt, he likely smelled the stench of their struggle, heard the desperation in their cries. The sight, the sound, the scent; it was gut wrenching for Jesus. He felt the pressure to do something about it all and so he instructed his disciples to pray…”the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers”.

It’s nothing new to hear Jesus give instructions on how to pray or what to say, but what I love about this prayer is that immediately Jesus gathered his disciples to send them out into the harvest. 

Jesus prays and then answers his own prayer. As Pope Francis says, “Pray for the hungry. And then you go feed them. That’s how prayer works.” And that is exactly what Jesus did. Once gathered, Jesus equipped the disciples with authority and instructed them to do all the things they have seen him do: proclaim the good news, cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons; all works of healing and setting free. 

We often say that the church began at Pentecost, but there is a pretty strong case to be made that when Jesus calls, equips, and sends out these disciples to continue his ministry, that’s when the church began. 

It is curious though that the disciples are not permitted to go to Gentile or Samaritan areas. Are they not worth healing or setting free? No, quite the opposite in fact. The last words Jesus says in Matthew are “go therefore, making disciples of all nations”, expanding and overriding the limitations he set here. It’s as if Jesus is saying “start with where and with whom you know best. Soon your call will be to the ends of the earth, but not yet.” And so with clear instructions and well equipped, the disciples set out to heal and to set free. 

This story confronts us with many questions: What sights and sounds and sensations fill you with compassion? Who are the harassed and helpless of today? Would you agree with Jesus that still today the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few?

Perhaps most of all, this story made me ask the question, if Jesus were to summon us today, call us by name, gather us into one place, and then send us out: what would be our mission? 

What authority have we been given? At first, I wanted to say that it would have to be a mission different from that of the disciples, I mean we aren’t really tasked with casting out unclean spirits or curing every disease and every sickness. We leave the latter up to nurses and doctors and as for “unclean spirits”, that sounds a bit like religious fanaticism or crazy talk.

Yet, are there not unclean spirits that harass and oppress in the world still today? Is not racism or poverty or homophobia still at work, hurting our neighbors? Absolutely they are. I just read a report on the rise of violent and hateful acts toward LGBTQ people and communities including armed protest, online harassment, and bomb threats. Poverty in Central Indiana has been on the rise since 1970, especially in black and brown neighborhoods. And while this is anecdotal, our phones have been ringing off the hook with people asking for groceries or gas cards, many for the first time.

As for racism, there is too much that could be said. Last week, I attended the Interrupting Racism Workshop that Pastor Mark set up as a part of his sabbatical. 10 P.I.M will be going over the course of the summer. It was an intense two days that showed the historical and current damage and divisions caused by racism. In Francia’s class on “How the Word is Passed”, we’ve begun learning just how whitewashed our history has been, revealing that the unclean spirit of racism still dwells in our societal systems, our cities, and even ourselves.

For that reason, I largely agree with Washington Gladden who said the most important mission of the church to society is “the reconciliation of races. [what] must be done is to take this chaotic mass of dissimilar, discordant, suspicious, antipathetic racial elements and blend them into unity. The first Christians had a task of this nature on their hands; bring[ing] together in one fellowship Jews and Gentiles. But that was a pastime compared with the herculean labor entrusted to us,--the bringing together of whites and blacks. It is the task of the nation; but the church of Jesus Christ is charged with the business of furnishing the sentiments and ideas by which it may be accomplished.”

Washington Gladden is known as the father of the social gospel movement and the author of the hymn we sing next. He wrote that quote in 1908, more than 100 years ago, and yet here we are.

We have been doing work around racism for a while now. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed or to feel like we’ve talked about it enough. After all, what’s the point? If New Pal is 97-98% white, then the chance or likelihood of Cross of Grace being a racially diverse place is rather low. This is true. But New Pal and Hancock County are growing. Census data says this area has grown 20% in the last 10 years, and all the construction and development I pass on my way here each day tells me that this trend will only increase. 

So as this area grows and does diversify, hopefully we will be a place well equipped to welcome and support our black and brown neighbors. Yet I wonder if even more than that, what if the point of all this talk on racism, our proximity to it, learning the history, reading the books, attending the workshops etc, is not to gather in all folks of color into our fold, but rather to be sent out as missionaries, as apostles of Jesus to cast out the unclean spirit of racism in the places we know best: ourselves, our homes, our families, our work, our neighborhoods, our schools, our communities, our town.

When we do that, we are proclaiming the good news that God’s kingdom of justice and mercy has come near. Such a mission is difficult no doubt. You may feel like you don’t know where to begin or what to say or do. Which means, one of the missions of this place is to equip one another for this work. 

That’s why we do the workshops, book studies, adult forums, and occasionally even sermons. Because Christ has chosen us as his co-workers: gathered, equipped, and sent to cast out unclean spirits, wherever they are at work, but especially in the places and among the people we know best. 

Yet as Jesus said, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. So ask the Lord to send out laborers, and then go cast out those unclean spirits. Amen

A Façade of Wellness

Matthew 9:9-14, 18-25

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when Jesus heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that moment. When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the report of this spread through all of that district.

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I don’t know about you, but it seemed someone in my household was sick every other week this past winter and even early spring. And I don’t know if you know this but Katelyn informed me that being pregnant and sick was a lot of fun, but I can assure you having a newborn who is sick and also being sick yourself is the most fun! We weren’t alone in this, anecdotally from family and friends we heard it was a rough winter and numerous headlines stated the same thing.

After the third one, we were over the colds but not sure what else we could do. We were doing the things we should, washing hands often, trying to not be around others who are sick, but the colds just kept coming. One morning, there appeared a plethora of immune strengthening supplements on the bathroom counter: half the alphabet in vitamins, zinc, and then one I had never heard before, a bottle of Elderberry gummies. I called out to Katelyn, “what’s this?” showing her the bottle. She said “just take it, it had great reviews on amazon”.

I thought to myself, is the nurse practitioner now trusting Amazon reviews for my health?!

She wasn’t, she had done the research and knew that elderberry may help with colds or strengthen the immune system, but research also shows that it may not do much of anything. Yet, it was the act of doing something, of taking something, that might have an effect, that might make us feel better, that we were after, even if it was a facade of wellness.

There are tons of products like elderberry gummies, which skyrocketed in popularity and sales since COVID; things that we think or are told will make us healthy, but often they can’t make good on the promises they’ve made. Just last month, I read an article on superfood powders and if they really help. At the end of the article, Dr. Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University said “You want to take them, take them, but it’s not going to solve nutritional problems.”

Now I promise, I am not knocking these things. I have taken the greens and you better believe I still ate my elderberry gummy this morning. But the problem with these things is that they seem like a quick fix to deeper nutritional or lifestyle problems. With excellent marketing, but no real science and studies, these products can make us think we’re healthy or well when really we aren’t. Obviously, being sick or having an illness or disease can be dangerous; but what’s most dangerous is being sick or unwell and thinking everything is fine.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” Jesus said as he was eating dinner with tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees who asked why Jesus was doing this were upset by the company because they were good Jews, who tried their best to follow the Torah (the Hebrew Bible) and it’s teachings. They were righteous people as Jesus himself says in just a few chapters earlier. They wanted to know why this so-called rabbi, unorthodox to say the least, was eating with tax collectors and sinners.

Tax collectors were seen by most Jews as agents of Rome and not the agent of God; they would have been presumed to be corrupt, dishonest, and likely to overcharge the population.

They were likely rich, well connected, and brash enough to host banquets. Tax collectors were known as sinners who likely showed no mercy to others. And the sinners there were likely just as bad: thieves, scammers, prostitutes, and more. That was who Jesus was spending his time with and it drove the Pharisees mad. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

The tax collectors and sinners knew they weren’t well, continuing Jesus metaphor; that what they were doing, how they were living was not good and right, They knew they were sick. Others had let it be known. The woman who was slowly bleeding to death and the leader whose daughter died knew, quite literally, that they were sick, that something was wrong. They knew their needs and saw their reality for what it was.

The Pharisees, these religious community leaders who prayed and went to temple and tried to live the right way, they likely couldn’t say the same; as Jesus implies they likely thought they were healthy and had no need for a physician. Perhaps you see yourself in this story as the tax collectors and sinners sitting at table with Jesus. Yet, I’d dare to say that most of us, the good church goers, Sunday school teachers, bible study leaders, the book study participants that we are, are more like the Pharisees.

We pray, we try to live right, and because of all that, it is so easy to think we are well/healthy when we are not. We don’t know our needs or tell anyone about them. We don’t see our reality for what it is. Underneath our facade of wellness lies the sickness that none of us can escape from and that’s sin, both individual and communal/societal. Often we do things we think will keep us from sinning: we pray, we come to church, we read a devotion, as if those things are spiritual elderberry gummies that can cure us. But that’s not how that works.

The metaphor of sick vs well, in need vs healthy is a tough one for Lutherans because we are perpetually both. Our sickness is never gone, yet we are made well. The infection resides in us all our days, yet in God’s eyes we are perfectly healthy. We are terminally ill and yet we have already died, living again in new life. We are always a sinner. Yet at the same time we are a saint made well by the grace of God. This grace does not extract our sin, but rather its effectiveness, in that it no longer puts you at the threat of death nor destroys the relationship between you and God. Only in the life to come are we fully made well (by the death and resurrection of the one great physician Jesus Christ).

Thankfully in this life, Jesus comes to all who are sick, to all who are in need, whether they realize it or not. That’s who Jesus sat at table with and that’s who’s invited to this table. This table is not for the person who has no sin, who has done nothing wrong, who is well. This table is for the person who has lied, who has made mistakes, who sins over and over again, who appears well on the outside, but knows they are sick and in need, because it is at this table that Jesus offers exactly what you need: forgiveness, love, mercy, no copay required, no deductible to be met.

You may ask though if we are never quite “well” like we want to be, what then is the point? If sin always plagues us, what is the goal of this life? I think Martin Luther answers this best. He said

“This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way…At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.”

Amen.