11th Sunday Year A

See Commentary on Matthew 9:36 – 10:8 in Matthew 9:36-38 & Matthew 10:1-8


Homily 1 - 2005

Jesus felt sorry for the crowds because they were harassed and dejected – like sheep without a shepherd.  He was deeply concerned.  Their needs were beyond his own capacity to reach.  So he commissioned a group of his followers to join him and empowered them to address the needs: to cure the sick, to raise the dead, to cleanse the lepers and to cast out devils.

In the final scene of Matthew’s gospel, at the end of their time of apprenticeship with him, the already risen Christ told the same disciples to move out beyond Israel and to baptise the nations of the world into the mystery of the living God, and this time to teach them all that he had shared with them.  Why teach?  So that, knowing now more tangibly what God was like, and knowing who they were, they might continue to deepen the world’s liberation by helping people to recognise and to live from their own dignity and to stand on their own two feet.

The world’s needs have not substantially changed.  Our world of 2005 is the world of people that God loves – and here we are instead, a world where nations are more inclined to see each other as threats than as potential brothers and sisters.  To me that speaks of a debilitating insecurity! and of a paralysing absorption with self!

Jesus continued: The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest.  The labour force is there, but it needs to engage with the need.  And the successors of the twelve as apostles – as ones sent to a lacerated and lacerating world – are you, the laity.  (Jesus is not talking here about more priests, however much the text has been used as if he were.  Certainly a church of apostles has need for animators and formators, of ones who can preside at and lead our sacramental celebrations: but that is a separate issue.  Priests will be recruited from apostles.  They are hardly likely to materialise from an uninterested, disorientated and inactive laity.)

So what the world needs is people with vision, with insight, with compassion, with energy to engage, deeply plugged into God and responsive to the spirit of Jesus.  The world needs apostles, and Jesus trusts you.  You don’t need airline tickets to travel to far away places.  You are already immersed in the world: your family,  the ones you work with, the ones you relax with, your neighbour on the other side of the fence, your local community organisations.  They need you: your vision, your values, your insights, your compassion, your energy, your Christlikeness.  The best apostles of the young are the young themselves; the best apostles of farmers, farmers; the best apostles of professionals, professionals; of parents, parents.  The list is endless.  You speak the same language; you’ve got credibility.

So, as Paul pleads in the second reading of today’s mass: Be reconciled to God.  Trust God, surrender to God.  Come to terms with the fact that the mystery at the heart of the world’s being, the world’s life, is personal, is love.  God’s love is hardwired into our world.  Do we believe that?  

Then, since it is so, the only way that humanity can be what it is meant to be is if we trust that the divine energy, the ultimate law of the universe, is not market forces, free trade, competition, military might, national security or self-protection.  It is love!  Without that, the world is out of sync.  No wonder the nations of the world are fearful of each other, that there is such crushing poverty, such massive inequity and  such ominous violence.  So many are not reconciled to God; they simply do not know that God – the creative and pervading energy sustaining the cosmos – is love.

So Jesus sends you.  The Jesus who sends you is the Jesus who trusts you, who is with you.  You can’t bring about change.  But Jesus and you together have unsuspected potential.  You just need to be truly and authentically yourself.  Some people will respond; some won’t.  That is not essentially your problem – it’s his.

Remember the Gospel of two weeks ago, the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ?  As I myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me – It is saying that whoever eats the Eucharist that we share together today draws life from Christ – not any life, but Christ’s life: his vision, his passion, the fire that burns in his heart and that he in turn draws from the God who is love.


 

Homily 2 - 2023

Today’s passage from St Matthew’s Gospel began: “When Jesus saw the crowds, he felt sorry for them, because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd." Matthew’s comment gives us a brief look into the heart of Jesus. Essentially, Jesus engaged with people, viscerally. He felt for them in his stomach, in his gut, as it were. Something seemed to draw him into a significant relationship with them. In this case his reaction was triggered by his seeing people discounted by society, regarded as of no account, and neglected accordingly. But his engagement with people could be triggered by no end of causes. People had remarked earlier how struck they were by his integrity, his inner authority.

There was no way that Jesus, alone, could engage with everyone as he would have liked. So, not surprisingly, he said to his disciples:"The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” Within this context, Jesus’ immediate response to the world’s need became clear: more labourers for the harvest. Jesus “summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to cast them out, and to cure all kinds of diseases and sicknesses.”

The Gospel passage continued:These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them as follows: “Do not turn your steps to pagan territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town; go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Given the urgency of people’s needs and the fewness at this stage of labourers, it is not surprising that Jesus made a priority of restricting the apostles’ mission to those he referred to as the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”. With a few exceptions, Jesus respected that same priority himself. However, after his resurrection, Jesus would command the same disciples to expand their vision and to “make disciples of all the nations”.

 Today’s passage concluded:"And as you go, proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is close at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils. Their message to Israel was simple. They were to “proclaim” that “the kingdom of heaven was close at hand”. They were to tell people the exciting news that change was in the air, and challenge them, by their own lives and enthusiasm, to be ready for it. Life would be radically different. People would need to sit lightly with the so-far familiar. At this stage, they would have to leave it still to Jesus to fill them in on the content and shape of change. To reinforce the message, the disciples were to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, [even] cast out devils.” While this would no doubt be great news for the lepers, the sick and the demon-possessed, it would simply be a foretaste of the radical newness of the approaching kingdom.

What might all this say to us? Where might we start? The Church’s present temptation, at least in our Western World, is to allow ourselves to feel paralysed by what is happening — with numbers of priests and religious diminishing, and particularly with congregations disappearing at an unexpected rate? Like so many of our fellow-citizens we may feel lost, oppressed, etc. Just listen to and reflect on an average evening TV News bulletin. We are so bombarded with bad news. Are we too “harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd?” 

I think that our starting point has to be with Jesus. Do we ever ask ourselves what is the “good news of the kingdom”? Do we need to let it flood our hearts? Have we ever allowed Jesus to touch us -- sufficiently to make any real difference to us?