An Answer to Prayer

photo credit: Aaron Burden on Unsplash

The First United Presbyterian Church

“An Answer to Prayer”

Rev. Amy Morgan

June 14, 2020

Matthew 9:35-10:23

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."

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: "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 As you go, proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' 8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

 9 Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10 no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.

 11 Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12 As you enter the house, greet it. 13 If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

 16 "See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles.

 19 When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

 21 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 22 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

It was hot. It was late afternoon in the middle of summer in Texas. The neighborhood kids had congregated in our yard. All the boys had their shirts off. It was too hot for skin, much less clothing. I was 7 years old and wanted to play outside with the others. The boys seemed to have the right idea. So I pulled off my shirt and ran out into the yard.

The neighborhood bully noticed immediately. “You gotta wear a shirt!” he commanded. “Why?” I asked, honestly confused. “Cuz you’re a girl!” he sneered. “Girls gotta wear shirts.” “No I don’t,” I said, defiantly. I couldn’t see any reason for a shirt-wearing decree on such a hot summer day, and it seemed entirely unfair that it should only apply to girls, who felt the heat just the same as boys.

But the bully was not going to tolerate my defiance. He stormed over to me, scooped me up, and threw me to the ground. I can still remember the bruising feeling of impact on my bare torso, the wind getting knocked out of me, the smell of hot dust in my face, and the laughter of the other kids, delighting in my humiliation.

When Jesus looks on the crowds with compassion, he sees them as being “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” In Greek, the words translated here as “harassed and helpless” literally mean “bullied and thrown to the ground.” They are like seven-year-old girls being taunted and thrown to the ground by the neighborhood bully. They have no one to stand up for them. No one to demand a more fair and just world. No one to pick them up and dust them off. No one to work for their well-being.

Jesus sees the problem. These helpless, bullied, broken people. Not just the ones in front of him. But all the people who are in need of healing and wholeness, who need to hear that the reign of God has begun on earth, who need to know there is a power much greater than their oppressors at work in the world.

The problem is so vast, it would be easy to succumb to hopelessness and despair. Even for Jesus. Yes, he’s God Incarnate, imbued with divine power and authority. But he has a particular job to do in his time on earth, and he’s going to need more laborers to complete this immense work of redemption and renewal of the creation.

One of my son’s school principals in Michigan used a term that was somewhat cheesy but, I thought, really helpful. When kids were struggling or the school was faced with a challenge, he referred to these situations as “probletunities.” He firmly believed every problem presented an opportunity, creating a “probletunity.”

And that’s what Jesus does in this story. He sees the problem of oppression as an opportunity to develop new laborers for the harvest. The problem of lost sheep becomes an opportunity to develop shepherds.

And he goes about it in a brilliant way. He encourages the disciples to pray for “the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

So the disciples pray. And they become the answer to their own prayer.

I have used this technique liberally in the recruitment of church workers. Explain the need. Ask them to pray on it. As Don Ellis and several others can tell you, it doesn’t take long for the Spirit to move. Next thing you know, you’re the answer to your own prayer.

Jesus sends his workers out woefully underequipped for their assigned task. They are told to take no money with them, no bag to carry anything, and don’t bring anything extra to carry. If you have a sandal blow-out, too bad. They must depend on the hospitality of strangers and expect rejection and even persecution.

The disciples are also are underwhelmingly qualified for this mission. None of them are painted as saints or scholars. None of them appear to be particularly courageous or faithful. One of them is a tax-collector, which is first-century code language for a greedy you-know-what. One of them will betray Jesus to his death. This is not the cream of the crop. And yet, these are the 12 people Jesus picks to complete this first mission. 

And the mission itself is utterly hopeless: “proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.'” – sure. But also “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” Kind of a tall order for a crew of fishermen, tax-collectors, and back-stabbers. Sure, Jesus says they have the authority to do all this. But what about the ability? I’m not sure I would have felt all that confident. In a time period with little understanding of and almost no treatment for most diseases, any sickness had the potential to be fatal. The dead were dead – it doesn’t get more hopeless than that. Lepers were not only hopeless because of their illness, they were also outcasts from society. And in a time when just about any malady could be attributed to demons, you didn’t have to go far to find someone hopelessly possessed.

But Jesus does at least narrow the scope of the mission. The disciples are only to go to the “lost sheep of Israel.” In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus sends 70 people on this mission, which is a biblically symbolic number for “everybody.” Matthew’s Jesus sends 12 disciples, emblematic of the 12 tribes of Israel, to Israel – to their own people.

Now, this sounds much easier, in some ways. You’re working with people with whom you share a language and a culture. You understand them and are seen as one of their own. Maybe there’s more trust from the outset, offering a better chance for success.

But that’s not the picture Jesus paints for the disciples’ prospects. He says they should expect some towns to reject them. He says he is sending them out “like sheep into the midst of wolves.” He predicts that they will be handed over to councils and flogged in synagogues; dragged before governors and kings. This hopeless mission will not unite their tribe but will divide families, “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death.”

Yeah, sign me up for that.

Wouldn’t it be great if it were only those 12 disciples who were sent out on such a hopeless mission? If they were the only ones Jesus ever called to work for the harvest? 

But we don’t have to look far to see sheep who are “harassed and helpless,” bullied and thrown to the ground. Right here in Loveland this week, two young men canvassing for a roofing company were forced to the ground and held at gunpoint because a bully with tactical gear and semiautomatic weapons decided that a white young man walking through his neighborhood with a black young man meant that they were affiliated with antifa and planning nefarious activities. And that it was his job to stop them.

There are so many people around us who are experiencing injustice, who have no one to stand up for them. No one to demand a more fair and just world. No one to pick them up and dust them off. No one to work for their well-being.

And so we have a probletunity. The problem of oppression still exists, and so does the opportunity to develop new laborers for the harvest.

And so we’re asked to pray. And to become the answer to our prayers. To work for this harvest, even though we aren’t any good at it, even though we don’t have what we think we need, even though it seems hopeless and never-ending.

We will pray and become an answer to prayer because we can’t help but see the sheep without a shepherd to protect and care for them. All the seven-year-old girls laying in the dust. All the homeless people laying in the street. All the black and brown bodies laying in prison. All the sick people laying in hospital beds. All the bodies laying in mass graves. All the souls laying in hells of their own making.

We see them. And we have compassion on them. And so we must answer Jesus’s call to prayer. And we must be the answer to our own prayers.

And we should also fully expect that when we become that answer to prayer we will be woefully underequipped, underwhelmingly qualified, and have no hope of succeeding in this mission.

But maybe success isn’t the point. We never hear about the outcome of the disciples’ mission. They just show up again later in the narrative. We don’t hear, in Matthew’s gospel anyway, stories about anyone being healed or raised from the dead by the disciples, about anyone turning and following Jesus because of the disciples’ proclamation. We don’t get a success story.

But it seems that the disciples keep following Jesus anyway. And in the book of Acts, we see them continuing the mission anyway.

So even when we look around and still see sheep who are bullied and beaten, we don’t despair and we don’t give up hope. We just get to work. We keep at it.

Because the mission doesn’t begin or end with us. Jesus says that “you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” Now, the disciples probably expected this meant that the Son of Man, whoever that was, would be coming soon. Instead, it meant that the Son of Man was already there, and the mission was never-ending. Jesus can be tricky like that.

We trust that Jesus will come again to complete this mission, this hopeless mission that we can’t possibly accomplish on our own. But there are so many sheep without a shepherd, so much brokenness and hurt and suffering and oppression in the world, we can’t complete the mission of going to each one of them before the end of time. It’s up to Jesus to complete this work. But it’s up to us to keep it going.  

And it starts with those who are closest to us, who are part of our tribe. I’ve talked with several people in our church who want to reach out to communities of color and who want to help people in other countries who are impacted by COVID-19. And these are all good instincts and great things to do.

But sometimes we forget to do God’s work within our own community, our own tribe. I don’t mean providing care and services to those who are homeless or hurting in Loveland, although that’s good work, too. I mean that we have a mission to those tribes we identify and associate with.

Our circles of family and friends and neighbors. People who share our political views. Our racial-ethnic groups. We are sent to our tribes, be they urban-dwellers or rural communities, Northern or Southern, East Coast or West Coast, Flyover Country, Broncos fans or Bears fans, or even, God have mercy, Lions fans. However you define your “tribe” your “people” – that is where God is sending YOU to be a transforming presence, bringing healing and hope and good news.

And when we start trying to do that with the people who are closest to us, we should expect rejection, hostility, and division. This doesn’t sound like a party. It should not be surprising that Jesus has difficulty finding laborers for this harvest.

But when we meet with resistance and rejection, we do not need to worry “about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time,” says Jesus. God’s Spirit will speak through us. We will become a megaphone for God, amplifying God’s love and comfort, God’s healing and peace, to a world in desperate need of that grace. We will work until Jesus comes to finish the job.

So let us pray, friends. And let us be an answer to prayer.

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.