Proper 6A

Matthew’s gospel has often been called the gospel of mission. The essence of the gospel lies in its proclamation of the closeness of the kingdom of heaven. The gospel begins early on with John the Baptist crying out, ‘"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ When Jesus begins his ministry, he, too, will say these same words. He continues this message in the sermon on the mount (chapter 5). By the time he instructs the newly chosen apostles to say, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near,’ he has used this term, ‘the kingdom of heaven,’ seven times. At the end of the gospel when Jesus tells the disciples, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you,’ he will have spoken another twenty times about the kingdom of heaven. Clearly, the mission of any disciple, then, is to preach the closeness of the kingdom. Along with that message comes the command to baptise.

What does it mean to preach the closeness of God’s kingdom? Another way of looking at the kingdom of God is to think of it as God’s freedom. Freedom — what God desires for everyone.

Freedom from suffering, violence, degradation, poverty, injustice, inequality, all those institutional and situational evils that touch humanity at any given time. How do we translate words into action? Again, Jesus gives us the word: Heal the sick, cast out the evil around us. Those are tough commands to follow.

Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian writer, explains what healing the sick, casting out the evil around us, and preaching the kingdom of heaven means in these words:

The mission of the disciples prolongs and extends that of Jesus: proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God to a people burdened by discouragement, suffering and the absence of perspectives of salvation. Compassion is one of the qualities of Jesus which the evangelists often emphasise to characterise his unique way of coming close to those who suffer, and it also expressed his attitude vis-à-vis the collective suffering of his people.

[Matthew] also mentions this attitude as the foundation of Jesus’ evangelising practice: proclaiming the kingdom and curing every disease and sickness.…

Under the domination and the impoverishing plundering of the Roman empire, the [people] are harassed and helpless without a shepherd or a guide to open up horizons of salvation. Compassion is not pity, and it entails more than interest. It signifies sharing and making the sufferings and aspirations of others our own. Being compassionate is practising solidarity.

Because it was an enormous and urgent task, Jesus summons the disciples so that they might ‘proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near.’ From then on, the content of a disciple’s vocation is clear: proclaiming the kingdom on the basis of daily commitment to establish life where it is lacking; where there is marginalisation and a predominance of the spirit of injustice. In the face of such enormous shortages and sufferings afflicting and burdening the people in our society, the meaning of the mission, its urgency, and its vastness continue: proclaiming the kingdom and giving life. We have to discover the specific and effective ways to do that through discernment and our committed search, starting with the communities and the lucid analysis of concrete circumstances.

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Last October at the Covenant Committee meeting between The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of the Region of Central America, Archbishop Barahona said that the good news for the people of El Salvador can come in the form of medicine or education; in order to have a mission-oriented church, first the people must be healthy and educated. He made clear that our participation in the Millennium Development Goals is a direct form of mission that is connected to the charge that comes at the end of the gospel according to Matthew.

How about us? How do we get involved? We can get involved on a local, statewide, nation-wide and international level. Whatever we do, we are all interconnected. As we preach with words, we show with action. Or as Saint Francis said, Preach with your lives; when necessary, use words.

How do we preach with our lives? Is it in helping out with an area Habitat for Humanity building project, the Summer Feeding Program for youth in our community (we will be serving over 100 children this summer), teaching someone how to read, getting involved with the scouts, or finding out more about the various forms of outreach that the Episcopal Church sponsors? The needs are many, and the possibility of the vacuum being filled by something other than the kingdom of heaven far too great. However we decided to turn our words into action, we can do something.

The following quotation from Saint Teresa of Avila is one that I first found on bookmarks at Saint Bartholomew’s NYC nine years ago. It is one of the choices of blessings we have at our disposal and you will hear it at the end of this liturgy.

‘Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, not feet but yours; yours are the eyes through which to look at Christ’s compassion to the world, yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good, and yours are the hands with which he is to bless now.’

As your feet bring you up to the communion rail, your hands receive the Body of Christ, and your eyes see the beauty of this church, remember that you are Christ’s body in this needy world. Remember, too, that you will be sent out into the world to proclaim that the kingdom of God has drawn near. As you proclaim that message, you can help that proximity become reality.


END NOTE
Citation to the Gutierrez quote will be up tomorrow; the book is in my office.