Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
The festival or “Christ” half of the Church Year is over, and today is the first of many non-festival Sundays after Pentecost, which largely make up the non-festival or “Church” half of the Church Year, a long season with paraments and such that are green, for the color’s association with life and growth. Appropriately enough then, in today’s Gospel Reading, we hear our Lord Jesus Christ, moved by compassion generally typical of God alone, describe the harvest as plentiful but the laborers as few, and we hear Him commission twelve apostles and speak about their future persecution. For the next few minutes let us direct our consideration of today’s Gospel Reading towards the theme “Jesus’s compassion on us leads to laborers”.
As we heard, Jesus had been going throughout all the cities and villages, teaching, preaching, and healing. When Jesus saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd—an apt Old Testament description, for the Jewish leaders did not shepherd the people faithfully, only verses earlier, for example, the Jewish leaders falsely claimed that Jesus cast out demons by the prince of demons (Matthew 9:34). Humanly‑speaking, Jesus could only reach so many, of course, so, as He told His larger‑group of disciples that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, He commanded them to pray earnestly to the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. And, as if answering such earnest prayers, having called to Himself His Twelve disciples, He gave them authority so that they could do what He had been doing—in that regard, their mission, and the mission of the Church today, is the same. Jesus sent the Twelve as apostles, having commanded them, for this trip at least, not to go among the Gentiles or Samaritans but rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, as uniquely reported by the Divinely‑inspired St. Matthew, who also later reports Jesus’ broadening out to “all nations” His sending of His apostles (Matthew 28:19). The apostles had received as a gift, and so Jesus said that they were to give as a gift. Yet, they also were not to take considerable provisions, for, Jesus said, the laborer deserves His food (or, “wages”). Jesus indicated that the apostles would be welcomed in some cases and rejected in other cases. Worthy households—those that received them, heard their words, and provided for them—received peace, but unworthy households—those that did not receive them, hear their words, and provide for them—received a sign of their broken fellowship and would have a worse experience on the Day of Judgment than Sodom and Gomorrah, on which cities and on whose land the Lord had rained sulfur and fire out of heaven (Genesis 19:24). Jesus said that His apostles would be persecuted for His sake and end up bearing witness to governors and kings and the Gentiles but were not to be anxious about how they were to speak or what they were to say, for the Holy Spirit would be speaking through them.
Now, in today’s Psalm (Psalm 100; antiphon: v.5), we confessed that we are the Lord’s people and the sheep of His pasture. Like the crowds of Jesus’ day in today’s Gospel Reading, we also in some sense are harassed and helpless, victims of evil spiritual forces around us that are beyond our control, in part due to the failure of spiritual leaders, but nonetheless still ourselves sinful and responsible for our sin (Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 9:36, p.495). I may be a laborer who sometimes fails to trust God to provide for me through you, and you may be people who sometimes fail to be His means of providing for me as you could. And, our congregation certainly knows of households that do not receive me or listen to the Word of God that I speak. As we heard in today’s Epistle (Romans 5:6-15), sin and death may have come into the world through one man, but death spread to all people, because all people sinned.
Yet, God had and has compassion on us all! As the Epistle went on to say, if many died through Adam’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of Jesus Christ abounded for many. God showed His love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We are justified by His blood, and we are saved from His righteous wrath over our sin by His life. As John the Baptizer before Jesus preached (Matthew 3:2) and as Jesus Himself preached (Matthew 4:17), so Jesus sent His apostles and also sends their successors to preach: Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand (confer Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 9:36-10:4 p.500 n.16, and ad loc Matthew 10:7-8 p.509 n.13). When we repent, then God forgives us. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake. Jesus Himself first experienced the kind of persecution His apostles would experience later: Jesus was delivered over to the Sanhedrin by Judas and flogged; He was dragged before a governor and a king to bear witness to the truth. But, Jesus suffered all of that and even death on the cross for us and for our salvation. As God through Moses in today’s Old Testament described His delivering the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt (Exodus 19:2-8), so God has delivered us from our slavery to sin on eagles’ wings. As we prayed Him to do in the Collect of the Day, God grants us faith to believe His promises so that we may receive eternal salvation.
We receive that eternal salvation through God’s means of grace, His Word preached and His Sacraments administered by the successors to the apostles whom Jesus calls and sends through His Church. “Jesus’s compassion on us leads to laborers”! Whether we call them “laborers in the harvest” or “shepherds of the sheep”—the Latin word for “shepherd” gives us our English word “pastor”—they are the ones who, by the Holy Spirit’s enabling, do today as first Jesus and then His apostles did then, namely, preach the Gospel and perform life‑changing miracles: effecting our birth from above in the waters of Holy Baptism, forgiving the sins that we know and feel in our hearts in Holy Absolution, and giving us life by way of bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us in Holy Communion.
So born, forgiven, and granted life, we are as today’s Old Testament described us: a treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. We each confess God’s salvation according to our respective vocations. Not everyone is called and sent as Jesus’s apostles were and their successors are, but you can do such things as we will sing of in today’s Closing Hymn (Lutheran Service Book 826:2-3): you can tell the love of Jesus, you can say He died for all; you can lead the little children to the Savior’s waiting arms; and with your prayers and with your bounties you can figuratively hold up the prophet’s hands. As one commentator put it, pastors should receive adequate support from those who hear their words and believe them; it is not just a commonsense, human arrangement but a command from the Lord of the Church (Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 10:5-15, p.513). Regardless of how we confess Him, we certainly should expect the same mixed response that Jesus’s apostles got: being welcomed in some cases and rejected in other cases. Not all, as it were, will be harvested, gathered in! And, we should also expect that that rejection will lead to persecution for Jesus’s sake.
At the time of today’s Gospel Reading, in this “green” season of the Church Year, and until the Day of Judgment, “Jesus’s compassion on us leads to laborers”. His compassion is a motive for the mission (confer Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc Matthew 9:35-10:42, p.24). As Jesus said, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. So, we pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. With daily repentance and faith, we live in His forgiveness of sins for our failure in that and all other regards. And, though not all are harvested in, we have peace and joy, and we give thanks, as we did in today’s Psalm, that the Lord is good; His steadfast love (His “mercy”) endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +