YOU! YES, YOU! GOD HAS A JOB FOR YOU!
(Preached on Sunday, June 12, 2005)
As you go, proclaim the good news. “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. -Matthew 10:7-8
I find this an amazing passage of scripture!
First off, Jesus’ vision is amazing.
“When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke.”
When I look at crowds, usually my defenses go up and I steel myself for getting through them! All I see are crowds!
When Jesus saw crowds, he saw needs. There is something here about the ability to see faces beyond (or within) the faceless masses.
I am struck by how anonymous people can be when walking or gathering in large groups. Even when strolling through a mall, faces blend in with one another and individuality seems to be lost in an amorphous sameness.
Jesus, however, did not lose focus on the individual within the crowds and directed his attention to the concerns of their hearts and the needs of their lives.
And the needs in the world are so great.
Seventy-three-year-old Hazel sits in a chair by her bed in the nursing home. A hand towel pinned to her dress catches the drool from her mouth. She remember things from 35 years ago as if they happened yesterday, but she couldn’t tell you what she had for breakfast. Her adult children despair that she can’t remember their names. Christ see her, though, and has compassion on her.
Larry, a Viet Nam vet, reeks of body odor, because he hasn’t had a bath for weeks, nor have his well-worn clothes been washed for about the same length of time. His body craves cheap wine that he buys with his Social Security check when it arrives near the first of the month. He roams the streets, panhandling for change, his form of making a living. Larry knows which soup kitchens serve hot meals, and when. He also knows which shelters are cleaner and safer than others. On these, he is an authority. Every day is Saturday for him. Christ sees him, though and has compassion on him.
Jessie is a 38 year old mother of a pre-schooler and a toddler with a loving and supportive husband and lovely home. Yet there are mornings she has trouble getting out of bed, overwhelmed with life, the world, responsibility. She struggles to remember she is loved, that she is a good person, that she knows how to take care of her daughters and husband and herself. Some days she is frozen with depression, sadness and fear. Christ sees her, though and has compassion on her.
The needs in the world are very real.
And they are great.
Is it any wonder Jesus felt the need for more help!
That is another amazing piece of this passage.
Can you imagine that scene?
Barbara Brown Taylor helps us do so with this description:
“There you are, perfectly content to be a follower, when Jesus comes home all worn out one day with his hair hanging in his face and his clothes ringed with sweat and dirt. He looks around at those of you who have been with him all along and says, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. I need some help, and I’m nominating you.’ Then he holds his big hands over your heads and says a prayer that travels down your backbone like a chill, giving you authority over demons, over disease — even over death — and when he had finished, you open your eyes and look at each other to see if you can tell any difference. Next you take a deep breath to test whether anything has changed inside. Do you feel wiser, stronger, more capable? Nope. Just blessed, sort of. Just tingly and curious and, well, ready — not for anything in particular, just generally ready for whatever is next.
“Then he starts calling names, ‘Jim and Bill, you take Baldwin; John and Nancy, Batesville. Bob and Gil, I’m thinking Alto for you.... Here’s what I need you to do: preach the kingdom, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the outcasts, cast out demons. Boy, do I need a weekend off. You all have a good time. I can’t wait to hear the stories you bring back. Now get out of here! Go, go, go!’”
Because the need was so great, Jesus sent out his followers to replicate his own actions. When we read through the list of instructions he gave them I am utterly amazed and astounded. That Jesus would/could heal, raise, cleanse and cast out is one thing, but that his followers could/would perform similar acts is quite another.
The first thing we want to do is to establish a gulf between the original disciples and ourselves. Somehow they were able to do things that we cannot do; somehow they were special; somehow the power of God worked through them in some sort of extraordinary way. The reason we cannot heal, raise, cleanse or cast out lies somewhere outside of ourselves — surely it cannot be that we are less in touch with the reality of God or that we are less open to Christ’s claims upon our lives or that we are more concerned with money belts and journey bags than we are doing the work of God.
Surely, the problem is not us — is it?
That is another amazing fact: Yes, God does call us!
We don’t feel qualified, capable, up to the task, but we are!
God sees more potential in us than we see in ourselves.
That list of followers Jesus chose for this mission confirms that fact and truth.
Look at that list again. There does not appear to be one university graduate, or scholar, or priest, or county commissioner, or village rabbi, or upper class dignitary among them. They are a rabble of nobodies.
First there were four fishermen — blue collar workers.
Two had Greek names, making them probably Diaspora Jews, that is, outsiders.
Two may have been zealots from Galilee, that is, terrorists; and one of those became a traitor to Jesus.
There was also a former tax collector, one who asked questioned everything, and two others about whom we know nothing but their names.
It was people like this to whom Jesus entrusted his work.
It was these nobodies to whom he gave “power to kick out the evil spirits and to tenderly care for the bruised and hurt lives.”
This is the way God works, taking ordinary, everyday people, people who do not seem to have all of the qualifications and credentials, and saying to them: “You! Yes, You! I have a job for you!”
And then God promises to be with us and give us everything we need to carry out this job.
What is that job? It is spreading God’s compassion, just as Jesus did.
Not compassion as a touchy, feely bit of pity, but compassion as doing something for the confused, fearful, broken and hurting people of the world.
Helping them. Gathering them and serving them.
Loving them to the point of self-sacrifice.
Compassion is more than empathy.
Compassionate people embrace the “harassed and helpless.”
Compassionate people walk second miles and share their coat and cloaks with the poor.
Learning to feel for others until one’s heart wants to break is the beginning of compassion; but, compassion is determined to go further.
Compassion embraces the “harassed and helpless” in order to give them the gift of a better tomorrow.
Yesterday, our sister church in Liberty City, Church of the Open Door, held a service of worship to celebrate the life and honor the memory of one of the great saints of the church. The Rev. Harold David Long was pastor of that church for 26 years, from 1967- 1993.
He began his tenure in ministry in Birmingham, Alabama in 1954 and was a faithful servant of God and a beacon for justice in the heart of the south during the battle for Civil Rights for African-Americans.
But what struck me as the most powerful witness to his life and ministry was the testimony of Michael Robinson, who met Rev. Long when he was 14 years old and who witnessed his work first hand on many occasions.
He wrote of Rev. Long: “I would...accompany him on his pastoral rounds. We’d enter small apartments of elderly people where he would prepare meals for them and set out their medications for the week. He would vacuum, change bed linens, wash dishes, and whatever else needed to be done. He would do this four or five times in one day. While working the entire time, he would speak with these people, and more importantly, listen to them. He never seemed to be in a hurry, nor did he seem uncomfortable, even when bathing them and changing their soiled clothing.”
Michael continued to share that Rev. Long demonstrated what faith was by the way he lived his life as well as by what he taught.
And what he taught was that “faith was practiced walking in the world of the ordinary day-to-day relations with others.” Taking time to listen to another’s suffering and figure out some way to help, that is an act of faith.
Forgiving that person that insulted and hurt you is an act of faith. Giving someone a lift to the grocery story without asking for gas money is an act of faith. Visiting someone we know is sick and vacuuming their floor is an act of faith. Standing up for an immigrant neighbor who is trying to become a citizen is an act of faith.
Folks still need healing from emotional, spiritual and psychological pain; folks still need to be raised from drifting hopelessness; folks still need to be cleansed from the guilt that hangs on them like last week’s laundry; folks still need to have their personal demons exorcised; the fields are ripe and heavy with the harvest — are we up for the challenge?
God believes in us.
Let us believe in ourselves and in God and accept the job God has for us, to share God’s compassion, God’s love, God’s tender care for those hurting souls in the world around us.