Saturday in the First Week of Advent, December 9, 2023

Matthew 9, 35 — 10, 1; 5; 6-8

Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness.  At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the Master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Then he summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus, “Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

“Jesus went around to all the towns and villages.”  Typically, the rabbis in the time of the Lord remained in their own towns and did not move from place to place.  The Prophets in the generations before them usually had worked in Jerusalem and did not adopt an itinerant life.  Even John the Baptist stuck to a few places along the Jordan River, and he never seems to have preached in the towns.  Jesus was doing something new in going from place to place, preaching the Gospel.  He feels so pressed to save souls that in the three years he had to preach in, he hardly stayed anywhere for more than a day or two.  His pace would have exhausted anyone else, and we can only suppose that an abundant gift of grace enabled his Apostles to keep up with him.  It is to the credit of their growing faith that they wanted to, and could.

“Jesus went around to all the towns and villages.”  Matthew seems to indicate by this that this episode occurred in the third year of his Public Life.  This amount of time would have given the Apostles plenty of exposure to his methods: “teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness.”  The teaching came first, and then the miracles that validated the teaching.  The miracles, of course, were more than that: they were signs of the Lord’s deep love for each person whom he encountered.  He set no conditions for his cures, he turned no one away, and there was no sickness or condition so severe that he could not cure it.  Even the demons fled before him.  St. Matthew sums up his feelings, saying, “at the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them.”  He felt such compassion for each and for all these people that he would gladly die for them.  At this particular juncture, Matthew gives us an especial reason for the Lord’s strong feelings: “They were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.”  The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem did nothing to instruct the people in the towns where they lived.  Although the synagogues were meeting places where the Law and the Prophets were read on the Sabbath, and discussion might ensue about them, nothing on the way of official, authorized clergy existed to teach the people their religion.  The rabbi of the time — whose title was informal — was simply an older man who commented on the Scriptures and lived a righteous life.  We see people addressing Jesus as “rabbi” although he had not studied in any schools and certainly did not have the approval of the leaders up in Jerusalem.  The lack of teaching meant the people were cast adrift, subject to all sorts of currents regarding the understanding of the Law and the Prophets.  Their situation very much grieved the Lord.

“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”  There is urgency in these words because once the crop is ready to be harvested, the window for doing so is a narrow one.  The crop has to be brought in before a late frost or other bad weather kills it, before animals — including insects — eat it, and before it goes bad.  Because of the narrow window, the labor is very intensive and every hand is needed.  Even small children would be enlisted to bring water to the workers in the field.  We can understand this as the narrow window in which we have to be saved, and to help save others.  While this saying pertains to all the faithful, priests and men and women religious and missionaries are particularly meant.  Prayer for the laborers is necessary.  God may send them out to the field — call them to their vocation — but they may not all go out.  We pray for us all to obey the call of Almighty God.

“Then he summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, etc.”  The Lord bestowed both the power and the authority to imitate him in performing miracles and exorcisms.  This was not for their glory, but for the sake of the Gospel.  At this time, the power and authority is temporary.  We also see the mercy of Jesus that though living within the physical limits of his Incarnation, he still finds this way of healing those who are suffering and who are in need of hearing the Gospel.  Besides this, we see the power of God, who can delegate, as it were, his power to his Apostles.

“Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  The Lord calls them “lost” because they have had no one to lead them to the rich pastures of heaven.  His instruction limits the Apostles to Judea and Galilee.  They are not yet prepared to go to the Samaritans or the Gentiles, where they might be killed.  “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”. That is, the Kingdom is drawing near.  It is not a place, static within its boundaries.  It is God who has become man, and the redemption he will accomplish with his Death.  It is the Church, which will flourish and grow after his Ascension. The Apostles are given a very simple message on their first mission trip.  They do not yet have to teach the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Lord, and how this brings salvation.  “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.”  We see that the Lord instructs his Apostles to follow his method: to preach first, and then to heal.  “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”  This can be understood or mean that the Apostles have received the power to cure for free, and they should apply it without cost.  They are not physicians, but disciples of the Divine Physician.  But this can also be understood as that the Apostles have received their faith without a charge, and so they are to share it freely with everyone they meet.

The love of the Lord and his desire for our salvation is greater by far than our love for ourselves and our own desire for salvation.  Let us grow in love and desire so that we may grow in our love and desire for our neighbors, and join in the work of the harvest in whatever way the Lord ordains for us.