When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 9:36.
A Sermon on Ezekiel 34 and Matthew 9:35-10:1
Remember that time when Jesus wept? He was so moved by the pain he saw in his grieving friends Mary and Martha that he cried. And then he did something about it. He raised their brother Lazarus to new life. The gospel lesson we read today makes it clear that Jesus was often deeply moved when he saw people’s pain and struggle. When he saw the crowds, it says, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
The English word compassion does not do justice to the Greek word that is used there. The Greek word is much more powerful. It means to be moved deep in one’s guts. It’s similar to our English idea of the heart breaking, but an even closer equivalent might be to say he was torn inside.
The words translated “harassed” and “helpless” carry more of a punch, too. Among the meanings I discovered for those words in Greek are dispirited, confused, scattered, aimless, bewildered, distraught, and distressed. Jesus saw so much pain and lostness. He could see the brokenness. Many were sick or coping with disabilities. Many were poor. Food insecurity was a big problem in Jesus’ day. They were at the mercy of forces they could not control, while the religious and political leaders, the shepherds who could have made a difference were preoccupied with securing and maintaining their own power. Taxation, for example, fell heaviest on those who could least afford it. What did they get for their tax money? They got a king named Herod, the latest in the rapacious Herod family, who were not above murdering each other to get and maintain power. Herod was a developer. Their tax money went into Herod’s big, expensive building projects. And they could not vote this man and his cronies out.
On top of that, their tax money paid for their own oppression. It went to maintain the Roman Empire and the Roman army that was stationed everywhere. Roman soldiers regularly strung people up on crosses to reinforce the message: don’t you dare dissent. Don’t you dare get out of your place. Don’t you dare resist. They couldn’t vote these people out, either.
Think of what all this did to people’s souls, not to mention their bodies. But many of the religious experts spent a lot of time finding fault with others who did not agree with them, or who could not practice the faith the way the experts said it must be practiced. They did not ease people’s burdens. They acted like “sin police.” From almost the very beginning of his ministry, they were finding fault with Jesus. One example is in the passage immediately before the one we read. Instead of rejoicing when Jesus set a man free from a demonic spirit, these experts complained that Jesus must be doing this by the power of the ruler of the demons. Lord, have mercy!
As Jesus gazed at all these shepherdless sheep, his grief echoed God’s grief in Ezekiel’s day when God’s people were being so poorly shepherded politically and spiritually. Many were already scattered into exile in Babylon, and a second deportation to Babylon was on the way.
When God gazed on the wreckage of the community of God’s people, God was moved to the core, and God poured out blistering critiques of the nation’s leaders through the prophets, like the one we just heard in Ezekiel. Here’s a sample:
“Thus says the Lord: you have not fed the sheep. You have not healed the sick. You have not bound up the injured. You have not sought the lost and brought back the strayed.
“Instead you ruled with cruelty. You led my people astray.
“Worst of all, you ate the sheep entrusted to your care!”
The pain of people today moves God to the core. What must God be thinking as God surveys the flock now? What, for example, must God be thinking about how the political and spiritual shepherds of our American flock are handling things now that we have the pandemic putting us into exile in our homes, on top of the usual struggles of life? The current crises have pulled back a curtain so that we are forced to look at ugly realities in our life together as a nation and at wounds that remain unhealed. Like scattered sheep without a shepherd, we Americans can’t seem to work together to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. We are doing stuff like fighting over wearing masks. God has got to be shaking God’s head.
The critique God would deliver through Ezekiel today might sound something like this:
Hear this, you shepherds: You have not served the wellbeing of the people. You have not cared for the wounded and the weak. Instead, you are using your office to enrich yourselves and your cronies. Instead, you continue to let millions of people go without basic medical care, and you are threatening to take it away from millions more right here in the middle of a pandemic as you petition the Supreme Court to kill the Affordable Care Act, and you have no replacement for it.
You are letting vital public services crumble. You are letting critical infrastructures and health and safety networks, protocols, and procedures crumble. You have shifted the burden of taxes onto those who are least able to pay them. You favor the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and the poor. You write off those you deem as weak. You neglect your veterans, and you are willing to sacrifice your older people in the name of boosting the economy.
You are actively antagonizing and dividing people. You are fanning the flames of bigotry. You are spreading misinformation and disinformation. You are setting a poor example for others. You are ruling with cruelty and leading people astray.
Ezekiel might sum the situation up in the same way now as he did all those centuries ago: you are eating the sheep entrusted to your care!
But God wasn’t finished when God uttered the word of judgment through Ezekiel. God went on: Therefore, I myself will be the shepherd. I will search for my sheep. I will rescue them from being scattered. I will feed them in green pastures. I will seek the lost and bring back the strayed and bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. I will judge between the fat and powerful and the lean and weak.
I will do it through my servant, David. Then they will know that I the Lord their God am with them. You are my sheep, says God, and I am your God.
The gospels show Jesus, son of David, doing just that. In today’s reading Matthew tells us that every illness and every form of disease and distress and every suffering person was of concern to him. All the wandering and misguided were of concern to him. He relentlessly searched for them all. He brought healing to them all. He fed them in body and in soul. He lifted up the poor and the weak. Everywhere he went, Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God, that realm in which God rules, with wellbeing and justice for all, not just the already well off; he preached that realm in which people love God and love one another as neighbors. He taught its way, its values. Everywhere he went, Jesus preached and taught this vision. Everywhere he embodied it.
What’s more, Jesus summoned his disciples to join him in this work, to see what he sees, and to do what he does. Jesus summoned them to bind up wounds and heal, and to confront evil spirits. Helpers are needed now, he declared. He gave his disciples the authority and the means to make a difference. He gave them a voice. He sent them out to proclaim the God’s kingdom, to themselves embody the kingdom of love and justice where God reigns.
Jesus summons us to join him in this work, to see as he sees and to do what he does. The man who founded Samaritan’s Purse, Bob Pierce was known for this prayer: “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”
This can be our prayer: Let me, let us be moved to the core, Lord Jesus, by the things that move you to the core. Jesus, we are here for you. We will not look away from the brokenness and lostness and misguidedness. We will claim the authority you give us to make a difference. We will work for the healing and wellbeing of others. We will speak up for the values of the Kingdom of God. We will live by its vision. We will do something your people 2000 years ago could not do: we will call out and vote out bad shepherds that serve themselves instead of the people.
Jesus, Good Shepherd, we are here. Savior, we are here. We are here for you, and we are here for the harassed and helpless people that you love to the core of your being. Amen.
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