The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Luke

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, `Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:25-37(

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Some time ago, I saw a video clip shown on television of an SUV which pulled onto a rooftop parking lot, and didn’t stop, but kept right on, riding up onto the roof of the car parked ahead, and then onto another car at its side.

It then backed off and drove away.

People do that you know, sometimes because they don’t want to look at what they have done. If they can drive away then perhaps they don’t feel as responsible.

They evade having to do something to put things right.

It might cost money.

In this case, the driver was picked up later and charged.

And he probably got a call from his insurance company telling him he wasn’t  needed as a customer any more.

The attitude evident there, of not caring – absorbed in what you are doing to the detriment of anyone else –  could have been the attitude of the priest and the Levite – both religious men – in the story that Jesus tells today.

By walking on the other side of the road, they couldn’t see too much, and could avoid responsibility. They could avoid having to do something. Avoid being inconvenienced.

If the man lying in the road were dead, and the priest touched him , he would have been forbidden from doing his temple duties for seven days. And that wouldn’t do, would it?

Jesus is telling this story to a lawyer. Not the sort of lawyer we are used to hearing about today, who deals with crime, or real estate transfers. He was someone who studied the religious law, and was an expert on it.

When he asks Jesus, “What must a man do to gain eternal life?” Jesus answers with his own question,” What does the law say?”

The man replies, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbour as yourself.”

“Right,” said Jesus, “Do that and live.”

But the man was a not quite satisfied. He already knew the law, and had been testing Jesus, trying to show that what Jesus was teaching was against the law of Moses.  But Jesus outwitted him.

He is puzzled about who Jesus might say was his neighbour.  You see, in the law, in Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18, the Israelites are instructed,  “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself”

“ Your own people!”

So the lawyer would consider another Jew to be his neighbour. As would most Jews.  But not a Gentile.  So to push Jesus further, he asks, ” Who is my neighbour?”

And Jesus tells him the story of a man who is robbed and injured, and left for dead. And while this man is lying in the road, a priest walks by and seeing him, averts his eyes, passing on the other side of the road, and so does a Levite, a helper in the temple.

This priest, when expounding on the Scripture, to his listeners, might well remind them of the law regarding loving God and neighbour.

Yet here he is, walking by.

And it isn’t that the injured man is not a Jew, Jesus doesn’t even mention his race. It doesn’t matter.  He is someone in need of care.

Along comes a Samaritan.

Now there needs to be a bit of an historical explanation here.

When the Assyrians defeated Israel, they dispersed the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom among the Gentile nations. They then brought foreigners into the land of Israel to re-populate the land. The result was a half-breed race (half Jewish, half Gentile) that populated the Northern Kingdom of Israel from then on.

On the other hand, when the Babylonians took Jews from the Southern kingdom into captivity, their doing so, resulted in their Jewish slaves being kept pure, racially, as it were. So when the Jews returned to Judah, they looked down on the mixed race Samaritans .  And the Samaritans, were not so innocent anyway. They gave those who returned from their Babylonian captivity much grief and opposition as they attempted to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, its walls, and the temple.

Consequently, right up to the time of Jesus, Jews and Samaritans hated each other.

Now, the Samaritan gentleman who comes along, doesn’t seem to mind what race the injured man is. All he sees is someone needing help. He tends to him. He goes above and beyond what might be expected, even paying the inn-keeper to keep an eye on him until he is well enough to leave.

The lawyer who has been questioning Jesus is now going to be in a  bit of a quandary.

Jesus asks him which of the three characters in the story, the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan, would he consider the injured man’s neighbour?

The man had to reply, “The one who showed him pity.”  The hated Samaritan.

”Go and do likewise,” Jesus tells him.

Go and love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.

We know that, don’t we? If we were to use the old form of the Eucharistic service, we would have recited that today.   We know it, as that lawyer knew it.

Now,  according to Jesus, the lawyer sees that his neighbour could be the most unlikely person. Could be a person that was disliked, derided, even hated.

And he was called to show love to that neighbour.

Lots of people profess their love of God, don’t they? They will tell you they are good Christians and worship their God.

But how would you know whether or not someone loved God?

By the number of times they go to church?

That doesn’t seem to count any more.

“I never go to church,”  boasted one wandering member. “Perhaps you have noticed that, pastor?”

“Yes, I have noticed that,” said the pastor.

“”Well, the reason I don’t go is because there are so many hypocrites there.”

“Oh, don’t let that keep you away,”  the pastor said, smiling, “There’s always room for one more.”

If you can’t tell if someone loves God by their attending church, then how would you know?

By how they love their neighbour. That’s how.

I know one woman, a very militant Christian, who is always railing on about abortion, homosexuals, people with  AIDs – she thinks they all got it by doing wrong – homeless people – they are all lazy – and the government that is too liberal minded – she even had a lot of kids to boost the number of Christians in the world – but she was always down on people.

Up with God, down with people.

Does she love God?

Well she knows the law, as laid down in the Bible, so she says she does, but the way she is about people would make you wonder.

The fact is that you can’t claim to love God if you don’t love people.

Funnily enough it begins with loving yourself.

Once you have accepted that God loves you, and that you are relieved of your sins, and can live a new life, then you can begin to love yourself. 

And when you have accepted that forgiveness, and most importantly forgiven yourself, then you can begin forgiving others. You can stop judging them. You can begin to love them.

And loving them, you are loving God.

A test was given to some seminary students,  young people studying for the ministry.

Each student was asked to prepare a sermon on the Good Samaritan – the same thing I have done today. They were to read it on a radio broadcast – or so they thought.

When a student was sent out of the seminary to walk to the place where they were to preach the sermon, it was arranged that a man would be outside and would feign a heart attack, dropping down and writhing in pain on the sidewalk.

And as every student, on their way to preach on the meaning of the story of the Good Samaritan –  came across the ‘dying’ man, they stepped around him and continued on their way.

Just as the priest in the story was probably consumed with what he had to do -serving God in the temple – so that he could avert his eyes, so were those students.

It blows your mind doesn’t it?

If you don’t love people then you can’t claim to love God.

Another litmus test is provided us by Jesus himself.

In Matthew 17, and in Luke 6 Jesus uses the metaphor of fruit, and fruit trees. He says the way to identify a tree or a person is by the fruit they produce.

A good person produces good fruit, whereas a bad person produces bad fruit.

A person who is good at heart will do good things.

In John’s Gospel, still using the metaphor of fruit, but here talking about God as the gardener, Jesus tells us that the vine that is fruitful  will be pruned so that it will be even more fruitful.

Imagine. If we follow Jesus, loving our fellows and loving God, we will produce good fruit, or good deeds, or bring much love, and as we do that, God will work in us to do much more. 

He will magnify what we do.

I suppose that’s where we get that phrase in the Doxology, the statement we make at the end of every service, “ Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than  we can ask or imagine.”

We will do much more than we can ask or imagine.

We will be amazed at what we can do!!

That’s what that means!!!.

Start small with good acts and God will enable you to do more than you can imagine.

What a promise!

What a challenge!.

What an opportunity!

Seize it today!

Amen.

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Luke.

 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two^[a] others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. ² 

He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. ³ Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. ⁴ Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. ⁵ Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ ⁶ And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you. ⁷ Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. ⁸ Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; ⁹ cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’^[b] 1

But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ¹¹ ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’^[c](  (Luke 10:1-11, 16-20)

                      The Kingdom of God has come near to you.

I  wonder if you have ever had the experience of starting at a new job,  showing up, all eager and excited the first day, ready to dig in and show the new boss how well you can do, and then, when you get there, have one of the other employees tell you the company is going bankrupt?

Well something like that happened to me.

I was in my first year of seminary, eager to learn all I could, and to become a minister in the church.

We had a guest speaker from the States at our Wednesday evening Eucharist. We all liked to hear good preaching, and we were looking forward to this speaker.

Big mistake!  

He didn’t talk about the Gospel.  He didn’t give us any encouragement about the Church or about our role in it. Instead, his theme was, “The crumbling walls of the Church.”

He told us about declining attendances, about financial problems, and so on, and he told it in such a doleful way that it seemed there was no hope. 

As he spoke, you could see people sinking into their seats, as if each statement he made, hammered them further and further into the ground.

That sort of talk would  make you  wonder what you were doing there. After all, if the place is going bankrupt, then job security is out of the window, isn’t it?

Well in my own experience I have seen things differently.

I am not going to tell you that churches are full and that people are fighting to get in. Some are, of course.

I am not going to tell you that Sunday shopping has been cancelled because so many people are coming to church that the stores are empty.

I am not going to tell you that you had better reserve your seat  in the pew for next Sunday   I wish that were true.

But the fact is, the people who attend church these days do so because they really want to be here, and that is a wonderful improvement on the way it used to be. Praise God.

And  the Church is more active in more areas,  is involved in more ministries,  than it has even been.

And actually, in a lot of places the church is really growing. There is  evidence of a gathering impetus, a dynamic, that will really shape this century.

The church in Singapore is going through a fantastic renewal.

The church in Africa is growing in leaps and bounds.  Some churches are reporting growth of twenty to fifty per cent a year. I read somewhere that there are more Swahili -speaking Anglicans than English speaking.

The church,  our church,  the church of Christ,  the Anglican church, is growing and reaching out to all sorts of people.

Those new churches, I just saw, are sending missionaries over to America!

If you look around you, you see love of God and dedication everywhere. 

There are dedicated Sunday School teachers and hospital visitors.

There are many important ministries that go on, some we see, and others go on unseen,  right in our own church, all of which tell me that we are alive and well and far from being a church with crumbling walls.

And this congregation, and other, similar congregations throughout this communion can take credit for that.  

You have kept the faith.

Now if we can bring ourselves to see that Heaven, is not the only place you can call the Kingdom of God, then maybe we can accept that  the Kingdom of God is right here among us………… in fact……… is us! 

That’s right, us! You and me, and all our brothers and sisters worldwide, form the Kingdom of God here on earth. In a wonderful way, the kingdom is here, and is yet still to come in its fullness.

That man  who traveled all the way from the states to talk to us at Wycliffe was wrong.  He could have told us” The kingdom is God is near to you.”

Instead, he looked at the Church and was discouraged, because he thought it was comprised of mere people.  And he thought that mere people couldn’t possibly put right all that was wrong.

But when we talk about the church being the body of Christ, we are not talking about a dead body. We are talking about something that is alive.

It is alive because of the Spirit within it.  And if it has the Spirit within it then it cannot fail.

We sometimes get discouraged in our own lives, don’t we?   We look at our lives, and all our problems, and we despair of ever being right again. 

But we go wrong when we think we have to handle everything by ourselves.

That is where that guest preacher went wrong. He thought that no human being could put things right.

He was right, but he was also wrong.

No human being can make things right in the church, and human beings can’t  put  things right in their lives……….. without God. 

Jesus gently rebuked his followers when they came back full of excitement. He told them, ”  Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

You can’t do it without God. Don’t try it by yourself.

In fact trying to do things in the Church of Christ without His help is denying God.

Thinking that we have to rely on our own efforts to handle things in our lives  without asking His help, is denying God.

And denying God, is a sin.

We are commanded  to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength.

Now,  love and trust, love and faith  if you like, go together. If I love God then I trust Him. I have faith in Him.

And I cannot  deny Him.

Our preacher, that Wednesday night was, in effect, denying God.

Yes, nothing would be put right in the church  without God…  outside of His will……… without His sanction…….. without His blessing…….. without His Spirit!

And such a church, a church that has forgotten God, will die.

But if we want it to live, then we have to make sure He is part of our life.

Attendance in North America may be down.  That is God’s problem, not ours. Leave it with Him.

Jesus’ story about the farmer who sowed the seed tells us that we can do our best, and then leave the rest to Him.

You might say, Now, what could I do?  How could one person possibly help?  

I mean, how can my visiting a couple of people in hospital help? How can my  prayers help?  How can being warden help?  How can being a member of the altar guild, or singing in the choir, or  cooking dinner for the men’s’ group, or sitting on Parish Council – how can my little effort help the Church?

We don’t have to worry about the effectiveness of  what we do, we just have to do it. And God will take the seed we plant and multiply it a hundred-fold.

History is full of people undertaking seemingly ordinary actions, but which changed the course of history. 

On 1st July, 1857, a quiet businessman, a man alive  for God,  named Jeremiah Lanphier was appointed City Missionary to downtown New York, by the North Church of the Dutch Reformed denomination. People had moved away, the demographics had changed, and the church was suffering from a shortage of members.

Jeremiah may have wondered just where to start, how to reach people, in that downtown area. He hit on the idea of inviting people to join him in noonday prayer, once a week.  He had handbills prepared and distributed them to anyone who would take one.

The handbill said, “A day Prayer Meeting is held every Wednesday, from 12 to 1 o’clock, in the Consistory building in the rear of the North Dutch Church, corner of Fulton and William Streets (entrance from Fulton and Ann Streets). This meeting is intended to give merchants, mechanics, clerks, strangers, and businessmen generally an opportunity to stop and call upon God amid the perplexities incident to their respective avocations. It will continue for one hour; but it is also designed for those who may find it inconvenient to remain more than five or ten minutes, as well as for those who can spare the whole hour.”

The first Wednesday, Jeremiah opened the doors and anxiously waited. Minutes went by and it appeared as if no-one would come. But then at 12.30 p.m., the first person arrived, to be followed by five more. 

The following week forty people came to pray. So it was decided to hold the meeting every day rather than once a week.

Within six months in the city of New York, ten thousand businessmen gathered daily for prayer, and within two years, a million people became new members of American churches .

Jeremiah Lanphier’s first prayer meeting was the beginning of the greatest revival in New York’s history, perhaps in all of America..

One man.  With God.

Another man, known only in a distant province of the ancient Roman Empire, died a criminal’s death on a cross and two thousand years later His  Spirit still lives and millions upon millions praise His name.

God’s action in one man, Jesus of Nazareth changed the world for ever.

The Church which came about after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ came about not because of human effort alone,  but because of the Spirit of Christ working in men and women.

Contrary to what I heard that preacher say, seven years ago, the Church will  survive. Through storm, and tumult, division and strife, through whatever Satan can throw against it, the Church of Christ will endure. 

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved  and though the mountains be toppled into the depths of the sea; though its waters rage and foam, and though the mountains tremble at its tumult. The Lord of hosts is with us, The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Praise His name.     

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Luke

 Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. 

 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and  said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 

 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and  God has visited his people!” 

And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country. (Luke 7:11-17)

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A woman had lost a dear  child, a lovely little girl, and was, as you might imagine, brokenhearted. She was crazy with grief, as she sat beside her child’s deathbed.

A neighbour, taking pity on her told her of a miracle man who could raise even the dead, and suggested she go to him. Which she did.

She told the man her story, and he listened with compassion, and wept with her, and asked how he could help her. She said, “Give me back my child.”

He looked at her with pity, and said that yes, he could bring back her child, if she would go to every house in her village, and find which had not lost a loved one. If she could find a home where a loved one had not been lost, he would restore her child to life.

She went and knocked on every door, and found not one family that had not had experienced the grief that she was experiencing.

Death is a part of us all.

Isn’t it?

Jesus, we are told, was on a journey to Nain, with his disciples, and came upon a funeral procession for a young man, his mother’s only child, and since she was a widow, her only support. This boy was her treasure.

The procession may have been going on further, to the cemetery of rock tombs between Nain and the next village of Endor. That cemetery is still there.

Jesus, seeing the woman’s grief, and being filled with compassion for her, went to the bier. It was not a coffin. They were not used in the east. Very often a long wicker basket would be used for carrying the body to the grave.

Jesus reached out to the woman, reassuring her, “Do not weep,” he said.

The he touched the  bier, and the bearers stood still – what a dramatic moment – and he said, “ Young man, I say to you arise, “  and the young man sat up.

Alive!

Imagine that woman’s relief.

Imagine the effect on the mourners, those carrying the bier, the large crowd that had gathered around.

They were all amazed– wouldn’t you be?

“A great prophet had risen among us. God has  visited his people,” they said.

Now there are historical accounts which tell of ancient graves being opened, and sometimes it was obvious that that person had been buried alive. Thought to be dead, but buried alive!

This happened in parts of Europe, and often in Palestine.

The lack of proper medical training, the religious rules about burying the deceased person before a certain time had elapsed, contributed  to this.

It may have been that the young man in this story was in a catatonic trance, or coma, and thought to be dead.

Raising this young man from the dead may have been a miracle of diagnosis.

Whatever version you prefer, he was miraculously saved from death.

Miracles happen all the time.

Miracles have happened in your life. 

You may not have known it at the time, but look back and I am sure you will see moments when God touched your life, or the lives of those dear to you.

Because they are not dramatic – no choirs of angels, or bearded healers in long robes – doesn’t mean that miracles do not happen.

Then again, there are those who say when a miracle happens, it’s merely coincidence.  Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple said, that might be so, but when you pray,  coincidences happen more often.

I met a young woman once, the girl friend of a friend of mine, who had devoted ten years of her life to looking after her mother, affected with Alzheimer’s Disease.

She dressed, and washed, and cleaned, and entertained, and fed and nursed her mother for all that time until her mom died.

I asked her how had managed to do all that for so long, and she just said, “She was my mother.”

If anyone asked for a miracle there, it would be that her mother would be well.

And that would have been preferable.

But that daughter wouldn’t have traded those ten years for anything.

She felt gifted to be able to minister to her mom that way.

One little miracle was that her mom had retained her cognition, and had known her for a longer period than she would,  had she been in a nursing home.

Another little miracle was that that young woman had an understanding boss who let her work flexible hours, so she could be with her mother.

Another miracle, and she would attest to this was that she didn’t consider herself to be a particularly empathetic person. She found a well of love and empathy within herself, that if her mother had never been ill, she would not have found.

She would tell you today that she was a more whole person after that ten years than she was before.

She didn’t hear God talking to her.

She didn’t find superhuman strength – she was often exhausted.

But God was with her in that time and she accomplished more than she could ask or imagine.

As the people who saw Jesus raise that man from the dead said,

“God has visited his people.”

He visited her!

What can we do to share in such wondrous works?

Do we have to lay hands on people?

It might help.

Do we have to anoint people?

I am told that it helps greatly,

But perhaps all we have to do is to be open to feeling God working in us, and see, and remark upon, the miracles that he does in our life, and in the lives of others.

Perhaps we have to stop praying to win the lottery, and marvel at how he has provided for us.

Luke tells this story which happened in a place where Elisha had performed a similar miracle, to show us that God was in Jesus, as much as –  nay –  much more than –  he was in the ancient prophets.

That God was once again showing Himself to His people – in a man named Jesus, Son if God.

We may not have the power that was in Jesus, but we can also be part of God visiting His people, now in this time, and this era, and even in this village – and even – dare I say it, in our own family.

In fact I would say it should begin there – in our own family.

I will tell you of a miracle I personally witnessed.

I used to lead worship services at Albright Manor, Beamsville, and one of the volunteer ladies asked me to visit her husband who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had been given only a few weeks to live.

She asked me to visit him in hospital, which I did, and also when he was home.

She told me that he wouldn’t accept he was that sick and she wanted me to help him prepare to die.

That’s a hard thing to do for someone who is sure he isn’t going to die.

I did visit though, and prayed with him, even though he wasn’t a bit interested, and so I mostly talked and prayed with his wife.

She told me a lot about her family, her grown up children, and little grandchildren, and one day she confided to me that her husband, while a good father and grandfather, had been a miserable husband – my words  –  not hers. 

She said that he never had a nice word for her. In fact he constantly put her down, and talked to her in a very derogatory way.

She had gotten used to it, but she was worried about him. What would happen to his soul, after him being such a mean man to his wife all those years.

I said to her that she should talk to him about it. She should say something like, “ I know you haven’t meant to, but the way you have always spoken to me has hurt me tremendously all these years.”

The next week, she told me that she had done just that, and he had been so moved to hear that, that he cried. He asked her to forgive him. He said, ‘’You know what a mouth I have. I can’t help it.”

Not only that, but he didn’t die of pancreatic cancer. He lived through that Christmas, and for most of the next year, a good twelve months after that dread prognosis, and died of something entirely different.

And that twelve months was the happiest his wife had been in all their marriage.

Some people would say that he had been healed of pancreatic cancer, and that was the miracle.

I would demur. I say the change in him after over forty years of marriage, and the year of happiness his wife experienced was the miracle.

There is nothing to stop God visiting His people in their home, you know.

Amen.

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ According to Matthew

 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. ³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without ashepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸ Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called 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 Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. ⁶ Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. ⁷ As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ⁸ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,^[a] drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give .(Mt. 9:3-10:23)          

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Do you remember the upheaval caused by the murder of a black man, George Floyd, and others, killed  in police actions because  of their colour, their ethnicity, their lowly place in society, the world was  forced to see the injustice, and trapped feelings of a suffering people – something it had been blind to until then, and to act. 

What will it take to change the way things are in the world?

When I was a little boy, I went to visit my uncle Bob. He had a fine henhouse, and a flock of chickens roosting in it.  And this day he showed me a chicken  that he had just bought and was going to place in the hen house with the others.

I went with him and watched as he opened up the hatch, and revealed the chickens sitting on the perch, in a row, next to each other.

He leaned in and moved some of the chickens along the perch and then took the new arrival and placed it  between two others on the perch. Or I should say he tried. 

The birds closed rank and the new bird was squeezed out, and it happened again and again, no chicken was willing to give up its position  – its rank ifyou like – signified by its place on that perch. and he finally put the new bird right at the far end of the perch. The not so nice section?

The perch was plenty long enough for many hens, but those stubborn chickens didn’t want to give up their little piece of real estate.

Keep that story in mind for a minute:

My first job in Canada in 1967 was with an encyclopedia company as the office manager.  My boss was an American from St. Louis Missouri, a nice guy, big and bluff, and good natured. He went by ‘Woody.’

The subject of race came up and he told me that on one occasion, the blacks from the poor part of town in St. Louis began to march toward the white part of town, and had to cross a bridge.   He said, ” We weren’t going to allow them to cross that bridge so we got our weapons and went to stop them.

” Were they violent?” I asked.

“No,” he said, ” But we weren’t going to give them the chance.”

” Then what was the problem with them demonstrating?’

“They wanted my job!, ” he said, vehemently.

I said, ” They didn’t want your job, they just wanted an equal chance at getting a job.”

He laughed at my naivety. He didn’t see that point of view at all.

I was getting paid a hundred dollars a week, and he was getting five hundred dollars a week and in 1967 that was a lot of money. So you might think he would be a smart guy.

But when it came to race he was about as smart as uncle Bob’s chickens.

In our  contemporary version of the Gospel, we read that Jesus looked at the crowd and was moved with compassion for them. He was moved to the very depth of his being.

He was moved to compassion by  the world’s pain. He was moved to compassion for the sick. He was moved to compassion for those with no hope. 

The common people were desperately longing for God – why else wouldthey follow Jesus in such great numbers? – And the pillars of orthodox religion  of his day had nothing to offer them.

People were ruled and exploited  by the Romans.   And exploited by the religious rulers.

They were at the bottom of the rung in that society. And no hope of any relief.

They were at the end of the perch, you might say.

Does it remind you of the situation in our society today?  Of those who are at the bottom of the pecking order and are exploited, or worse still ignored, by those above?  

And are so because of their colour, their education or lack of it. Their religious dress. Their difficulty with the language.  Their uncultured accent?? Their address?

There have been conferences over the years, where national and international leaders have gotten together to try and solve the problems that exist because of  prejudice, and the realisation that having so many disenfranchised people could be dangerous for society.

I remember a promise to eradicate world poverty by –  was it 2010?  It required, among other things, massive donations of money, lifting of tariffs, help and encouragement to improve weak  economies.

The Secretary General of the UN has asked where is that help that was so generously promised? 

Precious little has been forthcoming.

Why? Because helping others means that we have to sacrifice a little of what we have. And our leaders think we can’t handle that: that we don’t want to be moved along the perch.

We feel sorry for disadvantaged people . We pray for them of course.

And prayer is good. It indicates our concern.

But you know, prayer without good works is dead.

Martin Luther had a friend who was in the same mind about Christian faith as he was. His friend was also a monk. They came to an agreement. Luther would go into the world and battle for Reformation, while the friend would stay in the monastery and uphold Luther with prayer.  So that’s what they did.

But one night, the friend had a dream. He saw a huge field of corn, as big as the world, and one solitary man was trying to reap all that corn. He saw  the reaper’s face. It was Luther.  Luther’s friend saw the truth in a flash. He was meant to be down there with him, labouring in the harvest.

As we heard in today’s Gospel, this was something that  Jesus’s disciples had to do.  Jesus was sending them out to bring in the harvest.  

The harvest was – and is –  all those untold numbers of people who needed God in their lives;  who needed healing;  who were like lost sheep.  

There are some who can do nothing else but pray, for life may have rendered them physically or financially helpless. But for most of us, prayer is not enough. 

The men chosen by Jesus to go out into the countryside, telling of the coming of the kingdom of God, were ordinary men. They had no wealth, no position, no academic background, no social advantages.

You see, Jesus isn’t looking for extra-ordinary people. He is looking for ordinary people who are willing to be used to do extra-ordinary things.

God is always looking for hands to use. God is always saying. “Whom shall I send?”

Jesus had called these twelve men to go into the world as his apostles.  They would not be representing themselves. They would  represent him.  Nor would they be bringing their own messages. Representing Jesus they  would bring his message.

I often hear people talking about their faith in a way which tells you more about them than about the Jesus they are supposed to represent.

There are religious people who will  tell you they are for or against birth control, or abortion, or gay rights, or women priests, or dancing, or kneeling, or standing for prayer, or waving their hands while they sing hymns, or long sermons, or church ritual – all the things that they like or dislike and which define them and their ‘faith’  –  but who have somehow forgotten the compassion, caring,  and loving, that is expected from apostles.  

And that’s us. Because we  are –  his apostles.  

Believe it.

As an apostle we don’t do what we want to do, we try to do  what he would do.

Like we need to be fascinated with Jesus rather than with ourselves.

God is looking out for us, so we can take our eye off that particular ball and look out for someone else, can’t we?

Several years ago, conductor Eugene Ormandy was leading the Philadelphia Orchestra.  It doesn’t matter what they were playing. Certainly not Mozart, perhaps Stravinsky. But at  any rate, he was giving all of himself to it.  He was putting energy  into it. To the degree that he dislocated his shoulder! 

Conducting!!

He dislocated his shoulder conducting an orchestra??

Gerrouttahere!

I read that and asked myself the question: Have I ever dislocated anything by working so hard for Jesus? 

He gave his life, working for me?

You know what I mean? .

I wonder what it takes.

I wonder how we get that fire of the Holy Spirit inside of us so that we just can’t stop doing stuff for our Lord;  just full of energy  trying to be like him.  

Dislocating something.

It’s got to be about motivation, do you think?  .

Fear motivates people. Some people, anyway.

I heard a story about a young man who took a shortcut through a cemetery one dark night, and fell into an open grave.

He tried to climb out, scrabbling at the sides with his hands, but couldn’t make it., He tried shouting, but no-one heard him. He decided to sit down in a corner and wait for daylight.

A little while later another person cut through the graveyard and fell into the same open grave. This man, like the first, tried to climb out, using his fingernails and toes, to try and get a grip in the soil, but slipping back.  

The first man, sitting there in the dark, heard the newcomer trying to get out, as he had, and said, “You’ll never get out of here.”

But he did!

Fear was a real motivator, there, wasn’t it/?

But fear doesn’t always work, it seems.  

Think about it: We have been threatened with Hell for centuries: devils with pitchforks, pushing us into a lake of fire ,for ever and ever. But it doesn’t seem to have made much difference to the way people live. Does it? 

People just don’t seem to fear the hereafter, as horrible as it sounds.

So we can  forget fear .

So what can motivate us?

What about compassion? 

Jesus’ heart wept for the people  who followed him.

I think when I first saw a picture of a starving child, in Biafra, decades ago,  my heart wept. I think the first time I read about women and children being deliberately killed in war, my heart wept. I think the first time I  read about families being headed by nine year-old children in Africa, because both parents had died from AIDS, my heart wept.

But there is so much of it, pictures in the papers, on television, news stories of millions threatened by starvation – the sheer numbers boggle the mind, that my heart can’t weep any more.

We can’t take it any more, and we pass by on the other side.

What is needed is a new motivation. Not the pictures of starving children used in TV ads,  but a heartfelt compassion, and a love, and a desire to bring healing.  

We need a vision of that vast harvest, and Jesus out there doing it all by himself, and a realisation that he needs each and everyone ofus out there with him.

We have received freely. We are called to give freely.

And every time we do that, we move this world closer to the day when the kingdom of God will come on earth  –  the time when His will is done here, as it is in Heaven.

Where there will be no hatred, no fear, no discrimination, just love!

Amen.