Our gospel this morning finds Jesus at the tail end of a series of miraculous healings. In the last chapter, Jesus has given back a paralytic his ability to walk, healed a woman of her 12 year chronic illness, opened the eyes of two blind men, freed a mute man from the demon that kept his voice sealed away, and raised a girl from death to life. He has dined with sinners and outcasts, proclaiming that the love of God’s Kingdom is here for them — and all the while he has been harassed and accused by the Pharisees, the very religious leaders who should have been healing and caring for these people all along.
When we pick up the story, we find Jesus confronted with a whole crowd of folks like those we’ve been hearing about in these healing stories. When Jesus sees them gathered before him, he pauses for a moment, moved by the pain and need and neglect that he sees among his people, among those that he has come to serve and to heal. He says that they are ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’. Here is a whole crowd of everyday people like you and like me, suffering under the burdens of illness, isolation, and the sheer exhaustion of trying to make ends meet for their families under Rome’s regime. Here is a people who, instead of being served and supported by the religious and political leaders of their communities, are being extorted and burdened and ignored by them.
And what does Jesus do when faced with all of this pain and confusion? He does what God has a habit of doing throughout the Scriptures: he calls together a group of odd, not-particularly-qualified individuals, and gives them a new calling. These are men from all sorts of backgrounds — fishermen, construction workers, a shady tax collector, a political extremist, and even a man Jesus knew would betray him in the end — men with no particular qualification except that they believed in Jesus enough to follow him and learn his ways.
Jesus entrusts these 12 with his own mission. They are to go out and bring the Kingdom of God, which is the presence and love of God, to those in need throughout their land. They are to become the hands and feet of Jesus, healing and teaching and extending God’s love to a people who sorely need it. What has Jesus given them for the job? No money, no advanced theological education, not even an extra pair of sandals — just a handful of sermons and stories, and the promise that Jesus’ own power and presence would be with them as they went about trying to bring healing and love.
This is an important story for us this morning, centuries later, because this moment is, in some ways, Matthew’s version of the creation of the church. In this moment, Jesus is signaling that a new people is being formed in the midst of the old. Instead of the 12 tribes of Israel, the church is inaugurated with these 12 disciples who are given Jesus’ own authority and ministry of healing. These become the first of the ‘ekklesia’, those who have been ‘called-out’, the church. And this ministry that the first disciples are entrusted with is the same one that God’s people have received and passed down ever since — the same ministry that you and I inherited when we said ‘yes’ to God’s voice and became a part of his people. We also have been given the presence and power of God in the Holy Spirit, and we also are called to be among the ‘harassed and helpless’ in our communities and to show them that God’s presence is with them, that they are loved, and that they do not need to suffer alone with whatever burdens they are carrying. As most of you know, I was ordained as a deacon yesterday. Part of what I vowed yesterday was that “at all times, my life and teaching are to show Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself.” In other words, a central part of my job as a deacon, and the job of all clergy, is to remind God’s people of the ministry that we are all called to. Rev. Carole and I cannot be the hands and feet of Jesus to all of those in need in our communities, but all of us together just might be up to the task.
We are all called to stay awake to those around us, to look past the masks that most of us wear and to listen for the needs of those around us. Sometimes we are the ‘harassed and helpless’, and our calling is to love and support those who are suffering within our own church community. At other times it may be the homeless man who come to our church gate for food during the week, the single mom struggling to make ends meet and pay for rent down the street, or that neighbor or co-worker who is struggling with the loss of a loved one and who just needs a listening ear and maybe a casserole. Or, in this Pride Month, it might be the many LGBTQ folks all around us who mostly hear ‘Christian’ voices telling them that they are unloved by God and unwelcome among his people — who need to be shown that God loves them and that they are welcome and needed by the church. Whoever it may be, I am confident that if we are willing to remain open to others and to listen, the Holy Spirit will show us, as individuals, and as a St. Matthias community, where we are called to show the love of Jesus Christ to the ‘harassed and helpless’ in our midst.
My job as a deacon is also to remind us that, like the disciples, we are up to the task. The disciples did not possess any special qualifications. They were not well trained or even particularly good at understanding Jesus’ teachings and following his instructions, but they believed Jesus when he told them that he was giving them his authority and power. They trusted Jesus enough to go out and face the pain and needs of those around them, believing that Jesus’ presence would be with them and would give them the ability to carry God’s love and healing to others — and it worked. Demons were cast out, the sick were healed, the loving kingdom of God was revealed — and you better believe that the disciples were just as amazed as those they were caring for.
Now, I’m not trying to say that you should all expect to see the sick miraculously healed and demons destroyed every time you go to serve and care for those around you (though you might be surprised at what happens when you ask God for help). Rather, I’m trying to say that Jesus has promised to be with us when we serve those in need — I’m trying to say that we are all able to bear the presence of Christ to others, to show them (and to remind ourselves) that healing and hope are possible, that a community of love and mercy and justice is possible. I spent much of the last several months in the hospital as a volunteer chaplain, and I can tell you that the patients I saw did not need any of my special qualifications — they did not need my theological education or my leadership skills or my preaching. The main thing most of us need when we are helpless and suffering, the main thing that reveals the love of God to us, is simply to be seen, to be listened to, to be reminded that we are not alone. And this is a gift that all God’s people can give.
All of us, no matter who we are, no matter our age or ability, have been sent like the disciples. All of us are uniquely called to bring the Kingdom of God near to those who are ‘harassed and helpless’ around us. Abraham & Sarah were so old they believed God’s promise was impossible, and yet it was not. God was with them. Some of us have wounds and sufferings that we believe disqualify us from being worthy or able to carry God’s love to others, but in our Romans reading, Paul tells us that it is through our very sufferings that God can grow in us that hope which our world so desperately needs.
God has placed each of you in the midst of your communities for a reason. God has placed St. Matthias here, in this place, at this corner in Uptown Whittier for a reason. My friends, you are God’s plan to bring love and healing to the world. We are the hands and feet of Jesus for the ‘harassed and helpless’ in our midst.
May the Lord by his grace uphold us in this work that he has entrusted to us, and may his Spirit give us the courage to keep saying ‘yes’. Amen.