July 2014 - feeling sheepish?

 July 2014 - feeling sheepish? 

Yesterday we saw Jesus moved with pity for the crowds because they were like sheep without a shepherd.  He was curing every disease and illness but the crowds still felt troubled and abandoned because his plan for them involved more laborers than just himself.  The first stage of this plan was to call the Twelve.  But before even this he prayed.  And he not only prayed, but he asked his disciples to pray as well.  He not only set an example for the future wherein disciples should always pray to discern the building of the kingdom by praying himself.  He also allowed the disciples to begin to have agency in the building of that kingdom by inviting them to pray.

Building the kingdom is the priority of the heart of Jesus.  He doesn't want his people to feel troubled and abandoned.  His heart is moved with pity when he sees it.  But the very fact of his localized physical presence as the Incarnate Word means that he is not, in that sense, everywhere at once.  From the moment Jesus takes on flesh his plan for the Church is also implied.  He needs a body that can embrace the whole world.  And now "we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others" (cf. Rom 12:5).  And as "a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ" (cf. 1 Cor. 12:12).

The body shares the priority of Jesus himself.  His body seeks first his kingdom so that no sheep need ever feel lost as if they have no shepherd.  He has finally given us shepherds after his own heart (cf. Jer. 3:15).  He has given us Peter and his successors to feed his sheep (cf. Joh. 21:17).  No one need feel abandoned.  No one need feel forsaken.  

But Jesus means for us to do our part.  If we are part of this body we must move in unison with its purpose.  We must not be atrophied and paralyzed.  We must let him use us.  We pray to the master of the harvest that the laborers be sufficient to the task at hand.  And then we go forth to proclaim, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand."  Where once there was only Jesus proclaiming the good news and healing now we all summoned to participate.   We all move as one for the kingdom.
 
Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples
and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out
and to cure every disease and every illness.

The fields of the world are overgrown with selfishness and idolatry.  This isn't going to be easy.  But we are part of something bigger than us. As a part of his body we do not fear the task at hand.

“Sow for yourselves justice,
reap the fruit of piety;
break up for yourselves a new field,
for it is time to seek the LORD,
till he come and rain down justice upon you.”

If we trust in the resources of the world we will not be able to build the kingdom.  "Since they do not fear the LORD, what can the king do for them?"  But as long as we remember to "Seek always the face of the Lord" there is nothing that can stand between us and the mission of Jesus.
Look to the LORD in his strength;
seek to serve him constantly.

Why do we go first to Israel and not to pagan territory or Samaritan towns?  These are the hearts that feel the most lost and abandoned.  These are the people who have been prepared.  They are waiting.  We go first to them because they need us to do so.  And from there, together with the sheep who have now been found, we go to the ends of the earth (cf. Mat. 28:19).