June 15

Rev. Joan E. Sulser ~ Scripture Matthew 9:35-10:8

I’ve been thinking about how we don’t talk much about the apostles. We talk about the twelve disciples. We talk about Jesus calling the disciples. We talk about us being disciples of Jesus. We talk about following Jesus. We talk about learning from Jesus. But we don’t talk much about the apostles … or being apostles.

Sometimes the words are used interchangeably but they have different meanings. Disciples are those who are taught. Apostles are those who are sent out. The twelve disciples whom Jesus called, and taught, in the course of their time with Jesus became apostles. They came to Jesus, learned from him, and then went out. We care a lot about education here – learning about the Bible, learning about current issues and their intersection with faith, learning about Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit, learning about Christianity, learning about what it means to love Jesus and serve God. We care a lot about being disciples. I don’t think we care as much about being apostles.

Of course, that’s the whole point of the learning – to be able to go out into the world as ambassadors of Christ.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus looked at the crowds and felt compassion for them. The Bible says that Jesus had compassion on them, like sheep without a shepherd, and the Greek word translated as "compassion" is deep feelings, powerful gut feelings of love for the hurting. Jesus looks at the crowds and sees people in need. He doesn’t have an attitude of pessimism: those people are all messed up and nothing can be done about it. He doesn’t have an attitude of condemnation: boy, did those people mess up their lives. He doesn’t have an attitude of constructive criticism: let me point out the ten mistakes that these people made to mess up their lives. Rather, Jesus has an attitude of deep compassion … which makes ministry possible.

Jesus saw the helplessness and hopelessness of people and his heart was moved to care for them. Instead of seeing social rejects, Jesus saw lost and searching hearts. Rather than seeing the unacceptable and untouchable, Jesus saw God’s lost children.

Hurt and aimlessness and hopelessness are nothing new, of course. They existed hundreds and thousands of years before Jesus was born in Nazareth. They exist now, two thousand years after Jesus.

Jesus imagines the crowds as … a vast field ripe for harvesting! Rather than focus on their aimlessness and confusion, Jesus declares that they are ready for the "good news" of the "kingdom" of God. The dilemma, as Jesus acknowledges, is that the laborers are few. God has a harvest of lost and hurting children in our world, but the problem remains: there are not enough workers to bring the harvest in. (Bill Fletcher)

Who will take the good news of God’s forgiving and healing love to a broken world?

Christ calls us to answer – like the prophet Isaiah did 800 years before Jesus – here am I, send me.

Actually, in today’s Scripture passage, Jesus tells the disciples to pray. He says, "Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." They did exactly as Jesus asked. They prayed for more laborers to go into the harvest and their prayers were answered. They became the laborers.

The original message was very simple: the power and presence of God is alive, near and around you and in you. That message is still needed today. The plentiful harvest is right in our own backyard. We don’t need to send missionaries to foreigners in far away lands to proclaim the gospel in words and deeds – the harvest is right here in our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our families.

Many folks hear this passage as demanding they go out and buttonhole strangers on street corners to tell them about Jesus Christ. As apostles, though, we teach Christianity by living it, not by talking about it. It is not necessarily our duty to discuss Christianity with others as much as it is to show them what Christianity is. Christianity in action is our vocation. And this is very much in keeping with the ethos of this congregation.

There’s a story of an artist, seeking to depict on canvas the meaning of evangelism, painted a storm at sea. Black clouds filled the sky. Illuminated by a flash of lightning, a little boat could be seen disintegrating under the pounding of the ocean. People were struggling in the swirling waters, their anguished faces crying out for help. The only glimmer of hope appeared in the foreground of the painting, where a large rock protruded out of the water. There, clutching desperately with both hands, was one lone seaman. It was a moving scene. Looking at the painting, one could see in the tempest a symbol of humankind’s hopeless condition. And, true to the Gospel, the only hope of salvation was "the Rock of Ages," a shelter in the time of storm. But as the artist reflected upon his work, he realized that the painting did not accurately portray his subject. So he discarded the canvas, and painted another. It was very similar to the first: the black clouds, the flashing lightning, the angry waters, the little boat crushed by the pounding waves, and the crew vainly struggling in the water. In the foreground the seaman was clutching the large rock for salvation. But the artist made one change: the survivor was holding on with only one hand, and with the other hand he was reaching down to pull up a drowning friend. (story found on-line, attributed there to Robert E. Coleman’s The Heartbeat of Evangelism, NavPress, 1985)

"Harvesting can not be done from a distance. God set the model for harvesting in the incarnation of Christ. As God came in the flesh through Jesus Christ to stand next to us and bear us up, so also we are called to enter the harvest and bear others up to the love of God." (John Jewell)

So, the first apostles had a simple message: the power and presence of God is alive, near and around you and in you. They had a simple method: to go to those who were hurting. And they had a simple attitude: compassion for those whose lives were messed up with pain.

According to this passage, this is the essence of who we are … as disciples … as apostles … and what we are to do.

Cure the sick. Do not ignore the poisons that intoxicate us. Proclaim the power of God to heal us. Raise the dead. Do not leave us in our tombs. Proclaim the power of God to raise us up. Cleanse the lepers. Do not abandon the outcast in their misery. Proclaim the power of God to restore us to the community. Cast out demons. Do not accept the demonic powers of evil. Proclaim the power of God to cast them out. (Anna Carter Florence)

And so at the heart of discipleship is reaching out to our friends and neighbors and strangers in need with the genuine love and compassion of God living inside of us. These quality relationships of compassion are the means, the simple method, that God uses to reach others.

Think about what it’s like doing grocery shopping the day before a holiday. The lines at the cash register can be so long. Do you enjoy standing in line for a long time, waiting for your turn at the cash register? Of course not. And so there is a sigh of relief when you hear the voice of the manager of the store speaking through the loud speaker system: "Cashiers to the front please." And you want those cashiers now. Not in five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The crisis at hand is now and needs to be solved now, not in fifteen minutes. (Edward Markquart)

Jesus says, The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he will send workers ... now! And be prepared. Because God might answer our prayers by sending us, by transforming us from disciples into apostles. So we can live the compassion and outstretched hand we’ve seen in Jesus Christ. So we can open our hearts and reach out our hands to those who are hurting. As apostles, we need to build bridges of friendship with people who are without a spiritual home. It is across these "bridges" that people can be gently nudged towards the love of God and the support of a caring Christian fellowship.

Today, several of our high schoolers are going to Chicago for a week-long mission trip. The intensity of their experience will stretch their hearts. They will experience the power of a close-knit Christian community. They will engage in outreach in a different culture, training them to reach out in similar ways when they return home. Later this summer, a group of high schoolers will go to Biloxi, Mississippi to help with post-Hurricane Katrina rebuilding. Some of our youth will be in both groups.

Our youth are making the transition from disciples to apostles. As they learn of Christ what it is to be compassionate they are reaching out to others who are hurting. I pray that their example will inspire us to be apostles here at home. There’s a harvest of lost and hurting people in our world. God needs us to work with Christ in sharing the news of God’s presence – with us, here and now. As individuals and as a church, how will we respond?