A demoniac who could not speak was brought to Jesus,
and when the demon was driven out the mute man spoke.
Jesus, when he was in the synagogue at Nazareth claimed that he himself was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, anointed "to proclaim good news to the poor" and sent "to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor" (see Luke 4:18-19). In his teaching, proclaiming, and curing, Jesus did all of this and more. He proclaimed that the poor in spirit where blessed, healed the blind and the lame, indeed, "every disease and illness" and set at liberty those who were captives to sin and Satan. So too here in the case of this demoniac, he gave freedom to a man who was oppressed. The man, whom the demon had previously prevented from speaking was then able to speak, his tongue now free to give praise to God.
The crowds were amazed and said,
“Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
The crowds intuitively understood the goodness that Jesus himself had unleashed in his ministry. They saw that he was like previous prophets in some ways but somehow importantly more and greater. The Pharisees on the other hand, who could only lament that the popularity of Jesus diminished the attention they received, responded with envy.
But the Pharisees said,
“He drives out demons by the prince of demons.”
The priority of the Pharisees was obviously not the sheep. If it was they would have been delighted to see the ways in which Jesus himself was blessing the flock. And it seems there was no one that truly had the interests of the sheep at heart, only leaders using and manipulating them to sustain their own position, power, and influence. Imagine if one company invented a drug that would cure cancer and planned to give it away for free. This scenario with the religious leadership was as though all the other pharmaceutical companies allied in secret to prevent such a drug from ever becoming publicly available, precisely because they did not make it and could not profit from it. Jesus, however, came to cure an even more intractable disease than cancer, and no amount of collusion among the religious leaders would be able to stop him from doing so.
At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them
because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.
Then he said to his disciples,
“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;
so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest.”
Jesus was moved with compassion for the sheep, so much so that he was not too invested in his position as to forego involving others. The Pharisees selfishly hoarded their authority. But Jesus desired to work through his disciples. He knew that his physical presence was limited, circumscribed in time and space. But in inviting other laborers to work for the harvest there would be no limits to where his love could reach. We can see from this that the foundations of the Church upon the apostles did not derive from any desire for oppression or authoritarianism, but rather from compassion, from a heart moved with pity for those who were troubled and abandoned.
so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest.
Jesus wanted to solve the problems plaguing the crowds whom he loved. But in order to do so was he invited the cooperation of the disciples. It wasn't just that he himself prayed and the disciples were sent, though his prayers would certainly have been power enough. Rather, desiring their cooperation, he invited them to pray themselves in order to ensure there were adequate laborers for the task at hand. Had they understood that they themselves would be the first and primary answer to this prayer they might have hesitated to do so. But only after did Jesus confirm that he desired them to be precisely the laborers for whom they asked, giving them his own mission and authority. And so the Church was built on the compassion of Jesus, but it was also built through the prayers of the members of the Church herself. In an age where saying the Church seems understaffed and underequipped seems to be an understatement we ought to make sure that we really are continuing to pray for laborers for the harvest. And even if we are, are we open to being, ourselves, the answer to this prayer in some way? For it is certain that in some way, large or small, Jesus desires to share his authority and mission with us as well, for the sake of the other sheep who need him.
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