Jesus said to his disciples: The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” The harvest Jesus refers to is that time -coming soon- when the Lord of the harvest will intervene in human history to establish his kingdom on earth. God’s people are scattered. They are leaderless and burdened. They are like sheep without a shepherd. Our task is to gather the lost sheep of Israel.
In Hebrew, the word is “amhaarez” which means “the people of the land.” The Pharisees dismissed them as too ignorant to understand The Law, much less to rightly keep it. These peasant people, to Jesus, were ripened grain, a vast harvest withering in the field.
So Jesus gathers the 12 disciples to begin this work. In those days, disciples were required to learn their rabbi’s Mishnah, his public teaching. The word means “learning by rote repetition”. Not just the words, but which words were emphasized, the tone of voice and the inflection, the physical stance. To encounter a disciple years after his master’s death, was to in fact, encounter the master himself. In addition, Jesus’ disciples had learned Jesus Kabbalah-his prayer practice- a deep contemplation in which the practitioners experienced more deeply the presence of God.
I mention Jesus’ Mishnah and Kabbalah because without that understanding, Jesus’ commission to his closest disciples would seem unfeasible. They are to preach good news and to do what Jesus does: cure the sick, cleanse the lepers, which is not Hansen’s disease, but any scaly, flaky skin condition- cast out demons and raise the dead. We can’t say with any certainty whether the raising of the dead is to be understood literally or metaphorically. We today say that someone was “dead” but has “Come alive” and perhaps we should understand this directive as such. We simply can not know. But these acts of healing and exorcism were not an ends but a means. They were signs. Signs are things which point beyond themselves.
If any of you have renewed your driver’s license lately, in preparation you likely studied the driver’s handbook. One of the sample questions asks you to identify what a sign means by its shape, the words have been omitted. If you came to an intersection and saw that red octagonal metal sign covered with graffiti, you have a pretty good idea of what to do. And if you ignore that sign and an officer pulls you over, your graffiti defense won’t work. The sign has a meaning beyond the word printed on it.
Curing the sick, casting out evil spirits and bringing people out of the darkness of despair to a place of hope-like coming alive again-for Jesus and his followers, these were signs which confirmed the message. The Kingdom of God is coming into the world.
So what would be the nature of this New Age? Jewish mythology believed that the Age of the Messiah would bring an end to hunger as crop yields would be phenomenal- 30 fold, 60 fold, a hundred fold as Jesus proclaims in one of his stories (Mark 4:20). Fruit bearing trees would bear fruit year round. Each Jewish man would sit under his own fig tree, studying the Torah all day and munching on fresh figs. Women, you would bear a child each year- but without pain such that they could return to the fields immediately after giving birth. A pretty male centered fantasy to be sure. But wait! That’s not all…
The other nations of the earth would stream to Mt. Zion. Many Gentiles would convert but those who did not would be enslaved to serve the Jews or resisting, would be slaughtered. Jerusalem, not Rome, would be the center of the earth.
Jewish martyrs would be raised from the dead and live again. In Ezekiel 37:1-10 we find the story of the valley of dry bones in which bones come forth from their graves and sinews, flesh and breath comes to them. Carefully re-read Matthew’s gospel when you can. In it, when Jesus dies, the graves of the righteous dead are opened and the formerly dead stroll about the streets of Jerusalem (Matt. 27:51-53).
The New Age is breaking in.
This nationalistic hope explains one of the distressing features of this reading. The disciples are to go nowhere among the Gentiles or the Samaritans. They are sent only to the lost house of Israel.
The gospel writers composed their narratives sometime between 40-60 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. They were at pains to explain how a Jewish reform movement was becoming more and more a Gentile church. And so we see the directive “go no where among the Gentiles” reflecting the earthly Jesus and then at the end of Matthew, the directive of The Risen Christ. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19)
And how were they to go?
They were to go without any money in their belts, no bags of food, no spare underwear, no shoes and no staffs to defend themselves. They would go in vulnerability right down to the souls of their bare feet. They were to go 2x2 against the solidarity of the roads. And they were to depend on the kindness of strangers. On entering a house they were to say, “Peace be to this house” and if the householder received them, they were to stay in that house and not move about seeking better accommodations. And they were to eat whatever was put before them whether kosher or not. But if you are not welcomed, you are to “shake the dust from your feet.” What’s that all about?
It was the custom that when Jews had cause to enter Gentile territory, prior to crossing the boundaries into the Holy Land, they would “shake the Gentile dust” from their feet so as not to contaminate the land with heathen soil. To “shake the dust” publically from a Hebrew home was to declare that home “not Israel”. It would be a testimony against them on the day of judgment. God’s condemnation will be worse for that house then it was for Sodom and Gomorrah; towns which were proverbial warnings of God’s judgment. Don’t get hung up, just move on.
They themselves had received from Jesus without having to pay therefore they were not to seek payment from anyone, as other healers did when they cured illness or freed those beset by evil. Their short missionary journeys were to be guided and enabled by God’s free grace alone.
In a former life, I served our diocese as Archdeacon for congregational development. One of the 40 churches I supervised was St. Christopher’s in Trona. (Raise your hand if you know where Trona is?) Trona is near Death Valley. It was a company town. When founded, plots of land were offered free to any denomination willing to build. In the later 1980’s I went to make a visitation. I stopped in the only diner for breakfast and asked my waitress, “Can you tell me where St. Christopher’s church is?” She responded, “St. Christopher’s? hmm- I don’t know, but I’ve only been here about 10 years.” Let’s ask Mabel; she’s been here for 35 years.” “Hey, Mabel, where’s St. Christopher’s church?” A long pause. A wrinkled brow, “Gee, I never heard of it- but it’s probably over that way” she said pointing. St. Christopher’s had been there from the very establishment of the town- but remained somehow incognito for its entire existence. No missionaries had apparently gone beyond its door to proclaim- well, anything. Trona has gone from a population, at its height of 7,000 to about 87 today. The town is dying, St. Christopher’s had long ago effectively died.
Churches are to be an oasis of the Kingdom. As the Free Church of Berkley called it in the 1960’s “ a Liberated Zone.” The toughest question any church must ask itself: “If we were not here, would anyone even notice.”
