Reflection on Matthew 9:35-10:23

 

Jesus sees the world so differently than I.  Maybe you are like me.  When I look out at the world, I tend to see a culture that is crumbling.  I tend to see a bunch of people who, as my dad always used to say, are one fry short of a happy meal.  People are doing things that would have never been acceptable in the past.  People are praised for doing things that can only be described as reprehensible and destructive.  Things are not the way they used to be.  Basic respect for oneself and respect for others seems to be on the decline, and truth seems to have been abandoned in the trashcan of history. 

And, my instinct is to push these reprehensible people aside.  Maybe you are like me, my instinct is to disassociate with such people and push them all to the margins, into the darkness, where they seem to want to exist anyway; where they seem to thrive.

If I am honest with myself, even though I hate to admit it, I tend to look at particular people in this world and I actually see them as malformed monsters, creatures that lurk in the world and are dangerous to our children and our faithful ways of life. 

Do not get me wrong.  I am polite to all of these people, of course.  I would never let this characterization intentionally seep out of my internal thoughts.  I take a southern attitude where I look upon these people and say, “Well, bless their souls,” while having no intention of showering any blessings.

Did I let you peer into my soul a little too much?  Am I alone in all of this?  Am I alone is seeing the world in this way?

But, as I read the gospel story from this Sunday, my soul is given a metaphorical slap in the face, a wake up notice, because it is obvious that Jesus see the world differently.

Where I see the world full of deformed creatures, the Bible says that Jesus “had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).  I just want to stop right there and let that soak in, because it is so different of an outlook on the world.  When Jesus, our shepherd, looks on the world, he sees a world full of sheep.  He sees a world full of his own people, his own creation, his own flock, who need someone to guide them and heal them.  Jesus does not see monsters or deformed creatures.

And, Jesus’ actions match the way he looks at the world.  Where I just abandon the people I find reprehensible in the dark corners of the world, where I think they belong, the Bible says that Jesus can be found, “proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness” (Matthew 9:35).

The problem with the world, in Jesus’ view, is not that people have allowed themselves to become malformed monsters, rather, that they are “like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).  In other words, they are sheep who have been abandoned by those who should be caring for them.

Through the power of the Holy Scriptures, Jesus could not be clubbing me over the head more clearly.  I just said that I tend to abandon the people I dislike to the dark places of the world.  Jesus says that the problem with the world is that those who should be helping and healing have abandoned the sheep.  Jesus is talking about me, and though I would not want to be presumptuous, maybe he is even talking about us.

Jesus is not alone in this condemnation.  Jesus is merely speaking the truths spoken all over the Bible, but especially in Ezekiel: 

‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? 3 You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. 4 You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. 5 So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. 6 My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.  (Ezekiel 34:2-6)

This sort of abandonment of the shepherd’s tasks causes God to intervene directly.  Ezekiel continues with God’s speech: 

I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.  (Ezekiel 34:11-12) 

I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.  (Ezekiel 34:16)

Helping us to understand this biblical dynamic in a very real, down to earth way, a faithful herder of actual sheep, Carl Glen Henshaw, shares this:

“We found this lamb hiding under a bank of the creek that runs along the back of our property this morning. This is the near bank, which means she could not be seen from our side of the creek - we had to wade the creek or jump the bank to see her. She was not making a sound, and it took some careful counting to realize she was missing, and some careful searching to find her.

 

The scene we encountered this morning included all the sheep except four being right where they should be, in the barnyard. But the electric fence at the back of the pasture had been vandalized. It was lying on the ground and had wool all over it. The hay feeder had been flipped upside down, and the water in the waterer was all muddy. Someone had been committing some mischief.

 

And then this ewe lamb was hiding from us. She was with another, older ewe, who was standing in the brush on the far side of the creek, barely visible.

 

You would be excused if you thought that these sheep were up to no good. The evidence is all there. Something had destroyed the fence, and these two ewes had made a series of bad decisions that culminated in them leaving the flock and ending up in the creek in the rain. Clearly, these two are bad news.

 

But that’s only because you don’t know what actually happened. What actually happened is that we have a new 18-month-old sheepdog who will be a good dog someday, but today he was a very bad dog. We left him in the backyard unsupervised for two hours early this morning. Except he didn’t stay in the backyard; he went through a hole in the fence, showing our other two dogs how to follow, and they entertained themselves by running the sheep. The first we noticed was when we went to let the dogs in and discovered they were missing. Then we saw a dead ewe lying in the far corner of the pasture. They had run her to death. That’s what led to us counting the sheep in the barnyard; we had to know whether there were any more sheep missing.

 

The Christians among you should know the parable of the lost sheep. In it, Jesus tells of a shepherd who notices that he is missing one of his hundred sheep, and searches for it until it is found and returned to the flock. If we are being particularly insightful we note that sheep aren’t simply misplaced; they end up where they are by walking, so — we say — this lost sheep had wandered away from the flock, and therefore we should diligently seek out and help those who have gotten to where they are through their own poor decisions.

This is probably wrong.

 

Sheep don’t wander away from the flock. It isn’t in their nature. A sheep who has left the flock left because it was driven away. It was terrified and did not know where to look for safety, so it ran. And the reason it was terrified is usually due to poor shepherding — the shepherd has led the flock to a pasture where there are predators, or has left it out in a storm. Or the shepherd has neglected that hole in the fence and left unsupervised a young, inexperienced sheepdog, who is supposed to be a helper but has discovered that terrorizing sheep is darned fun. And then that shepherd went back to bed.

 

In other words, very often the person we are to seek out is not “lost”, and is not missing because he or she made poor decisions. They left because we drove them away. They did not look or talk or think or love like we do, and we did not create spaces they felt safe in. We looked the other way when they weren’t admitted to school because they weren’t a “good fit”, or they were given a hard time because they were a woman in a man’s job or a man in a woman’s job. We did not invite them into our neighborhoods, or our clubs, or our churches. They were being abused by other members of the flock, wolves in sheep's clothing, and we did not protect them. They were being harassed…and we told ourselves that it was their fault for being where they were, behaving how they behaved. If they would just make different choices, they could help themselves.

 

This lamb was hiding from a predator who terrified her and had killed one of her sisters, and that was not her fault. It was ours.

 

If you would seek the lost sheep, first admit that you may be part of the reason they aren’t already here.

Carl is definitely on the same page as Jesus.  So often, we hear Jesus’ words completely the wrong way.  So often we look out on the people of the world, see how they are not in church and how they are straying from the truth, and we say to ourselves, “The harvest looks like slim pickings, but I guess the laborers here will have to be enough.  Let’s go get some coffee and donuts”

Of course, you know the real teaching of the one who loved us, found us, and rescued us.  Jesus told his followers, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”  And then Jesus sent his followers out into the world to love, find, and rescue.  He sent them out to find those who are lost so that they might have a taste of the kingdom.  He sent them out to “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” (Matthew 10:8). 

He sends us out from here to tend to the sick, bring people out of death and darkness, to gather those who have been cast out and excluded, and to pour attention on those who are troubled and harassed.  After-all, there are plenty of sheep who have been pushed into dark corners who are secretly praying that someone full of mercy and love might find them.  They need Jesus.  They need Jesus’ followers to be like Jesus.

I want to make a bet with you.  I bet that if you asked ten people that you know about their struggles in life, at least eight will share some of their struggles.  At least eight of them will begin the process of healing, by having someone who actually cares. 

Where did you get those numbers, ten out of eight, Pastor Jira?  Well, I just made them up.  But, in my experience, there are more people out there who need Jesus’ healing than we realize, if only we allowed Jesus to open our eyes to the realities of people and allowed Jesus to push us out there to seek them out. 

After-all, we are here today giving thanks to Jesus because Jesus did not give up on us and abandon us to the dark.  Rather, Jesus found us, proclaimed the good news of the kingdom, and cured our deepest pains.  And, if you have not experienced that sort of finding by your Lord, look around.  There are some of the Lord’s laborers of love nearby.  Jesus would love to heal you too.