Tuesday in the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 8, 2025

Matthew 9, 32-38

A demoniac who could not speak was brought to Jesus, and when the demon was driven out the mute man spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “He drives out demons by the prince of demons.”  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.”

“Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”  St. Matthew’s quote here reveals that though the rabbis were performing exorcism rituals, they did not actually succeed in driving out demons.  At the same time, the fact that the Lord’s exorcism of the demoniac as recounted at the beginning of today’s Gospel Reading teaches us that demonic possession affects the body with symptoms that manifest as disabilities or diseases.  “He drives out demons by the prince of demons.”  Matthew lays the wonder expressed by the ordinary people alongside the cynicism and envy of the Pharisees.  He does this to remind the persecuted Galilean Christians for whom he is writing that it is not all of Israel that was at war with Jesus, but those who were already known as wicked — the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.  He reminds us today to look and see what the Lord Jesus does for us and not to pay attention to those who puff themselves up as somehow superior and who deny the Lord’s power, his love, and even his existence.  Like the claim of the Pharisees, the sputtering of these folks are absurd on their face.

“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.”  Matthew now lays a summary of the Lord’s ministry alongside the bile of the Pharisees.  The Lord Jesus, influenced by no one, goes his way, obeying the will of the Father, seeking to serve and not to be served.  He does not reveal his splendor publicly as he will on Mount Tabor in the presence of three of his Apostles; he does not exact payment for his good deeds; he does not court praise.  He goes about in his same clothes, he mostly sleeps in the fields outside the towns, he eats fish and bread and drinks water, except on the infrequent occasions he is invited to a feast.  He patiently bears the company of his Apostles, who are slow to understand.  And he bears rejection by so many of the people he has come to save.

“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.”  No hardship and no rejection could dim the enormity and the ferocity of his love for the human race.  Where a Pharisee would feel contempt, Jesus feels compassion.  He looks upon a human being, no matter how degraded by sin, and his Heart pounds for him and his desire to die for him increases even more.  He also strongly desires for us to aid each other in our salvation: he wants us to allow him to work through us: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”  We are those laborers.  In ancient times, harvesting required different tasks by different sets of workers.  There were those who wielded the scythe; those who gathered the crop from the ground and delivered it to the barns; and those who loaded the crop into the barns.  The workers labored together with urgency and the crop was brought in, with celebrations in the aftermath.  Whatever task each of us is assigned by the Lord, let us do our parts for God’s greater glory.