Proper 6A; Matthew
9:35-10:8; St. Paul’s, 6/07/2020
Jim Melnyk: “Going Beyond WWJD’”
Do you all remember those “WWJD” bracelets – the “What Would
Jesus Do?” bracelets from years ago? For all I know, they may still be all
around – I just don’t see any of them around these days – and don’t hear people
talking about them much anymore.
I’ve thought a lot about those bracelets during the
pandemic, and again upon reading today’s Gospel lesson earlier in the week.
People on social media post things like “Jesus would be wearing a face mask,”
or “I don’t wear a face mask because Jesus never would have worn one.” I’ve
seen photos showing statutes of Jesus around the world sporting face masks. I
read signs saying, “Throw away your face mask and trust Jesus to protect you,”
or “Jesus is our vaccine.” Yet I do recall Jesus telling one person to actually
go and bathe in one of Jerusalem’s ritual baths as part of his healing – that
is, the person taking some responsibility in their healing process.
The passage from Matthew reminds me of the question, “What
would Jesus do?” simply because it starts by telling us what exactly what Jesus was doing. Want to know what Jesus would do? Read Matthew. Read
Mark, or Luke, or even John – though John’s a bit more theological and less
action oriented than the first three.
What would Jesus do? He would go from town to town teaching
and preaching the Good News of God’s reign – healing diseases and sickness,
welcoming the outcast and the stranger along with those in the “in” crowd. Jesus
would go about caring for those who were feeling lost or scattered, harassed
and helpless, beaten down or deprived of their dignity. Matthew tells us Jesus
feels compassion for the crowd.
Compassion is a nuanced word in both Hebrew and Greek. It
can mean showing pity or mercy, or having painful sympathy for others. It can also
mean to suffer with another – that is, to suffer together. Compassion is an
emotion felt deeply within one’s gut – a feeling in our very bowels. I suspect
Matthew is implying the full range of meaning in this moment. Therefore Jesus
would be found touching the untouchable, giving voice to the voiceless,
challenging oppressive policies, politics and theologies – turning a few heads,
and making a few enemies. I believe with all my heart Jesus would be marching
today – standing strong against the continuing sin of institutional racism in America.
And Jesus would be transforming more than a few hearts in the process.
What would Jesus do? Just about everything that would make
our rational minds wince and our poetic hearts soar. We can easily fall in love
with that “gutsy” kind of love Jesus shows in this Gospel lesson – as
impractical as it may be – because love just isn’t something we measure in degrees
of practicality anyway.
But perhaps the rest of today’s Gospel lesson is the reason
the WWJD bracelets were more of a trend than the beginning of a long-time
tradition. After all, Jesus tells his disciples not only what he – Jesus –
would do, but what he – Jesus – wants them to do as well. It’s the very same
kind of stuff he’s been doing! Jesus tells his disciples, “The harvest is
plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to
send out laborers into the harvest.” “The twelve disciples may have been
surprised that, when they prayed as Jesus suggested for the Lord of the harvest
to send out laborers, [that] they themselves would be the answer to [their own]
prayer.”[1]
We may be surprised – as many times as we may have read or
heard this passage – that we, like the disciples, are an answer to their prayer
as well. Followers of Jesus – called to ministries of compassion – ministries
of “gutsy love.” Called to ministries of care – feeling with the other,
widening the circles of welcome, going beyond pre-subscribed perceptions of the
boundaries and limits of God’s love – and smashing the self-protecting,
self-selecting limits and fortresses that guard our notions of who can stand
with us in the presence and promise of God.
Perhaps…perhaps we should all go retro and pick up a WWJD
bracelet – though if one wears one of those bracelets long enough – and asks
the question often enough – the answers will come back rather clear. And those
answers are not necessarily the kind of answers that allow us to sleep soundly
at night if we don’t heed their call, nor comfortably if we do. “What would
Jesus Do” begs several additional questions – and they’re the type of questions
that should give us pause. In the end, it often seems pretty clear what Jesus
would do, and so we’re left with questions like, “What are we going to do about
it?” or, “Why aren’t we doing the same thing?” Doing what Jesus would do is
hard. It’s impractical. It’s risky. It’s costly.
It’s a modern day play on an old Pontus Puddle comic I
recall from too many years ago. Today Puddle might ask God, “Why don’t you do
something to help stop the spread of COVID, stop systematic racism in our
communities, and do something to control the almost daily violence acted out by
those charged with protecting the peace?” God responds to Puddle, “I was just
about to ask you the same question!”
It’s been written that “Implicit in the biblical idea of
love is the deliberate extension of ourselves to others.[2]” This
is the kind of love modeled by Jesus – the kind of love that feels what the
other is feeling, the kind of love that touches peoples’ lives and makes a
difference. It’s the kind of love that stands in the breach and holds back the
seas of condemnation, pain and hatred. It’s the kind of love that recognizes
the image of God in every human being – that recognizes our common bond of
humanity – and then is willing to take the chance that those whom we love may
in the end, as Jesus finds out, betray that love. What would Jesus do? Jesus would – did – does – love in ways
that go beyond our self-proclaimed
boundaries of the practical, the likeable, or the comfortable. This is the kind of love to which each of us has
been called.
The world is still filled to overflowing with people who are
harassed and helpless – like sheep without a shepherd. The world is still
filled to overflowing with people who are in need of Good News – in need of
healing and wholeness in their lives – in need of compassion and the kind of
love Jesus made known to us in the washing of feet, the breaking of bread, and
the way of the cross. The world is still filled to overflowing with oppressive
systems and loveless institutions – including many churches masquerading as
communities of love. The world is still filled to overflowing with prisoners of
war, prisoners of conscience, and prisoners of political whim – filled with
prisoners of poverty, prisoners of bigotry, and prisoners of fear. “The harvest
is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest
to send out laborers into the harvest.”
The late Don Armentrout, my former professor of Church
History at the Sewanee’s School of Theology once said, “What we see in people’s
faces, across the world or around us, will often lead us to pray. The needs are
urgent: there is no time to waste. ‘Send help, O God!’ Are we surprised when,
in answer, God calls upon us?”
“The name that is spoken when we are baptized,” says
Armentrout, “is more than a convenient mark of identity. We are added to a list
which includes Simon Peter,” James, and John; and before that, Moses and the
elders of Israel; and along the way, Miriam and Mary Magdalene and Prisca and
Phoebe, Theresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich, Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King,
Jr., Desmond Tutu and Michael Curry. In Baptism we join all those God has named
and sent as laborers for the harvest. When the company of faith welcomes the
newly baptized, it says this, too: ‘We receive you as…workers with us in the
[community] of God.’”[3]
We know – or at least have a pretty good sense – what Jesus
would do in most instances. Jesus would
– did – does – love in ways that go beyond
our self-proclaimed boundaries of the practical,
the likeable, or the comfortable. This is the kind of love to
which each of us has been called. The real question is this, “What are we going
to do about it?”
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