From the Daily Lectionary for Wednesday in the First Week of Ordinary Time
Matthew 10:5-15
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town.”
Matthew knows his scripture. He knows that the purpose of the Messiah, according to the Hebrew Biblical narrative, is to restore the disparate tribes of Israel, to unite a scattered and wounded nation into one people so that they may be a “light to the nations.” The coming of God’s kingdom in traditional Judaism was inextricably bound to the success of the nation of Israel. So, in a moment of orthodox proclamation, Matthew has Jesus telling his disciples that their mission is to the “lost tribes of Israel;” that they need to stay away from Gentile territory. But clearly that is not happening. Just a chapter before this reading, Jesus and his disciples are in the Decapolis, Gentile territory, casting out demons. Of course, they were run out of town. Maybe Jesus is still smarting from the rebuke of the Gadarene people. But then just two chapters hence, Jesus finds himself again among Gentiles. He encounters a Canaanite woman whose daughter is ill, and she pleads with him for mercy. Jesus at first ignores her, then insults her, but finally yields to her persistence and heals her daughter.
There is a progression here in Matthew from the early Jesus Movement being a movement within Judaism, to a movement that includes even Gentiles, some of whom being the traditional enemies of Israel. You’ll remember that Jesus and his teaching have been rejected by the scribes and Pharisees, the Jewish elite. Indeed, at the turn of the first century, some twenty years after the Gospel of Matthew was written, there was a decided split between mainstream Judaism and the Jewish Jesus Movement.
During the late First Century the movement needed recruits to sustain its mission. It seemed most practical that if the Jewish elite weren’t on board, then devotees of the cause must necessarily look elsewhere for new blood. In our reading from yesterday, which occurs just prior to our reading for today, Jesus is asking the disciples to pray for new laborers to be sent into the harvest. Here he sets the criteria: Go find people who practice hospitality; go find people who care for the sick, and the lame, the poor, and the marginalized; go find people who are open to “the message,” open to the Truth, in short. That is the new criteria. Paul writes that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free. It seems Matthew is getting on with Paul’s program.
And then an important admonition: If there are those who are not receptive, then turn your backs, shake the dust off your feet and leave. He doesn’t say, “meet them where they are,” or, “just gently bring them along.” The message is that we have no time to spend on those who embrace falsehood. Everyone has a choice to embrace the Truth, or to be willfully ignorant of it. Jesus’ message is that the kingdom of God is imminent, therefore there is no time to waste on false equivalency, dead-end debates, self-interested ideology. We need worthy allies. They are out there. They may be different from us; they may be of different social or economic status; their skin may be a different color from ours; they may be eccentric or strange… They may not even be “church people,” but the Truth makes strange bedfellows.
We need laborers for the cause of God, good people… the cause of justice, dignity, and well-being…. Go find them. They are there and waiting for the invitation into a life of purpose. Ask them to church (yes, we will gather again). Their worthiness is only a willingness to seek the Truth and act upon it. These people have names. You know who they are. Go find them.
Prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book
God of peace, let us your people know, that at the heart of turbulence there is an inner calm that comes from faith in you. Keep us from being content with the way things are, that from this peace there may come a creative compassion, a thirst for justice, and a willingness to give of ourselves in the spirit of Christ. Amen.
