Notice the target audience of Jesus for the good news of God’s immediate and imminent reign of God in today’s gospel lesson. Why does he send his disciples only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel? Is Jesus being discriminatory towards the Gentiles or Samaritans? At first, it seems Jesus is excluding certain groups of people, but when we see the whole gospel according to St Matthew, that really is not the case. There are two stories of Jesus healing the son of the Centurion (8:5-13) and the daughter of the Canaanite woman (15:21-28). It’s more like Jesus knows what needs to be handled first before reaching out to others. It’s like getting your house in order before trying to do anything for anyone.
Jesus’s command to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel is also to be read in the context where he says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Due to the lack of laborers for the harvest, the disciples’ mission is not only to proclaim the imminent and immediate reign of God, cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons among them, but also to make them the harvesters. Now, we Christians are very quick to consider Jesus sending off of his disciples as our own calling. Some of us would just like to jump in and do the work of God right away. The gospel lesson like today’s also tempts clergy to talk about all of us being called and sent out to the world. This interpretation is indeed correct. As baptized Christians who are partaking in the Eucharist, we are called to join the mission of God. But I think this move without discernment is too hasty and too clumsy on our part. Self-examination must take place prior to this action. There are two things that we need to take into heart if we truly want to be sent out. Without having to experience these two things in our lives, our sense of being sent out only serves to satisfy one’s own moral superiority in which those who have less are a means to fulfill one’s own selfish desire. So, what are these two experiences one must have in order to join God’s mission? 1) Compassion: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Compassion is the fundamental requirement that every human being must have. It is what helps us evolve from an animal with a high IQ to a human being created in the image of God. Compassion is more than being nice to someone in need. It’s an ability to see one’s own suffering as a spiritual source of empathy and to suffer and cry with those who are suffering. Only in this sense, our own suffering becomes more than forgettable memories of pain, and becomes a means to enter into others’ suffering. Jesus is able to join the crowd and see they are harassed and helpless because he himself had the experience of being harassed and helpless. And we do have this experience of suffering in our lives. Don’t let it go waste but cultivate it as your source to be compassionate to others and to suffer with those who are suffering. Our experience of oneness or union can only be felt in compassion for others. 2) Free of charge: “You received without payment; give without payment.” We Christians are the ones who confess that we receive God’s grace and love as free of charge. When we say God’s love is free, we don’t mean it to be measured in value. We might imagine Mastercard’s long-running “Priceless” campaign, but it’s not even that. That God’s love is free to all means it is unbound, unconditional, and all-encompassing that goes beyond our value system. We can’t possess it as if it is ours. In our eternal union with God, we are freed by God’s immeasurable love freely given to the world. Which is why we can also freely give ourselves to others. Only the one who experiences this free gift of God’s liberation can give freely. One is not attached to any means of love. One doesn’t assert one’s self-importance to anyone. Before we embark on our journey to join God’s mission, our sense of compassion and free gift of God we have received must be revived. These two experiences of compassion and God’s free love are two sides of the same coin. The wound of my heart becomes the way to those suffering. We don’t pity them. We humanize their suffering as we empathize with them. And this act of compassion arises because our wounds have been and will be healed by God’s free gift of love. Jesus joins all of us in our suffering through his own suffering on the cross. The divine love frees us from our toxic mentality of capitalism to self-surrender to God and self-sacrifice for those who suffer. We might wonder where we are to harvest. It’s rather simple once we embody our compassion and God’s free love. Where our heart aches is where God calls us to be. Where our desire to freely give ourselves is where Jesus leads us to be. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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