September 28, 2003 - Lesson: Matthew 9.35-38

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INTRODUCTION:

1. It's Not My Problem ⁽²⁾

David B. Higgenbottom tells the story of two psychologists who worked in the same building, the taller one on the third floor and the shorter one on the second.

Each morning the shorter psychologist would come to the building early and wait until the taller psychologist got on the elevator.

The shorter psychologist would then get on, stand in front of the taller psychologist, until the elevator stopped at the second floor, and thereupon turn and spit on the taller psychologist's necktie and rush out of the elevator.

Morning after morning the elevator operator watched this procedure until one day he could resist no longer asking the taller psychologist:

"Sir, what are you going to do about that man spitting on your necktie every morning?"

The taller psychologist said:

"Do about it? Do about it? What, it's not my problem."

2. Well, it's not my problem either.

1. What is revealed here is relationships and life.

2. I am so glad that God did not say to us when we spit on his tie, "We'll that's not my problem."

3. God saw the condition of humanity in the world and sent a savior.

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MAIN BODY:

1. If you follow Jesus you observe that in this lesson he is going through all the cities and villages of Galilee.

1. It appears that he stopped in each one, large and small.

1. He didn't miss one.

1. All of them were important.

2. It is vital that they hear what he has to say.

3. It is necessary so that the people have the option of accepting what he is offering.

2. He is teaching in their synagogues.

3. He is healing every disease and sickness.

2. Crowds of people are following him.

1. Word is spreading far and wide.

2. People anticipate his next stop.

He is gathering more people than Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band who recently played in Miller Park, Milwaukee.

2. What happens to him as he observes the crowds of people.

1. He has compassion for them.

2. To put it crudely, he has an ache in his gut for them.

Henri J. M. Nouwen has written:

"Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it."

1. Jesus went where people were weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken.

2. As a matter of fact he saw that they were harassed and helpless.

1. They were grieved by their social and economic condition.

2. They were faint from the pressures and burdens of the system imposed on them.

3. They were melancholy and sad because there did not appear to be any solution to the circumstances of their lives.

3. There was a remedy but it was not being applied.

3. Jesus continues by expressing a deep-felt longing, "They are like sheep without a shepherd."

1. We are not sheep.

1. We are not to be characterized as sheep.

2. The emphasis here is not on the sheep, but on the lack of good shepherds.

2. Where are the shepherds of Israel?

1. What has become of them?

2. Ezekiel prophesied and wrote about 597 - 594 BCE.

Ezekiel 34:1-15, NRSVA

¹The word of the LORD came to me: ²Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them--to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? ³You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. ⁴You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. ⁵So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. ⁶My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them.

⁷Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: ⁸As I live, says the Lord GOD, because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild animals, since there was no shepherd; and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep; ⁹therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: ¹⁰Thus says the Lord GOD, I am against the shepherds; and I will demand my sheep at their hand, and put a stop to their feeding the sheep; no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, so that they may not be food for them. ¹¹For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. ¹²As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. ¹³I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. ¹⁴I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁵I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD.

3. The shepherds have become selfish and self-centered.

4. They were more interested in their own comfort and place than they are with the plight of the people.

5. They have lost the ability to be compassionate.

The celebrated poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko spoke to a campus crowd at Juniata College, Huntington, Pennsylvania. Here is part of what he said: ⁽³⁾

"Don't miss the priceless luxury of always being in trouble - not so much your own as in everybody's trouble, trouble which you feel as your own with all your guts...

"Forget the vulgar insulting patronizing fairy tale that has been hammered into your heads since childhood that the main meaning of life is to be happy...

"The only true happiness is to share the sufferings of the unhappy. Of course it can be very painful, but it is much better to have the screaming sensitivity of the soul uncovered by any protective skin than to have a tear-proof rhinoceros skin in combination with cold fish blood."

6. The shepherds became fat and lazy.

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4. Jesus reminds us that he cannot do all the work himself.

1. Neither can it be done by professionals alone.

2. Jesus needs the assistance of those who claim his name and their place in his kingdom.

3. The harvest is plentiful.

1. Well, of course you would expect it to be.

1. Jesus is going through every town and village in Galilee.

2. He is curing every disease and healing every sickness.

3. He is providing not only for the physical health, but also for the mental and spiritual health of the people.

2. He is overwhelmed with the scope of the task and the compassion that it generates.

3. This is why he turns to his followers and with a triumphal sadness says, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

CONCLUSION

1. We are to be the laborers in the fields of God.

1. Laborers must see the need.

2. Laborers must be compassionate.

In a creative writing class, a young teenage girl wrote this short poem ⁽⁴⁾:

Don't criticize.
Don't analyze.
Don't even try to sympathize.
Don't say you understand because you don't.
Just hold me in your arms for once.
And love me as I am.
Like my mommy used to do
before the world grew up on me.

3. This is a demonstration of compassion.

2. I have picked apples and harvested grain.

1. To harvest take preparation.

2. To harvest takes planning.

3. To harvest takes patience.

4. To harvest requires persistence.

3. I like the words to an old song: "Bringing In the Sheaves" ⁽⁵⁾

Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,
Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve;
Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

Refrain
Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves,
Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves,

Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows,
Fearing neither clouds nor winter's chilling breeze;
By and by the harvest, and the labor ended,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

Refrain

Going forth with weeping, sowing for the Master,
Though the loss sustained our spirit often grieves;
When our weeping's over, He will bid us welcome,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

Refrain

1. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.\

2. Bountiful Harvest.

1. Bringing In the Sheaves, Knowles Shaw

2. Narrow Gate to Happiness [Davenport, Fla.: Laura Books, n.d.], 154-55.

3. As quoted in The Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 June 1991, B3

4. John Fischer, "In Praise of the Unrenowned," CCM Magazine, October 1997, 84

5. Words: Knowles Shaw, 1874. Shaw wrote music for these lyrics, as well, but George Minor''s tune is universally used today. Music: George A. Minor, 1880

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