Dear friends,
It’s good to be back with you this week. I continue to pray for you. Whatever you’re experiencing this day, I pray you know you’re not alone.
Here is this Sunday’s worship service in its entirety:
If you’d prefer to listen to just the sermon, you may do so here:
The sermon this week is based on Matthew 9:35-10:8:
35Jesus 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.”
10:1Then 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.”
When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
A quick scan of various Bible translations gives us quite a list of words to describe how exactly the crowd looked that day. Listen to these and ask yourself if you feel like a sheep without a shepherd these days:
Harassed. Helpless. Confused. Cast away. Distressed. Dispirited. Faint. Weary. Troubled. Bewildered. Worn out.
If you were to ask me how I feel most days lately, my response would likely be a word from this list. I’m weary of making decisions when the information is constantly changing and it feels like there are no right answers. I’m troubled by my own complicity and silence, for too long, in the face of systemic racial injustice. I’m bewildered about how best to have hard conversations that actually facilitate dialogue instead of shutting it down. I’m worn out—because the work I’ve been called to do has taken on a different form in this digital space, and nothing is simple, and I don’t know what we’re gaining and what we’re losing during this pandemic time, and I don’t know what the future is going to look like for our churches, for our country, for our world.
And then I think about the video I watched this week, recorded by a friend of a friend living in a community nearby. She is one of 16 or so black people living in her small town. And she is dispirited. She is weary. She is troubled. Because every day she feels the sting of life as a black woman in this country. She feels sad, hurt, scared for her job, scared for her kids. And as she said, I can’t take my black off. She can’t step away from this struggle like I can. Her experience is heartbreaking.
We are a country distressed and dispirited. We are a nation of sheep without a shepherd. And just as Jesus looked on the crowd gathered to him on that day so long ago, Jesus looks with compassion on us.
There’s a lot of variance in the multiple translations of the Bible when it comes to describing the crowd that day, but there’s almost no variation in the word used to describe Jesus’ response. Compassion. When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them.
Compassion isn’t pity. Compassion isn’t mere kindness. Compassion is literally to suffer alongside. Jesus takes our weariness, our confusion, our distress as his own. Eugene Peterson, in his translation, says, When Jesus looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. When we suffer, like sheep without a shepherd, the very heart of God breaks opens to receive us, to take on all that we experience, to become the shepherd we so desperately need.
Earlier in the gospel of Matthew, as Jesus encounters the crowds, he heals them himself. This time is different, however. This time, out of compassion, Jesus sees the extent of the need and equips his disciples to do his same work of healing, curing diseases and sicknesses.
What explains this difference? Why didn’t Jesus just keep on healing everyone on his own?
Just before our gospel reading for this morning, Jesus has performed five dramatic healings. First, in the midst of responding to a leader of the synagogue whose daughter has died—Jesus heals a woman who has been suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years. After she has been made well, he goes on to the daughter who has died and raises her up to new life. Going on from there, two blind men follow Jesus, crying out to him for mercy. He opens their eyes. And finally, Jesus casts a demon out of a mute person who has been brought to him. And the one who had been mute spoke…and the crowds were amazed.
I wonder if part of Jesus now equipping his disciples to do his work, is the consequence of performing all these healings in succession. At this point, I imagine Jesus might have been overwhelmed by the need he witnessed so clearly. He as much as says this, when he tells his disciples that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
He needs help to accomplish his work. He needs his disciples to share in the healing of the never-ending crowds. He needs them to look upon the people, as he has done, with compassion—to let their hearts break open to receive the suffering of the world.
Colin Yuckman writes, To be sent by Jesus is, in some sense, to be sent as Jesus.1
We may feel like sheep without a shepherd these days. But the reality of the situation is that we are sheep with a good shepherd, a faithful shepherd, a shepherd whose heart breaks over our suffering, a shepherd who comes alongside us to lead us out of injustice, and hatred and death into abundant life.
And this good shepherd, your shepherd, calls you to be a shepherd for others. Jesus call you to look upon this world with compassion, to let your heart break open to receive the suffering of God’s beloved. You are sent, as Jesus, to bring hope and healing through your words and through your actions.
Sheep without a shepherd lack direction. Not knowing where to go, they scatter—losing the safety of their community, losing themselves. We are not sheep without a shepherd. We know the vision we’re working toward; we know the direction we’re headed. Jesus stood up to read from the prophet Isaiah near the beginning of his public ministry: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. The shepherd’s mission is ours. We move—unceasingly—in the direction of freedom from oppression for all God’s beloved.
Be a blessing, we’ll sing to ourselves and to one another during our next hymn. Be a blessing, you weary and worn out sheep. Notice the hurt. Hear the cries. Work from the heart. Lead the way to peace through the rubble.2
You can do this hard thing, because you are sent by Jesus. You can be a blessing, because you are not cast away and helpless. No, you are in the care and keeping of the shepherd whose dream is to shepherd this whole world through death into abundant life for all. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Be a blessing in the name of Jesus. Amen.
1 https://www.workingpreacher.org/
2 Listen to Richard Bruxvoort Colligan’s beautiful song, Be a Blessing, here: https://www.psalmimmersion.com/be-a-blessing