Preparing for the Harvest
Matthew 9:35-10:8
35Then 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. 36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."
10Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2These 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; 3Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.
5These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7As you go, proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' 8Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.
 Have you ever experienced a moment in your life when you wondered whether or not you had pushed God too far? Perhaps you were looking at the wreckage of your marriage and recognizing your part in its destruction and you wondered if God could forgive you for your mistake? Or perhaps you had been to lunch with your friends where they had-for the umpteenth time-spent the entire time gossiping and complaining about the boss or a co-worker and you had participated perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. Or perhaps it was the day you were tempted to do something you knew was wrong-an affair, an unethical business dealing, one more dose of that drug-and you did it anyway?
Judging by my own experience and by the number of people who come in my office to talk or ask for prayer, at some point, most of us wonder if we God can really forgive us. Either we have done something so very wrong that we fear that God won't really forgive us or we have done so many wrong things that we are sure that we have finally overloaded God's ability to forgive.
But if you can't relate to that feeling, perhaps you can relate to this one: Have you ever picked up the paper or the phone, turned on the television, or heard a story from a friend that made you wonder if God shouldn't just give up on a particular person or group of persons or perhaps the world itself? If we are honest, we have all experienced those moments-perhaps it was when you watched the planes fly into the World Trade Center, when you heard about a friend whose husband had beaten her, when you looked in the eyes of a neglected child. Those are the moments when we wonder how God could possibly forgive-and perhaps, if we are really honest-we sort of hope God won't. In those moments, we can really relate to one of those God billboards that used to line the highways-the one which reads, "Don't make me come down there! --God."
Then we pick up our bible, or hear a sermon, or listen to a hymn and we remember the gospel-the good news-of Jesus Christ. The good news that says that when God saw all that was wrong in the world; when God listed all our sins and our failings; and when God looked at how cruel and heartless this world is, God did come down here. But God didn't come to threaten or to punish; God came to act on our behalf!
That is why I love our scripture today. Here is Jesus busy at work in the midst of a very broken world. He's already given his greatest sermon on the Mount over the Sea of Galilee. He has healed lepers and blind men. He has raised dead people back to life. He has argued with the Scribes and Pharisees. The crowds have started following him out of curiosity and he has consistently told them that following him requires commitment and a willingness to take risk. He has eaten with sinners and tax collectors. This is not a man who wears rose colored glasses and assumes the best about the world and people. Jesus KNOWS just how sinful we are and just how broken the world is.
And full of that knowledge, Jesus looks around and sees us rushing around like we know what we are doing, filling our lives with stuff rather than God, making rules to make us feel better about ourselves and so we can judge others, trying to fix the world on our own. He looks at us and sees us as we are-helpless and harassed-and he has compassion on us.
Compassion. Somewhere along the way we have weakened the meaning of that very important word. Ask most people and they would define compassion as feeling sorry for someone or pitying them. Our culture-our language-has taken this powerful word and reduced it to that slight feeling of discomfort and sadness we feel as we watch those infomercials about starving third world children as we quickly change the channel to watch something more interesting. But that is just a shadow of what the word actually means.
Our English word "compassion" comes from the Latin com meaning with and pati which means to bear or to suffer. In other words, compassion means to bear or suffer with! This is not a slight discomfort or a nagging feeling of dis-ease; this is entering into the pain of others. Where possible, this means we help them bear their burdens and, if we can't help the situation, we suffer with them.
This is what happens when we sit with a friend after a funeral and hold them while they cry. This is what happens when we listen to our friend express very real and very hard and angry things such as, "Why does a loving God let suffering happen?" "Why has God abandoned me?" This is what happens when we listen and hold them in love rather than giving them pat unsatisfying answers or chastise them for questioning God.
Showing compassion is not simply being nice or polite or telling someone that you are praying for them. It's not a card or a pat on the pack. Compassion is working actively on their behalf.
Compassion is what Jesus did for us on the cross!
Actually, the Greek word that is translated as compassion here has an even stronger meaning. It means for one's bowels to turn over. In other words, the compassion that Jesus feels for the lost, harassed sheep in this passage is a gut-wrenching feeling. It is the feeling we experience when we lose someone we love dearly, when our marriage falls apart, when we lose a job, or we find out a friend has a drug addiction. This is the kind of feeling that most of us reserve for those nearest and dearest to us.
But Jesus doesn't limit it to those he likes, those who obey, or those who follow him. Instead, Jesus looks at the world-a world full of self-centered sinners-and his bowels turn over in love and pain for us. Instead of throwing up his hands in despair and defeat, he reaches out to gather us to him.
This is the good news-We don't have to make God come down here! He chose to do so! Because he loves us. Because he aches for us. Because he wishes to reach out and to act on our behalf to show us just how much he loves us. He reaches out and gathers us to him and heals our aches, our pains, our brokenness and our sin.
As we gather here on Father's Day, I think it is important to remember that God gave us fathers to point toward him. At their best, our fathers give us a glimpse of the kind of love, acceptance, protection, and guidance that God the Father gives us. So for every Father who mirrors God appropriately we must be thankful because they give us a glimpse-but even at their best just a glimpse-of how God relates to us.
So, here is God in Jesus looking on his poor, harassed, and broken people. His stomach wrenches in pain and he reaches out to heal us from our brokenness; liberate us from our slavery to sin, to death, to evil; raise us from the dead places within us. He makes us whole.
But that is only the beginning . . .
Did you notice the twist in the middle of the passage I shared earlier? The passage begins with Jesus. Jesus teaching. Jesus preaching. Jesus healing. Then Jesus looks at the lost, harassed people surrounding him and he instructs his disciples to pray for God to send workers.
And then comes the twist-and with Jesus there is always a twist. Just when you think you've figured him out. Just when you have him boxed in and tamed. Jesus breaks out of the box and shocks you.
After telling them to pray for workers, he turns to them and sends them out to do his work. He tells them to go and preach, teach, and heal. He gives them authority to heal the sick, to cast out demons, even to raise the dead! In the gospel of John, he says it another way, he says, "You will do greater things than I!" The passage begins with Jesus but it ends with us!
Herein lays perhaps the greatest problem in the world today. We wake up in the morning, turn on the news, read the paper, or check the internet and hear the latest news. Wars and rumors of wars. Earthquakes, cyclones, tornadoes, Tsunamis. Crimes, murders, senseless deaths, genocide, war. And we despair. We cry out to God and ask God to do something. And then we tighten our security, build higher fences, spend more time in church, read more inspirational books, and we wait for God to act.
But that isn't the way God acts in this world! When Jesus looked with compassion on the world, he did act on the world's behalf. In fact, he so loved the world and so wanted the world to be given new life that he gave himself up on a cross for the world. But that wasn't the whole story, because after Jesus was raised from the dead and after he ascended to the right hand of God, he left behind something of himself to continue to act on behalf of the lost and harassed sheep of the world. He left his church!
Someone once told me that all preachers only have about four sermons in them and that all others are variations on a theme. Well, if that is so, then I can assure you that one of my four is this simple message: The church exists in the world to do the things that Jesus did!
We don't exist to provide a bubble to protect people from the evil of the world. We don't exist as a place to avoid pain, suffering, or difficulty. We don't exist to provide an elite club where we pat each other on the back for being one of Jesus' chosen. We exist to be Christ's hands and feet in this world!
The church exists as Jesus' called and sent out people. Rather than an escape from the world, the church is called to look honestly at the world, feel gut-wrenching compassion on behalf of that world and then to engage that world which God so loves!
A rather tall order, I realize, but one which Jesus has granted us the authority to perform and which the Holy Spirit grants us the power to accomplish!
As I've shared with many of you already, I am excited to be here at New Life. First, I love the name: New Life! Isn't that what Jesus has called us to proclaim? That's the gospel: because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ no one must be enslaved by the life they are living. There is always a possibility of new beginnings-of new life-through the grace and power of Jesus Christ.
But another of the reasons that I am excited to be here are the many ways I see that you are already at work doing the things Jesus commanded us to do. You are releasing captives, raising the dead and proclaiming new life in many ways.
I see it in the SOFAR ministry which reaches out to those who have been held captive to addictions and gives them the hope not only of release from their addictions, but also the promise of new life-not after they die but here and now!
I see it in the outreach center which seeks to do what Jesus command us to do: feed the hungry and cloth the naked.
I see it in the faces of the children in the New Life Christian Academy. The director, Jamie, shared with me the other day that many of those children are being raised by their grandparents because of their parent's drug addictions. Some of the children are in foster homes because their parents can't or won't care for them. These are children that adults have already let down and disappointed. Yet, here they know they are loved not only by the adults who care for them but also by the Father God, who will never ever let them down even if their earthly fathers and mothers can and do!
I see it in your presence here today. In your 18 short years as a congregation, you have accomplished much. I see the children you have taught the gospel. Youth who have been taught to serve the community. Adults who pray and support each other.
And, folks, I believe this is just the beginning of what we can do because God has gifted this congregation with so many talents, so much passion, and so much possibility. Gifts we have freely received, but which God now calls us to freely give.
After my appointment to New Life was announced, I received e-mails from many of you expressing your prayerful support of my ministry here. Of those who wrote me I asked a simple question-and actually this is my question for all of you today-"What do you think is God's vision for New Life?"
Notice, I didn't ask "What is your vision?" Nor do I believe it is my job to impose my vision on New Life. Rather I think it is our responsibility as a congregation to pray for God's vision to be revealed to us. This will be a vision of how God is calling this congregation in this community to be his church in this day and age.
The harvest is plentiful. And the laborers are few. But God has called us-out of our sins, our brokenness, out of our slavery-to be his workers in the field. Let's pray for God to prepare us for the harvest!
|
