11th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Cycle A 22-23

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Exodus 19:2-6a | Romans 5:6-11 | Matthew 9:36—10:8

Oh God, strength of those who hope in you, graciously hear our pleas, and since without you mortal frailty can do nothing, grant us always the help of your grace that, in following your commands, we may please you by our resolve and our deeds.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever, amen.

Somehow I’m struck today with the idea that I’ve been looking at these stories over and over and over again, 56 years of preaching and teaching from really a very small part of what the Bible is all about, in terms of the readings that are chosen for the liturgy, but one thing it’s consistently called to my mind is the way in which this story evolves slowly.  And that slow evolution that we see in the relationship between God and his people is a very, very good way of understanding our personal relationship with him in our own personal lifespan.  In the beginning, it’s clear that God needed to speak to his people.  He needed connection, and so he took them out of a place that they’d got themselves into because of their human nature.  It’s pretty clear that we, before we kind of figure the world out, we get into a lot of trouble, because we don’t really see the whole picture.  And so God is slowly revealing to human beings the relationship that he has with us and begins, first and foremost, by the simple invitation on his part that he wants a relationship with human beings, and he wants it to be personal, and he wants to reveal himself to them.  And so you see him doing the thing that is basically an archetype for the whole story of our relationship with God.  He takes us from a place of slavery, bondage, not being able to do what we want, not being able to become who we need to be, and says, “I want to tell you that you are special to me.  This group of you, I want to start with a small community, and you are special.  And I’m going to take care of you.  I just want you to come with me, away from where you are into something brand new.”  

So the story begins, and then as you see it unfold, you realize that, in the process, God took them to a place where they were asked to perform for him.  They had to follow his rules and regulations.  If they did that, he would stay with them.  If not, he would leave them, but then they were still helpless.  As the next reading of Romans starts out, in their helplessness of being able to follow what they were supposed to do for fear of punishment was never enough, so they found themselves still struggling.  So there had to be something more given to them, and that was called redemption, because the sin that’s in us is always isolating and separating us.  And so he said, “I’ve got to do something to break down this separation that people feel with me, because they fail, and they can’t seem to keep my commandments.  So I will do something.  I will enter into their life and radically change the whole system.  They no longer have to earn anything from me.  I have a covenant with them I will never ever break.”  And then when Jesus comes, the fulness is a message, and he’s looking at the crowds, and he says, “My heart is moved,” because they’re still troubled and abandoned.  That’s so much an experience that most of us have even now, today.  The world is troubling, and we don’t know that there’s anything there for us that’s going to take care of us and protect us.  We feel like we’re abandoned by systems that were there to protect us and keep us safe, and so we’re lost.  Then he says something so clearly.  He said, “I am going to send people out into your midst, because I’ve discovered that I can’t save you at a distance.  I have to come in the form of a human being.”  And that’s what he did when he became the Savior of the world, but he did that as a way of saying, “This is what I need you to be for me.  I cannot and will not and do not intend to save these people directly just through me but through me in you.  And so I have to tell you that I’m giving you the same power that you saw in Jesus.”  And when you think about it, you say, “Well, I haven’t felt that power that much.  Come on.  I still struggle with things, and I can’t make things perfect.”  But no, what he’s simply saying is, “Look, I’m sending you these disciples.  This is the way I’m going to work from now on.  I’m going to send people to you who are different, who have an ability to do things.”  When he describes the things that they’re asked to do, it’s amazing when he asks those to pay attention to what he’s going to give to people.  It’s too much in a way.  He says, “You will open the eyes of the blind. You’ll help people be free of demons.  You’ll raise people from the dead.  You’ll heal every disease.”  Do you know anybody that’s doing that right now?  Yeah, I think I do.  Maybe not in that direct way and maybe not in that literal way, but raising people from the dead is not necessarily different than lifting someone out of a dark, deep depression.  And opening people’s eyes is not anything more, maybe, than being a model for them so they can see who they could be that they might have what we have, because they see it in us as something attractive, less troubled, less abandoned.  All kinds of ways he’s doing this work, and that’s the task, to not only be open to the way in which God works through the people around us but also how he works in the circumstances around us, in the direction we see the world going.  

If you really have a broader sense of history than just right here and now, you’ll realize that every dark, horrible time creates something new and exciting and different.  Change is violent, in a sense.  It’s difficult and hard on us.  When we see people around us giving in to that spirit of abandonment and troubled and anxious and dark, we are crying out, in a sense, for others around us to reach us and speak to us and bring us something that we need.  It’s believing in a plan, which is a covenant plan, not a contractual plan.  He is saying, “No matter what you do, no matter how far you go, I’m going to work as hard as I can,” and that is a lot to say, when God says as hard as he can, “In the lives of other people to touch you and free you and work with you.”  That’s both exciting, when you think about the day-to-day things you’re experiencing, not only from the perspective of what you might be receiving, but from an even more exciting perspective of what you might be giving.  And do you think you have that power in you, from you, in you, alone in you?  No, that’s where we get bogged down.  We’re not used to allowing power to work through us without it being connected to us.  Our egos are just too quick to grab hold of that and say, “Wow, I can do anything.”  We can’t do anything, but we can do everything we need to do if God is in us.  And that’s always the heart of this message of God speaking to his people, from the very beginning of the call of Abraham until this very moment.  He’s been working on this relationship with us where we’re co-workers in the vineyard, and we’re making things happen.  And if you look at the broader picture, we are better off now than we’ve ever been, even though there’s a lot of division and a lot of problems.  Problems are not the problem.  Problems are the solution, because in working through them, that’s when God shows himself more powerfully than in any other time.  Good times are wonderful.  Peaceful times are absolutely essential.  Happiness is core need, but struggle is equally essential, equally important, and it’s the meat of this work we have as spiritual creatures in this world.  It’s the drink.  It’s the food.  It’s him in us.  That’s the key, and without it, we stay abandoned and hopeless.  Amen.

Father, help us to remember always that your plan for us is not so much that we grow in a personal perfection but rather we enter more fully into the participation of you saving the world.  Bless us with this hope.  Bless us with this kind of sense that there is meaning in all that we do, and we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.