Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23) Commentary

Our passage this week begins with Jesus feeling significant compassion for the crowds surrounding him. He was meeting a lot of them, going with his disciples from city to village and at every turn he encounters need after need. Matthew describes him as continuously proclaiming the good news and curing every disease and every sickness: that every is repeated for emphasis!

But this is not what Matthew connects Jesus’s compassion with; instead, Matthew says that Jesus feels compassion because the people seemed to him to be like sheep without a shepherd, being regularly harassed, helpless. The way it appears in the Greek, as passive participles in the perfect tense, emphasises how bad and destructive the impact has been. They are made to be helpless, harassed to the point that it is impacting not only their present, but also their future well-being. This is not the way it’s supposed to be! This is not God’s design for the people of God—let alone for humanity.

This failure goes far beyond a lack of good spiritual leadership among them. This failure reflects the heart of the people: the harvest for compassion is large, but the workers committed to it are few. Yes, leadership matters, but we are all called to be shepherds of Christ. Jesus looks around at his disciples and tells them to pray for a growth in willingness to become caregivers, then he sends them out as the answer to the prayer.

And perhaps because they too need to grow into this work of compassion, Jesus sends them first to others like them, others it might be easier to serve. These male Jews will begin with the house of Israel, but we know that by the end of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus will have called upon and added women and Gentiles—including Samaritans—to his call.

They are to do the things they have been watching Jesus do. Matthew says that Jesus gives them authority and we are likely meant to read between the lines that this anointing is the gifting of the Holy Spirit (a theological idea that will be worked out later in the Epistles and through the church’s reflections on Jesus’s own words about the Holy Spirit). Curing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers, casting out demons, these are all commands Jesus gives them. This is what he expects them to be about. The ones sent by God throughout the world are given the order to alleviate the things that cause suffering and helplessness. They are to break down the barriers and stigmas that lead to harassment and estrangement.

The lectionary gives us the option of stopping there, and there is plenty of good news and challenge to reflect upon. But verses 9-23 thicken the plot, so to speak, adding to the call to do good, Jesus speaks as to how he’d like them to do it, asking them to rely on trust and the community. In the command to have compassion on others, Jesus makes it so that his disciples will also become dependent for their own well-being from others. They are to bring no staff (protection) or money (provision), instead receiving from the communities they enter. Notice how this challenge keeps the power dynamics in check: no one is lording their abilities over another. God builds the Christian community through interdependence.

But for the helpers to keep this attitude and posture of receiving—both their spiritual power to heal and having their physical needs met—they will need to grow in their own trust of God. That is the tension that fills verses 9-23. Hardship and harassment and feeling helpless will not magically disappear even as the sicknesses miraculously do. The work of harvesting in compassion is evergreen: Jesus says that we will not be done going to every person and place in need of compassion before he returns.

And that’s because we keep being in need of this transformation in our own hearts. Humans are the ones doing the harassing and making others be helpless. Unless we allow the Holy Spirit to heal us, guide us into living in interdependence with others, we are possibly doing more sowing of suffering than reaping of compassion. Let those who have ears, hear.

Textual Point

The Old Testament foundation of this text is Ezekiel 34, where God is critical of the Israelites’ leadership and promises to be a shepherd to the people. Scholar Johann Baptist Metz puts these two texts together as a guiding principle from God, arguing that they show us that we are to “look for the suffering” and offer aid and support in the way of God. It’s a bit like how Mr. Rogers reminded us to look for the helpers when we were children and afraid of what was happening around us: when we are the ones who are able, we look to be those helpers and protectors.

Illustration Idea

Many of us are far removed from the agricultural imagery of the text. When commercials, for instance, depict farmers at work, we’re often given views from above as tractors harvest vast wheat fields. We may even think we have an idea about harvesting because we’ve gone to a U-pick berry farm one sunny afternoon. But the truth is, many of us have no idea what it’s like to be a harvester in the field and many of us would not want to do the job. A quick google search will provide the physical evidence of the nature of the work. When doing God’s good seems spiritually demanding, the labourers are few…