Pentecost 3 – 2023
Matthew 9:35-10:8
Marian Free
In the name of God whose faith in us is beyond our imagining. Amen.
How and for what do you pray? What do you expect from your prayers? Are you sometimes completely overwhelmed by the needs of the world? Do you sometimes feel that you are inadequate for the task – that even if you did pray hard enough there would not be enough people who cared enough to alleviate suffering? Do you worry that no matter how much you pray some situations simply remain the same? Do you wonder why God does not appear to act?
At the moment many of our prayers are focussed on the peoples of the Ukraine and Sudan, but there are conflicts all over the world that equally deserve our attention and our prayers. When I wonder did you or your church community last pray for the Khmer, the people of Syria or of the Congo or the countless other places still at war? We are rightly focussed on refugees who have fled recent conflicts and especially those who risk drowning at sea, but that means we tend to forget that there are thousands who have lived in refugee camps their entire lives or that in Palestine there are generations of families who have lived in camps. It is the same situation with victims of natural disasters – we simply cannot pray for everyone impacted by fire, flood, cyclone, and our memories tend to focus on more recent events. In 2020, COVID took our attention away from those who had lost everything in the bush fires of January that year and the floods in Northern NSW and elsewhere are, to many of us a distant memory – and yet there are hundreds, if not thousands of people (in this nation alone) who are still trying to rebuild homes and lives.
At the moment those who are impacted by the increased cost of living, rising interest rates and the rental crisis are front and centre in the minds of many of us and yet we are limited in what we can actually do. Our contribution to a Parish Pantry or other charities will not alleviate the pain for one family even for one day, and few of us can afford to purchase accommodation that could be made available for the homeless.
In the face of such mind-numbing issues, it is tempting to wish that God would wave a magic wand, end wars and alleviate poverty and suffering in the world. Yet if that were how God solved problems there would be no need to pray. God would already have responded. Why, in the face of so much anguish does God appear to stand idly by? The answer of course is complex, but God’s apparent inaction reflects God’s faith in us and God’s longing for us to be a part of the solution.
That this is how God responds is reflected in this morning’s gospel, especially in verses 36-38: ‘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.”’
First century Palestine had been under Roman occupation for decades. Land that once fed generations of families had been taken by the occupiers and given as a reward to Caesar’s soldiers. Everything was taxed – the roads, the crops, the right to fish. The church authorities were either Roman appointments or were people who had cow towed to the Romans. As a consequence, the vast majority of the population felt harassed, oppressed and utterly powerless to effect change.
Faced with the suffering and helplessness of the people, Jesus seems to be overwhelmed. You can almost hear him sigh with despair as he observes that they are like sheep without a shepherd. He is filled with compassion. The Greek word “splagnizothai” (compassion) refers to an emotion felt deep within one’s belly, with one’s whole self. In other words, Jesus’ inner being was overwhelmed with concern – but, like God, Jesus doesn’t wave a magic wand. Indeed, he doesn’t even enlist God’s assistance. Instead, what Jesus does is to pray that there might be enough will in enough people to bring about change.
The need is clear, the solution is not to miraculously make it go away but to send people to fill the need – people of compassion – to heal, to console, to challenge unjust structures, to work for peace.
Seen another way, Jesus prays not for the world to change, but for us to change. As long as there are greedy, selfish, power-hungry people in the world there will be wars, injustice, and inequity. As long as people put themselves first we will continue to rape the planet, change the weather patterns, and induce climate change. As long we continue to believe that it is someone else’s (God’s) problem nothing will change.
Mother Teresa said: “I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.
In the end, prayer should change us. It should open us to the ways in which we contribute to the ills of the world; reveal to us our selfishness and lack of action; and open us to the Spirit of God working within us.
We are called to be God’s co-conspirators in changing the world for the better.
We are the labourers for whom Jesus prays. Only when we change can we begin to change the world.
Swallowsrest 