June 18, 2023

First a silly old joke from Groucho Marx: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog … it’s too dark to read.” An oldie but a goodie – just like us! And wow did you hear the news about Canada’s population now having reached 40 million! Still very sparsely populated for our size, and heaven knows we could use a lot more help in many fields of work, from doctors to home-builders, so hopefully we can make room for more. There are a lot of people on the move in our world, a lot of desperate migrants, just like in our first reading from Exodus today, when the ancient Hebrews have finally escaped slavery in Egypt and are starting their long journey into what they hope will be a wonderful ‘promised’ land. There are going to be a lot of hardships along the way, and for reasons we still do not understand, their forty-year journey is so much longer than the distance would seem to need. But without GPS’s etc. I’d get totally lost too. Sadly, today’s migrants often face horrendous obstacles as well, like the 100 children and woman who were probably locked in the hull of an overloaded ship that sank in the Mediterranean last week https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65914476. I must stop checking BBC news on my phone before bed because when I read about things like that, it’s understandably difficult to fall asleep.

Our epistle today from Paul’s letter to the Romans contains one of Paul’s favourite teachings about how we can boast in, or be grateful for, our sufferings since suffering or afflictions produce endurance, or resilience. And endurance produces character, and character produces hope – “and hope does not disappoint us” says Paul, “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” As John Frederick points out on the Working Preacher website:

“Gospel peace does not provide us with an escape hatch from human suffering. The peace of the gospel is not a way of eliminating the difficult realities of life so that they don’t harsh our christological mellow. Rather, the peace achieved and offered to us through Jesus often comes to us alongside affliction (verses 1-5). Furthermore, instead of attempting to erase or avoid affliction, Paul instructs us to “boast in our afflictions” (verse 3). So, what is going on here, and how can we make sense of a peace that inseparably coexists with suffering, and that even uses our present catastrophes as catalysts for growth in character and hope?”

Frederick goes on to say that “suffering leads to glory and honor rather than shame and dishonor” precisely because of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives. Have you noticed how the Holy Spirit has an uncanny way of surprising us with silver linings and other hidden blessings, especially when we look in the rearview mirror of our lives? Often this retrospective view shows us that what looked like calamitous losses ‘back then’ somehow made room for unforeseen new hopes and joys.

And then in today’s gospel we hear about a situation that somewhat mirrors our present-day circumstances: “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few” says Jesus. Something we can resonate with today as many businesses and services are disrupted due to lack of labourers or workers. However, as the Lisa Simpson character is portrayed as saying to employers in a recent Facebook meme: “You are not short on staff; you are short on living wages.” So true. But, of course, today’s gospel is not about economics, but rather about discipleship. Today we heard Matthew’s account of Jesus summoning his twelve closest disciples. The list of names varies in different New Testament books, especially with a few of them having two names. And there’s that shocking line we heard in Mt 10:5 when Jesus tells them to “Go nowhere among the Gentiles. And enter no town of the Samaritans”. As Barclay wrote in the 1950’s, this turns out to be a temporary perspective, since Jesus himself ends up interacting with, and praising a number of Samaritans and other Gentiles, for their faith and compassion.

It’s interesting how our perspective can change as we open ourselves to the experiences of others. For example, last week I found a fascinating Facebook page called ‘View from YOUR window’ with about 1.5 million followers and people are invited to post a photo from their homes or surroundings, saying which country, province, state, city etc. they’re in, and also to say something about one’s life circumstances in this place. So, I submitted a photo of Pepper’s and my favourite spot at home in spring – our veranda, with him on his cushion, and the big Douglas Firs and Western Red Cedars filling the scene outside the screen. And here’s what I wrote to post the photo with: “I love my screened veranda on my old mobile home in Langford BC Canada. Although it’s just a seniors’ mobile home park, I feel like I won the retirement lottery.” Well! Quickly the comments came in from Mexico, Germany, France, USA, South Africa, India and many other countries. In fact, I got over 1300 comments in a few days, plus 35,000 like or love emojis. I could hardly keep up acknowledging their wonderfully positive comments with at least a like emoji or more. Thousands of people were wonderfully generous in their comments affirming the view from my porch as indeed having won a kind of ‘retirement lottery’. Total strangers in all kinds of foreign lands, and even some writing in foreign languages, took time to write loving comments with warm best wishes about my future in that place. Many addressed their comments using my first name as if we were already friends. While my wrists got a bit sore at least reading and liking their comments, I was in awe of how many wonderful people in the world are ready to wish a stranger well and encourage them in various ways.

In our gospel today, Jesus had [great] compassion for the crowds (9:36). Therefore, may we also give and receive compassion in many forms of encouragement, hope, appreciation, empathy, generosity and other forms of Christian love, Amen.