STAFF PROVISIONS
Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23)
Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
Analysis by Fred Niedner
35Then 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. 36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” 10:1Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.
2These 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; 3Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.
5These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8Cure 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, 10no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. 11Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12As you enter the house, greet it. 13If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15Truly 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. 17Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. 19When 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; 20for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 22and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23When 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.”)
From Wikimedia Commons
“Baptized into Christ’s death and raised daily with him, we have authority to overthrow their damning rules and rants.”
DIAGNOSIS: Sheep Without a Shepherd
Step 1: Initial Diagnosis (External Problem) – Troubled, Tossed About
Jesus sees the symptoms. The crowds he encounters along his way are troubled and tossed to the wolves. Nuances of the Greek words translated “harassed and helpless” (Matthew 9:36) suggest that ordinary folks Jesus observes are weary, broke, and angry – and no one cares. Somewhere Jesus has seen this before, so he offers a diagnosis. They are like sheep without a shepherd, a crowd ready for change but without a leader on the horizon who might keep them together, protect and advocate for them, give them a focus, a purpose, and maybe even a mission statement.
Step 2: Advanced Diagnosis (Internal Problem) – Every Shepherd Needs a Staff
There’s a harvest out there just waiting to be gathered, Jesus declares. He has compassion on these harried souls. He knows their troubles, and with all his heart he wants to gather them into a thriving community, but he can’t do it alone. Since the beginning of his ministry, Jesus has been gathering a staff he can train and empower for this work, although his first metaphor for their vocation was hauling in wild fish (Matthew 4:17-22) rather than gathering and tending to wooly, dispirited mammals.
The fishing crew of Peter, Andrew, James, and John has grown by now to a dozen, a right handy number for a project among Israelites. They’re ready to start. But where? How? Jesus gives them the power to thwart unclean spirits and heal all manner of sickness and disease. Then he adds a directive that jars our New Testament sensibilities. “Stay home. Gather only the scattered, lost souls of God’s chosen people, Israel,” he decrees. To put the most charitable construction on this, the home folks, at least theoretically, know their mission and role in the world – to be a God-given blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:3), a light to the world, a city set on a hill.
Step 3: Final Diagnosis (Ultimate Problem) – The Staff Always Ends Up Nailed and Broken
Only God knows how often and in what ways God’s chosen people Israel, the original staff, brought blessing to all the families of the earth in the 1,800 years between Abram and Sarai and Jesus, or in the two millennia since Jesus sent out his own staff with the charge to preach the gospel of God’s kingdom and show unclean spirits the door. We can see clearly, however, that despite the services of a few notable shepherds – David, Hezekiah, and Josiah come to mind – God was obliged to dispatch wave after wave of prophets to call Israel back to its mission, and most of them got stoned, or worse, for their efforts. More prophets of one kind or another have arisen among the generations of disciples that Jesus’ staff rounded up and called ekklesia, “the church.” They have railed like their biblical ancestors, and while many avoided stoning, they haven’t escaped being ignored.
The fact that Jesus dispatches his staff without a lick of financial backing and not even a single change of clothing suggest another level of diagnosis and a telling clue as to why the staff’s mission chronically fails. A bankroll and wardrobe provide self-sufficiency and thus insulation from those among whom we mingle. We assume we can fix anything with adequate funds, and if we fail, we have a spare getup for covering our backside or sneaking out of town when necessary. Moreover, with funding and resources come structures and rules, and the lists of rules always grow so that we can tell at certain points who deserves our compassion and healing, and who doesn’t. Clearly, as Jesus himself suggests, we must have boundaries. We can’t help everyone. There are undeserving “dogs” out there who might waste our resources. We owe them nothing. Even Torah says so.
It’s all a sure recipe for trouble. Sooner or later the boundaries will get tested, so it’s little wonder Jesus promises his staff they’ll soon enough run afoul of pretty much everyone and find themselves hated, betrayed, and nailed. Share our resources with dogs? You’re damned if you do damned if you don’t. And no matter how kind or well-spoken the sheep, among wolves they always end up on the menu. We are toast.
PROGNOSIS: A Harvest Only Embodied Love Can Gather In
Step 4: Initial Prognosis (Ultimate Solution) – The Day the Shepherd Got Nailed
Sure enough, a few chapters later in Matthew (15:22-28), Jesus and his staff come upon a dog who is obviously ineligible to receive the provisions and healing powers he’d authorized his staff to distribute. They soon learn, however, that though she wants nothing for herself, this woman has a daughter on whose behalf she begs, using the very language of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, “Lord, have mercy!”
We must leave it to wise Christology scholars to discern if Jesus could have sensed already back home in Galilee among his own kind that his heart would one day crash head-on into some of God’s rules written in the scriptures and his own staff directives. When it happened, he got busted for withholding God’s mercy, just as we all do, and he repented. He responded from his compassionate heart, not his Good Guys” Club Handbook. Jesus became crumbs brushed off the Master’s table that day out on the road between Samaria and Galilee, and his compassionate response eventually helped assure that he’d get nailed again, this time for good, the next time he took his staff up to Jerusalem. Both times, he fell with us and for us. And right there, his harvest commenced.
Step 5: Advanced Prognosis (Internal Solution) – Not Much, But Enough
Sooner or later, most folks in ministry of one kind or another get nailed in the same way Jesus did because he’s sent us into impossible situations without funds or escape routes. In hospital rooms, over hospice beds, in courtrooms where only the judge gets a gavel, and standing with broken people who hate each other with an intensity only lovers can manage, we find ourselves completely without resources to fix or even alleviate what’s happening. But our presence there matters. No matter what our neighbors have suffered, we are Christ’s light in the darkness. By faith alone, we find assurance that we are the compassionate Christ’s presence in the room or on the street where sheep without a shepherd who have nowhere else to sit, except with us, have landed. We have faith, too, that we are enough. We’re no more than crumbs from the Master’s table, but like manna, these crumbs prove sufficient for the day. They embody the bread of life.
Step 6: Final Prognosis (External Solution) – Chasing Demons, Banishing Uncleanness
The power upon which demons and unclean spirits depend resides in our own suspicion or belief that their exclusionary tactics and the rules by which they push the weak and lonely, and sometimes even the strong and brave, into hells of isolation, shame, and unworthiness have some genuine legitimacy and authority. Baptized into Christ’s death and raised daily with him, we have authority to overthrow their damning rules and rants. We need merely ignore them, even laugh at them. After all, we have died. We’ve been to hell – with him. So now, with touch, mercy, listening, forgiving, and Christ’s promise that nothing can separate us from him and his flock, we assault the gates of hell wherever they appear simply by giving freely what we freely received – our lives, vessels of God’s mercy embodied in Christ’s flesh and blood.
