Compassion enfleshed.
Today’s gospel is thrilling and action-packed. There is a lot going on. While Jesus travels, he teaches, proclaims, and heals and that’s just the ministry we’re told about. Whew! That’s enough you would have thought but no... Matthew tells us that there is more to do.
Jesus sees the crowds, feels compassion and he does something about it.
He summons his inner circle of disciples and after giving them authority to cast out unclean spirits, and to cure the ill, he quickly dispatches them to continue and expand his endeavour of teaching, proclamation, and healing. Off you go chaps… and because there was no gospel written at the time or Church history, we can skip the theological degree and priestly formation. Learn on the job from your mistakes and rejoice in your triumphs; which is of course what every follower of the Master does. Clergy and laity alike.
But he is also specific about which diocese they are to serve in and who are the first people that they should call on.
“Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”.
And this initiative comes from the Master because he sees and understands that the folk were ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’.
At first glance it might appear that he is launching his own healthcare program, dealing with the physical bits and pieces and a few nasty demons, but he’s also aware that people feel harassed and dejected. You might have all your bones intact, a great exercise regime and a healthy diet with all the basic five food groups….but… The Master is talking about a different kind of healing here. Jesus' compassion is not limited to illness or the lack of food. His compassionate heart is in response to all those who find themselves in a situation of vulnerability. He is moved by those who apparently live on the edges of society because of illness, disability, ostracism, and social convention that renders some people "harassed and helpless" (9:36), particularly in Judean Jewish life.
We are complex, intricate, multi-layered creatures and Jesus’ response is not just to the physical and spiritual, but also to those who are not seen or heard which is a debilitating and painful illness to have.
Can I put it to you, that often it is the predicament of vulnerability in which a person lives, that allows and almost guarantees that the physical ailments will quickly follow? Here I am thinking of those who sleep on the streets or in their cars. Their health must inevitability deteriorate.
The Master’s call to the 12 is also our call. Our compelling vocation is to recognise that we have been empowered to see particularly the people who are often overlooked and ignored, and then to act on their behalf in ways that address the circumstances that endanger their lives and communities. Seeing, feeling and then acting.
Jesus' compassion for others is always sparked by a single observation, which is… that "others" are "harassed and helpless" and we must do something to address it. What authenticates Christian compassion is the action that accompanies the one feeling it, not just the emotion alone.
It’s one thing to feel compassion but if it stops at the benign comment or the hand-wringing sympathy from afar then it is not true compassion at all.
Every one of us is being called to be a harvester. Each one of us can reach a corner of the paddock that is accessible to no one else. These include our family, our neighbours, our work colleagues and others who come into our life. I may be the only person who brings Jesus with his healing and compassion into their lives.
And of course, there must be times when it feels like nothing is happening, there must be times when we will make mistakes, and there must be tricky times, but then not respond to the multiplicity of needs we see, to just sit on our hands and say ‘Its all too hard’, is not what The Master asks of us.
Compassion must become enfleshed. That is why Christmass happened and it is what happens here at every mass. God becomes enfleshed in simple bread and wine to meet us in our brokenness, to show his compassion. He comes to us so that we may be nourished and sent out into our little paddock to be harvesters for him.
And in a very real sense, it is why we are here. This is our vocation. You and I are to be compassion enfleshed. Living, moving, talking, caring, thinking, breathing people of compassion. We make the invisible love of God, …visible.
We will be most effective though when we celebrate the undeniable fact that our own hands are pierced and our hearts have been broken.
When we can celebrate this, then we will have become …Compassion enfleshed.