+ Pentecost 2 – June 14th, 2020 +
Series A: Exodus 19:2-8; Romans 5:6-15; Matthew 9:35-10:8
Beautiful Savior Lutheran
Milton, WA
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
A sprint runner spends hours perfecting her starting position. A chess player starts a match with a particular strategy in mind. A wise man builds his house on a rock instead of sinking sand.
How you start something is often just as important as how it is finished.
It’s no different in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 9. There’s an episodic movement in this section of Matthew’s Gospel as he begins a new discourse on Jesus’ life and ministry. Jesus sees the crowds. Jesus has compassion on the people. Jesus gathers the Twelve. Jesus sends out his apostles. And it all begins with God’s graciousness revealed in Jesus.
Before Jesus sends he gathers. Before Jesus gathers he has compassion. Before Jesus’ compassion her sees the people. Before Jesus sees, he is gracious. It all begins with God’s graciousness in Jesus.
And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 And he saw the crowds,
This may sound like an insignificant detail, but it’s not. Jesus saw the crowds. He noticed. Acknowledged them. So many people go through life wondering if anyone ever really notices them or cares about them, if anyone sees them. Jesus sees the crowds.
Matthew says that the crowds were harassed and helpless – or more literally, whipped and flayed or thrown and tossed about. He noticed they were like sheep without a shepherd. No protection. No provider. No true peace.
Matthew’s description of the crowds could’ve been ripped right from today’s headlines. Some are tossed about by injustice, grief, and abuse of authority. Others are flayed by disease, economic strain, and isolation. All of us are harassed and tossed about and beaten down by our own sinful inclinations to respond in anger, fear, and self-righteousness. And the problem with our sin, of course, is that all we prefer to see is our own reflection. To gaze inward on ourselves instead of outward to the neighbor.
Such a difference from how Jesus sees. Jesus sees the crowds. Sees their helplessness. And Jesus does not turn his face away. As helpless as we are and as ugly as our sin is, Jesus sees us and saves us by his grace.
And when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Having seen the crowds, Jesus has compassion on them. Our Lord’s compassion is more than an emotion. It is a gut-wrenching movement to action. Compassion literally means to suffer with someone. And that’s what Jesus does. Even before his suffering on the cross for us, Jesus suffers with the crowds. Jesus suffers with you. Jesus’ compassion isn’t just a past event, when he suffered on the cross for you. Jesus’ compassion is present tense. Jesus suffers with you even now.
Jesus sees the crowds. Jesus has compassion. Then Jesus gathers. Jesus gathers the Twelve.
And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.
Notice that Jesus gathers and prepares to send out the Twelve apostles not with their own authority, but with his authority. Where they go, Jesus goes. When they speak, Jesus speaks. When they care and heal and teach, Jesus is caring, healing, and teaching. It’s a preview of what Jesus will say and give his whole church at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, as we heard last week. Jesus’ authority and gifts and presence. Jesus’ holy Word, holy Absolution, holy Baptism, and holy Supper. All given to us by his authority, and full of his graciousness towards us.
This is what Jesus did for the Twelve and what he does for us too. Jesus gathers. Jesus gathers us to hear his Word. Jesus gathers us into his body the church. Jesus gathers us into the family of God in Baptism. Jesus gathers us in communion with his body and blood. Jesus gathers to give, and he gathers to send us out as well.
Jesus sent out the Twelve.
“Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’[c]8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers,[d] cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.
Jesus sent the Apostles to do what he had come to do: To see, to have compassion, to gather, and to send.That’s the pattern. And we see that throughout the Gospels and into the book of Acts. And though the apostles’ calling was unique and though our vocations are quite different, there is still a similar pattern.
Jesus calls us to see others around us as fellow creatures of a loving, gracious God who saw our need and sent Jesus to save us. Jesus calls us to have compassion on those we know who are helpless. To bear one another’s burdens as so many of you have been doing these past several months. To speak Jesus’ word of life and grace in his compassionate death for us. Jesus calls us to gather around his Word, and to receive his gifts in water, word, body and blood. And Jesus continues to send us by his grace to proclaim his grace that God shows his love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
From beginning to end and every day in between, your life is surrounded by God’s graciousness in Jesus.
In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God which surpasses all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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