Second Sunday after Pentecost

Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6A)

June 14, 2020

Text: Matt. 9:35-10:20

            Jesus gives you pastors because He loves you.  He provides His sheep with shepherds.  The word “pastor” means “shepherd.”  Jesus is, of course, the Chief Pastor, the Good Shepherd.  And it is out of compassion for you that He Himself comes to you with His healing and life-giving Gospel, and sends men who are trained in the Lord’s Word and examined, called by the same Lord through His Church, and ordained by the laying on of hands by other pastors, who thus recognize the pastoral candidate as a fellow minister of the Gospel and lay the yoke of this Office upon him.

            As Jesus went through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom and healing every disease and affliction, He saw the crowds, the masses of sinful humanity, bowed and broken, dying and dead, helpless and without shepherds.  For the Pharisees were unfaithful shepherds, laying burdens on the sheep they themselves would not bear, filling their own pockets and their own bellies.  The Sadducees, chief priests and keepers of the sublime Temple liturgy, embraced their power and stood on ceremony, but could not even be considered believers, denying miracles and angels, heaven and the resurrection of the dead! 

            Is the situation any different today?  In a time and in a nation that has effectively denied God and His Christ, who serves as shepherds?  The rich and famous?  The media?  The trendsetters and arbiters of what is politically correct and sufficiently woke?  Politicians?  How is that working out for you in this time of crisis?  As hatred boils and cities burn, pestilence threatens and blood flows in the streets, we may even long for the good old days of Pharisees and Sadducees.  Jesus sees that we are sheep without a shepherd, bowed and broken, dying, dead, and utterly helpless, and He has compassion.  The Greek word for “compassion” literally means He suffers it in His guts.  You could say it is a gut-wrenching sight when Jesus sees us in mortal danger under the weight of our sins.  Not unlike that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you watch the evening news these days.  Only Jesus bears the weight of compassion for the whole world. 

            So, He says, the time is ripe.  The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  The sheep need shepherds.  Pray that the Lord of the harvest would send out workers into His harvest field.  Pray that the Chief Shepherd would send out shepherds for His sheep.  Pray that the Chief Pastor would send pastors.  And before the people can even utter a breath of the prayer, Jesus answers the petition.  He calls twelve of His disciples and authorizes them as Apostles.  We are all disciples, all of us who are Christians, who follow Jesus’ discipline.  But we are not all Apostles.  An Apostle is one officially sent, authorized to speak and to act with all the authority of the one who sent him, in the matter for which he is sent.  So when an Apostle, sent by Jesus to do what Jesus does, proclaims the Kingdom of Heaven, heals the sick, raises the dead, cleanses lepers, casts out demons, pronounces and dispenses the peace of God… It is really Jesus Himself who does it. 

            Now, this was just a trial run for the Apostles.  You might even say, it was their vicarage.  They were sent out two-by-two, an ecclesiastical buddy system.  And for now, for their training, they were to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Later, their mission would extend to all nations, as we heard in our Holy Gospel last week.  But for now, they keep it local.  They are not to do it for money.  But don’t let our treasurer get any ideas.  The point is, it would be awfully tempting for someone with the extraordinary gift of healing to charge the big bucks for his services.  Apostles are not to be in it for the money, and neither are pastors today.  But they are to rely on the provision of those they serve, “for the laborer deserves his food” (Matt. 10:10; ESV).  I like how Paul says it, quoting Moses: “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain” (1 Cor. 9:9; 1 Tim. 5:18; Deut. 25:4).  So biblically, you can call your pastor an ox, but you have to make sure he can feed his family. 

            Pastors are not Apostles.  There were originally twelve Apostles, named this morning in our Holy Gospel.  When Judas abandoned his office to go to his own place, Matthias was appointed by lot.  Strict qualifications for an Apostle.  He had to be an eye-witness of Jesus’ ministry from John’s Baptism all the way to the Lord’s Ascension into heaven, and he had to have seen the risen Lord Jesus with his own eyes.  You can read all about it in Acts Chapter 1.  And then, of course, Paul is a special case.  You know, he may have been a witness of our Lord’s earthly ministry from the perspective of the opposition.  We know he was a student of Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem.  But even if he wasn’t among the Pharisees constantly antagonizing Jesus, he certainly saw the risen Lord with his own eyes in his conversion on the road to Damascus, and subsequently as the Lord Jesus Himself taught the Apostle, probably during the three years Paul spent in the wilderness, and in his great visions of heaven.

            I must confess that, though I long for that Day, I have not yet, with my own earthly eyes, beheld our risen Lord.  And neither have my brothers in Office.  We are not Apostles.  We are of the Office that carries on the apostolic ministry, those appointed by the Apostles in every place, ordained by the laying on of hands, to shepherd the flock of God, to be Jesus’ undershepherds in the Christian congregations. 

            What is the Office of the Pastoral Ministry?  What is the purpose of a pastor?  What is he to do?  He is not an independent contractor.  He doesn’t get to make it up as he goes.  He is a man under authority.  You might even say, as the Scriptures do, that he is a slave… of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is bound.  He is yoked… like an ox.  That is what the stole and the chasuble mean.  He bears the authority of Another, of Jesus, the Chief Pastor of our souls.  And the only tool of this authority is the Word of the Chief Pastor, the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God.  He is given to dispense this Word and the saving benefits this Word conveys in preaching and pastoral care, in Baptism and Absolution, and the Holy Supper.  These are the means by which Jesus Himself, who in His great compassion, died on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, and who is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to be your life, gives you this salvation.  So the pastor is to be about that task.  In all that he does, he is to preach Jesus Christ, crucified for sinners, risen for sinners, crucified and risen for you.  He is to forgive your sins in the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is to declare to you the whole counsel of God.  Yes, even the stuff you don’t like and don’t want to hear.  He is to be with you and bring God’s Word to bear on all your joys and sorrows.  He is to visit the sick, the suffering, the grieving, the dying.  He is to care for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the prisoner.  He is to baptize, to teach, to pray, to rebuke, to console, to admonish sinners in their sins, to bind up the brokenhearted with the balm of the Gospel, to steward the mysteries of God, to feed the sheep with the Body and Blood of Jesus… and so to dispense the very life of Jesus, to tend one and all under the authority of the One who, in great, gut-wrenching compassion for you, comes Himself among you to do these things through the mouths and hands of His servants.  In hearing your pastor, you hear Jesus Christ.  In receiving the ministry of your pastor, you receive the ministry of Jesus Christ.  Christ Himself deals with you in the dealing of your pastor.  He is to speak God’s life-giving truth, clearly and boldly, to the world and for your sake, in the very face of death.  And he is to suffer all, even death in the line of duty, in fulfilling this Office, if that should be the Lord’s will.  And in this way, the Kingdom of God is proclaimed, and you are healed of your sins and of your death.  By Jesus, who speaks, who enlivens, who heals in His life-giving Word.

            Now, what of your vocations?  To say these things of the pastoral office is in no way to demean your dignity as a royal priest of God, who also serves as the mouth and hands of Christ in the world.  Nor does it release you from your own responsibility to speak the Gospel to your family, your friends, your neighbors, your community, in Christian confession.  Confess Christ, and do so boldly and joyfully.  And suffer, if it be God’s will.  That is your priestly sacrifice.  It is simply to say there is a difference in vocation, in calling from God.  The callings are equal, but they are distinct.  Among Christians, we are all disciples, but we are not all Apostles.  We are all priests, but we are not all pastors.  If every sheep is a shepherd, chaos will result.  We are seeing something similar before our very eyes at this moment with regard to policing… If there are no police and everyone does what is right in his own eyes, the cities will burn and the streets will run red.  That is not God’s will for you.  Chaos and wanton destruction are from the evil one. 

            But you have a high and holy calling, especially in this moment.  You are to speak the Word of Christ to all who will listen.  And you are to love and serve your neighbor, and so be a peacemaker.  You are to faithfully attend your station in life.  Are you a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker?  Are you a sibling, a nephew, a niece, an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent?  Are you a citizen, a Church member, a friend, a mentor, a confidante?  What has God given you to do in this moment?  Teach?  Learn?  Feed?  Clothe?  Transport?  Clean?  Manufacture?  Repair?  Some combination of any or all of those things and more.  Do them faithfully, for your neighbor, in love, as for Christ.  Take care of your family.  Be faithful to your spouse.  Be chaste if you are single.  Pray… That is one of your most sacred priestly responsibilities.  And serve your Church.  Give an offering.  Yes, pay your pastor.  Give to the poor.  Get busy and help your neighbor out with what he needs.  The world cannot do without these vocations, and God has placed you here and now to do them on His behalf.  When we pit pastor and laity against one another, as so many do in the Church, we demean both, and the whole Church suffers.  May it never be so among us.  Both are holy callings.  Both are given by God.  Both are needed by the world.  And we, pastors and laity, need each other. 

            God gives pastors because He loves you.  So pray the Lord to send more workers.  For you, for your children, for your grandchildren, for sinners throughout the world.  Come to Church.  Revel in the Lord’s gifts and rest in His salvation.  Be His sheep.  He is your Shepherd.  In His great compassion, He has brought you to this Church and given you this pastor, with all his warts and weaknesses, sins and failings.  But with the Lord’s own authority to declare to you: The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, here and now in Jesus.  And though I don’t have the extraordinary gift of physical healing, in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I give you the greater healing: I forgive you all your sins.  I preach to you the Gospel that breathes life at this very moment into your soul.  And I declare to you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Jesus will raise you, bodily, healed and whole, on that Day.  And at that preaching, the demons are cast out and the unclean spirits must flee.  It is a full-on exorcism this day.  You are not shepherdless.  You belong to Jesus Christ.  You are sheep of the Good Shepherd.  He suffers it in His guts for you. 

            Okay, the ox has tread long enough for the moment.  To the Table we go.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.