Year A, RCL
June 15, 2008
All Saints’, Bentonville
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. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 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. 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; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, `The kingdom of heaven has come near.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.
In a few hours, I’m leaving on a plane for Seattle for ten days of study at the Congregational Development Institute. I’m certain to learn a lot about organizational theory as well as the practical aspects of growing a church, both in numbers and in spiritual depth. I’m sure the coursework – the readings and lectures and discussion will be useful in encouraging the progress of this enterprise we call All Saints’. But sometimes the methodology of growing a church, as Jesus outlined in the Gospel reading this morning, seems a far simpler proposition. Perhaps all we need in order to engage in the process of evangelism is, like Jesus, to see the crowds that surround us and have compassion on them. Jesus had compassion on the crowds, “because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd”.
You may recall the 1999 film, The Green Mile. Tom Hanks plays a depression era prison guard on Death Row, know as the “green mile”, for the long walk down a green linoleum pathway, that prisoners condemned to death take as they march toward the electric chair, Old Sparky. Michael Clark Duncan plays an 8 foot tall gentle giant, John Coffey, a black man wrongly convicted of the murder of two young white girls. As the movie progresses it is revealed that John Coffey possesses mystical powers of healing, and empathy, able to take on the pain and suffering of those he encounters. Midway through the film there is a ghastly execution scene, in which a sadistic prison guard deliberately alters the electrocution process, causing a well-liked inmate, Del, to essentially cook to death. While Del jerks and twists and smokes in the electric chair, John Coffee, in his nearby death row cell, experiences the same bodily contortions and agony. Coffee shivers, convulses and emits steam just as though he were sitting in "Old Sparky" himself, surviving only because the overloaded electrical circuits shut down.
After the execution is finally complete the guard played by Tom Hanks, makes his way to John Coffey’s cell and finds him drenched with sweat and trembling. Coffey manages to mutter to the guard, "Boss, Del, he the lucky one. He out of it now."
"Do you mean you heard that all the way down here, John?" asks the guard.
"No, Boss," replies John, “I felt it”.
John Coffee felt every excruciating moment of his fellow inmate’s pain. The sensation was a real as if it were his own body in the electric chair. It was compassion of a most rarified kind.
My guess is that Jesus had a similar capacity for compassion. It’s one of the attributes that made him unique, his ability to perfectly walk in the shoes of another, to know the pain that others experience. We, more ordinary humans can muster compassion as well, but usually for those with whom we are acquainted and almost never, for a crowd. But Jesus could look out on a crowd and sense in their faces their individual stories, and feel compassion for each and every one. We tend to require a more personal encounter.
Last week, I sat with a young Hispanic woman in the waiting area outside of a courtroom where dozens of defendants awaited their arraignment hearings. As the wheels of justice slowly turned, this was her moment to plead guilty or innocent to the crime of claiming to have a legitimate right to be in this country. The finer points of immigration law are obscure for her, but she is aware that as one of the undocumented immigrants picked up in the raids on the Acambaro restaurants that she faces jail time, or deportation, or both.
It is easy for our politicians to call for strict enforcement of immigration laws, claiming as they say that “a law is a law”. Where, I have to ask is room in that statement for compassion. This young woman has lived here for twelve years. Northwest Arkansas is her home. Her sister, her mother, her children are here. In Mexico City, only an elderly grandmother remains. She has no friends there. No prospect of a job. No support network. A life on the streets awaits her. And worse, she is faced with the awful choice, between leaving her children behind, where they stand at least a small chance of living a fruitful life in America, or taking them with her to share in the utter poverty she faces in a country no longer her own. And as she talked, I knew that her story is only one single account in a crowd of millions - millions who will suffer from our lack of compassion.
Jesus’ initial response to the crowd of helpless and harassed that surrounded him was certainly to feel compassion. But the action that immediately followed was for him to summon his twelve disciples, call them by name and send them out with the mandate to do something about the ills that confronted them in the world.
This passage from Matthew is a call for evangelism, to be sure. But it is a call for spreading the good news that emerges from a sense of compassion. It’s a response to the realization that in our midst too, are people who are harassed and helpless and we are called to do something about it.
By virtue of being here, as part of this emerging Christian community of All Saints’, you are part of this evangelical movement. We are laborers in the harvest and we have good news to share. Hardly a week passes when I don’t receive a phone call from a lost sheep. I can hear the desperation in each voice. Perhaps you have been one of them. People looking for a place where they can be accepted - people who for a whole gamut of reasons have found churches to be inhospitable.
And so we are sent out to the lost sheep. Nothing about you or me particularly qualifies us for this work. Peter, Andrew, James or John weren’t qualified either. We simply have good news to share. All Saints’ is a place where you accepted as you are. The fact that there is a place in Bentonville, Arkansas where the harassed and helpless are welcomed… is very good news. And we are called, by word and example, to spread that good news. It’s not that we are particularly well qualified to do this work. It’s just that we, like the twelve, have been chosen.