Just Discipleship
[A reading of Matthew 9:35–10:23. Interpretations from Warren Carter and Stanley Hauerwas]
Some days I present a story, an anecdote, and show how it aligns with the text. Other days I preach mainly about a current event and show what scripture says about it. Today it is about digging into and picking apart one text. I will do my best to show how it applies, especially to the happenings of today, but there is not going to be a single theme to this teaching.
Let’s dig in. Jesus was traveling from town to town, village to village. He met the needs of the people in those places. He taught in the religious centers, the synagogues, which would be like him teaching in churches today, if he was her in person. It says he cured every disease and sickness. Cure is a keyword. It did not say he eased their pain or merely comforted the sick, but cured them. Healed them.
There is the literal and figurative interpretation to this. I do believe it meant, that in a day where modern medicine did not exist, he did the miraculous and removed diseases from people where cures were not available. Think of leprosy. All they could do was be quarantined for life and because of that, they were reduced to begging. The figurative meaning is the curing of societal diseases. Verse 36 states that he had compassion on the people because they were harassed and helpless. They were sheep without a shepherd.
Helpless: they were helpless to imperial violence. They were beaten down: oppressed, downtrodden, beaten up, crushed. Theologian Warren Carter states the following
The historical and literary contexts indicate Rome and the religious elite as those who inflict social, economic, political, and religious abuse with misrule.
Sheep without a shepherd: God’s people are sheep and they were without a good shepherd. The shepherds they had were the unfaithful leaders. This references Ezekiel.
As I have mentioned in the past, it is crucial that we Christians do not read this as “the Jews were unfaithful leaders, good thing us Christians came in.” No, this was an insider conversation to Jews among Jews. We as Christians must hear the message as a reminder to be aware and critical of our own leadership.
So, the message is that Jesus had compassion on them and cured them of these diseases. The diseases were literal diseases as well as the oppression from Rome and from the leaders within their own faith who are taking advantage of them for their own gain. It is very likely in this time, readers and hearers of this story would hear both meanings.
Harvest plentiful, laborers few: These are convicting words about the church today. This was the case then and still is. There is plenty of work to do, but who is willing to do it?
There is an interesting parallel here. Jesus sends 12 apostles. Israel had 12 tribes. This shows the congruence of the gospel to the Hebrew texts.
Jesus gave them the power to do what he did. Jesus asks his disciples to follow him. That means to do the same work. That was not a one time ask. He asks us to do the same, to cure every disease and sickness. I’m not one to doubt the power of the supernatural. God can do anything through anyone, but most of us will not likely literally heal someone of a medical ailment. Through God, if it’s God’s will, we could, but these occurrences seem quite rare. I believe this often means to meet people’s needs through the tools we have. When it comes to disease, it means giving people access to healthcare. It also means doing our part to fix society’s ailments.
What is fascinating right now, in light of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and just Friday in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks, who was running away from police when shot and killed from behind, unlike Rodney King, unlike Tamir Rice (the 12 year old with a toy gun in a playground), unlike Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Philandro Castile, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Kieth Lamont Scott, Joseph Mann, Jonathan Ferrell, Rekia Boyd, unlike Aiyana Jones, Laqun McDonald, Terence Crutcher, Alfred Olango and this barely scratches the surface. Unlike the responses to all of these wrongful deaths of people that would fit Jesus’ description of harassed and helpless, this current response to Floyd, Taylor, and Arbery, after the Floyd’s death, is the largest and most diverse civil rights uprising in our country’s history. It is in all fifty states and made up of people of all races and creeds. In fact, these uprisings are happening beyond our borders to other parts of the world.
Racism, classism, and violence in the hands of people with too great of power has been a disease that has existed as long as humanity has existed, of course in different forms in different times and places. Part of being Jesus’ disciples is doing this miraculous work of healing, even in small steps, like anti-racist education and implementing what we learn into daily habits.
There was a demonstration in McCall on Thursday. I was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelming support by passerbys and onlookers. Of course there were a few thumbs down, middle fingers, the truck blowing smoke, and the lone Nazi salute, but here in rural Idaho, one of the least racially diverse places in the country, there was great support.
The harvest is plenty but the workers are few. Jesus gave his disciples, thus all of us, the power and authority to cure and heal diseases. This is just one form and example. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas notes about Judas in how Matthew tells the story of Jesus indicates that “knowing the story” is not sufficient to make one a faithful disciple. We must learn how we, like the disciples, would be tempted to betray Jesus and from that lesson discover what it means to be a faithful church. We betray Jesus when we protect our comfort and preferences over serving others.
Also, the apostles are a group. In the parallel story in Mark, he sent them out in pairs. As Hauerwas states, Christianity is not a philosophy that can be independently learned. If so, “we wouldn’t need apostles.” This is a group thing and we learn, stay the course, and correct the course through community.
Here we get the instructions for the journey. First, he says to only go to Jewish towns and tell them the Kingdom of God has come near. What does that look like? Healing. Freeing the oppressed. Jubilee. The world of an upside-down power structure as spoken through the prophets. This would not look like Israel, or any other nation claiming God’s providence, dominating through violence.
This going to Israel first is not because Jesus is not concerned about outsiders, rather, he is first concerned about his own house. This is an insider conversation. If this was now, Jesus would say go to the Christians only. To put this in context, when discussing racial violence, one of the popular refrains is “what about violence within the black community,” or “what about drug abuse within the reservations” etc. We, as white Christians need to first clean up our own homes before addressing others about their homes. This goes along with the not trying to remove the speck in our neighbor’s eye before removing the log in our own eye. Besides, Jesus does eventually send the disciples beyond Israel, beyond the Jews. That is what happens in the book of Acts. This is about starting locally first and healing our own internal sicknesses. We won’t be effective if we are internally unwell. Lastly, putting Israel first also connects with God’s promise through Abraham in Genesis. God promised to Abraham, that through him and his descendants, the Jews, that the world would be blessed. So, he sent them first to the Jews.
In his instructions, he said to Give and receive without payment. This keeps the work honest. Jesus is not about classism. There is to be no profiting like those shyster pastors on TV and some mega-churches. Laborers deserve a wage to sustain, in the case of this story, the provision of the townspeople they stay with, but no profiting off the work. The work cannot be valued monetarily. As Hauerwas put it, this is to travel light:
Nothing to offer but Jesus. . .Too often concern for the status of the church tempts some to employ desperate measures to ensure that the church will remain socially significant or art least have a majority of the population.
I know we have often asked, how can we get more people in church, and this is asked with good intentions, but we must remember, it’s about giving people Jesus, not about us. Jesus says to offer the people peace. Peacemakers are not of Pax Romana, but real peace and justice. This is offering them freedom from oppression, jubilee. Not just a nice greeting.
Behold, I send you out as sheep amongst the wolves. This work is dangerous! I was chatting with ma and pa the other day about working with some of the more unusual people and she said, be careful, you could get killed. We also had similar conversations about going to some of the rallies. Yes. I could. We can die from this work. But as a previous pastor I worked for stated many times, “there’s worse things than death!” As Matthew pointed out earlier in this story, we could follow Judas and betray Jesus. That is worse than death.
Jesus followed this statement though with the idea of being shrewd. Be as wise as serpents, but as innocent as doves. Learn from these people that do sketchy things, just don’t compromise your morals! The rest of this passage just further brings home the danger in doing God’s work. People with comfort don’t want to give up comfort. People with wealth don’t want to give up wealth. People with power don’t want to give up power.
Confronting all of those will bring danger. The sad truth, it is often the religious that can be the most dangerous. It was people of Jesus’ own religion, who while being persecuted by Rome, sold out to Rome to kill Jesus because he came after their status, comfort, power, and in some cases money. Just because someone claims to be saved by Jesus, does not mean they couldn’t be another Judas. In fact, we all could be.
I’ll leave you with a quick 4 point summary from Carter, but in my words about this passage:
1: In Jesus’ mission through his disciples, there is no escaping from society, nor accepting things as they are. The status quo is completely against the Kingdom of God.
2: This is not optional, but part of what it means to be a Christian
3: This is communal. We cannot say our faith is private and be in line with Jesus’ mission
4: God’s mercy confronts empire, all empires, from Babylon, to Rome, the USA, the EU, China, and beyond.
Sources for this interpretation
- Warren Carter: Matthew and the Margins
- Stanley Hauerwas: Matthew
