Mission of Trust – Matthew 9-10

A text – Matthew 9:35-38, 10;1-8

³⁵ Then Jesus 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. ³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸ therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

10 Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. ² These 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; ³ Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; ⁴ Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

⁵ These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, ⁶ but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷ As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ⁸ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

A reflection:

Jesus is preaching and teaching and healing. He has compassion on the crowds and knows that his work must be multiplied because everyone needs restoration and healing. He sends the Twelve out to villages of the house of Israel to do exactly what he has been doing, with authority to preach, heal, cast out demons, and even raise the dead!

This moment in Jesus’s ministry is echoed in Luke’s gospel, chapter 10, almost word for word. In Luke, Jesus sends them out in pairs to accomplish this mission. Perhaps that is why, in Matthew’s version, the names of the Twelve are listed in pairs.

In many commentaries about this commissioning of the Twelve, Bible scholars see Jesus’s ministry as a kind of restoration of health and vitality to the nation of Israel, who had been kicked around by Rome and also had been trying to live faithful lives at the mercy of their own religious leaders. Think of preaching the good news that God was living amongst them, casting out demons, curing diseases that separated them from their family members – all of these things would restore faith and vitality and joy to the people Jesus had such compassion for. He had been training his disciples for this work all along.

I don’t know about you, but I was brought up through Sunday School and confirmation and even adult education never once thinking that I would be sent out in God’s mission in the world that God loves and has compassion for. It really didn’t cross my mind. But Luther thought about it a lot. And Luther believed that we are called to do our work in partnership with God. My partner in teaching and consulting, Pat Keifert, called it co-creating with God a trustworthy world every day wherever we were. You could work as a nurse or at a grain elevator or, in Luther’s favorite example, as a latrine cleaner, and make the world a little more trustworthy every day just by doing a job people could count on. This week, let us think about how we can co-create with God a trustworthy world each day, just by being faithful at whatever we are doing. We are called and sent out each day to retore trustworthiness in the world.

A prayer:

Lord God, thank you for loving us. Thank you for calling us to be part of your Kingdom in this world that you love. Help us to remember that trust in the world can be furthered just by our being faithful in what we are supposed to do each day. Let us rejoice in being workers with you in your Kingdom. Amen.