Homily for Second Sunday after Pentecost
14 June, 2020
Exodus 19:2-8a
Psalm 100
Romans 5:1-8
Matthew 9:15-10:8-23
Have you ever been swimming, out from the beach at the ocean or the edge of a lake, and deciding to just rest for a few minutes? You stopped swimming and put your feet down and found …..nothing…… no bottom to reach?
Can you remember having that instant of panic!
Many of us these days are feeling that …. that sudden panic that the bottom is suddenly not there. We’re left feeling unsure and a bit lost; maybe even a little panicky.
We’re in the midst of the worst pandemic in over 100 years! Pandemics change everything! Pandemics change history!
This one is having tragic consequences, particularly for the most vulnerable of us: those on the margins, the elderly, the poor, and on communities of color.
At the same time, some recent actions by police have torn the scab off one of the historic sores in our society, that malignant lesion of racism. It’s revealing what’s been suppurating for generations, ignored or covered up, but now revealed in all its horror. And those who see it and those who have been its victims have taken to the streets in protest!
The economies of most nations of the world, including our own, are in shambles. Unemployment has soared. We are frustrated at “sheltering in place”. All the “in person” activities we’re accustomed to, like being in church for example, now come to us via one electronic contraption or other. It’s all so strange, so confusing!
“Where’s the bottom?” we wonder.
“When will we get back to something that feels “normal” again?
Matthew tells us about a situation in which Jesus’ disciples found themselves challenged “beyond their depth” and in search of the “bottom”.
Jesus had been conducting a very successful tour of the countryside. He’d gone into cities and villages and taught and preached, “proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom!” He’d been curing illnesses all over the place.
It all seemed so easy for Jesus!
His disciples were amazed at the facility with which he seemed to do all this and the openness of his hearers to his message!
But Jesus was troubled. He was moved by pity for the crowds that gathered around him. There just wasn’t “enough Jesus” to go around!
Realizing this, he looked at his disciples and mused, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”
And then, he continued, “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.”
He meant THEM!
He called them to gather around him and gave them “authority over unclean spirits and to cure diseases and sickness”.
And then he sent them out, essentially to continue to do the things that he had been doing!
But……. and this is BIG!
It was so much more complicated than they thought!
He told them there is no money in it for them. They were to live off the hospitality of those they met and who welcomed them. They needed not take anything with them No lodging was automatically provided.
He didn’t guarantee they would be received kindly!
He did assure them that when questioned, they would be given the words to say.
It had all looked so easy when Jesus did it!
But this?
How to respond?
“Sorry, Jesus, great idea! Sounds like a great plan you’ve got for us! “But….. ah…. I’ve got taxes to collect! If I don’t get that done, the Romans are going to come after me and I’ll lose my job….or maybe worse!”
“Ah….I’ve got a fishing business I’ve got to get back to, my boat needs repairs and I’ve got a family to feed and clothe!”
“Ah, Gee, I’d love to….It’s been great to work with you, Jesus, I’ve really enjoyed it……ah….. and we’ve seen some really neat stuff…… and I really appreciate you telling us we can do some of this stuff ourselves…….but……. ah…………..hope we can see each other again sometime.
But you know what! They DIDN’T respond that way!
They did it!
Certainly, from time to time they must have wondered how in the world they were going to go on doing this stuff Jesus had asked them to do.
Certainly, from time to time, they got tired and reached for “the bottom”, only to find they were in deeper than they thought.
Certainly, they wondered, from time to time, if they hadn’t heard Jesus correctly and surely this wasn’t what he meant for his followers!
But they did it!
In fact, they changed the world!
All the things Jesus warned them about really happened!
They got thrown in jail!
They got beaten up and seriously injured!
Some of them got killed!
But still, they did it!
They were the first recruits to what we call “The Jesus Movement”
You know, “The harvest is (still) plentiful……but the laborers are (still) “few”!
“Therefore”, let us, “ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
That would be us!
So many wrongs need to be righted!
So many wounds need to be bound up; like four hundred years of racism in our nation.
So many folks wandering around, lost, confused, searching for “the bottom”, for something, anything solid on which to base their lives!
So many wanting to hear that there is good news; and that means that God’s reign, and all that entails, is at hand!
So much mistrust and misunderstanding among people who are “different” and who have been left out!
That’s OUR calling as members of the Jesus Movement!
Will we answer Jesus’ call”?
I wonder if we’re “up to it”!
There’s an old hymn that sums all this up so well:
Come, labor on, who dares stand idle on the harvest plain,
While all around them waves the golden grain?
And to each servant does the Master say
Go work today”
Come, labor on, away with gloomy doubts and faithless fear!
No arm so weak but may do service here:
By feeblest agents’ may our God fulfill
His righteous will.
Come, labor on, Claim the high calling angels cannot share,
To young and old the gospel gladness bear,
Redeem the time; its hours too swiftly fly
The night draws neigh.
Come, labor n. No time to rest, till glows the western sky,
Till the long shadows o’er our pathway lie,
And a glad sound comes with the setting sun…..
Servants, well done.”
Amen!