Trinity 2
DISCIPLES
The Second Sunday after Trinity
18 June, 2023
St Bene’t’s and Corpus Christi College
8am and 10am
The Reverend Matt Bullimore, Chaplain, Corpus Christi College
Romans 5.1–8; Matthew 9.35–10.8
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Let’s start with that list of the Twelve Apostles. If I had asked, would you have been able to name them all, do you think?
And, if you could, what do you know about them?
First, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot.
It’s quite interesting - Matthew includes them all here.
But we actually hear hardly anything about them otherwise.
Earlier, Matthew does tell us the story of the call of the fishermen: Peter and his brother Andrew, and then James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee.
But, of them, the only one we hear more about after that is the one that begins Matthew’s list. First, Peter. And the ‘first‘ is not incidental.
Peter becomes the first among the disciples, the rock, indeed, upon which Jesus will build his church.
But the other brothers? Not another word.
There are only two other disciples who are mentioned again by Matthew. The well named disciple, Matthew. Not a big surprise. And the other one, of course, is Judas.
So, as far as Matthew is concerned, that’s all we need to know. He mentions here that Matthew is a tax collector.
He’s keen that we remember Matthew. The second James is described a s son of Alphaeus, but that’s a detail to distinguish him from the other James, son of Zebedee. And likewise, Simon who is a Cananaean is just not the Simon who becomes Peter.
Perhaps Matthew is underwhelmed by them. A fairly undistinguished rabble Anyway, that’s your lot. You don’t get to know much more. We’ll come back to that.
We encounter Jesus today as he goes about teaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom. He is at work curing the sick. He attracts attention. Crowds gather.
Jesus sees them. He had compassion for them It’s a rather tame translation of the Greek term, which has connotations of a gut response.
Perhaps his heart went out to them might be better. It’s a gutwrenchingly fierce love.
Why does his heart go out to them? They are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
They are a community in need of a shepherd.
We are people, we are a community who have all been seeking some shepherding these last weeks now months. I have. And we, like those crowds, do have a shepherd. The Good Shepherd. And he is standing in the midst of us with that same gutwrenchingly fierce love for us.
We are looking forward now to James coming as the interim priest. And, in the longer run, we want a Vicar to come and be our shepherd. We should remember that the word ‘vicar’ has the same root as ‘ vicararious’. Vicars are priests that stand in for the bishop.
Because the bishop can’t be everywhere at the same time. But bishops, of course, and so Vicars too, are there to represent the ministry of another person Jesus Christ. And he’s already here.
And I want to just linger here for a moment. Because I am a full bloodied, paid up Episcopalian. I think bishops are crucial. It’s very fitting that a Church should be episcopally ordered. And that there should be vicars vicarring on their behalf.
But only insofar as they point to Jesus. And, even when we don’t have a Vicar, and the Bishop is going to Lincoln, and that feeling of helplessness might linger you know what we still have A Good Shepherd, who stands in our midst, and loves us with a gutwrenchingly fierce love.
And not only that, but astonishingly the Good Shepherd likes us all to be vicarious shepherds. Gives us all a share in his ministry of loving others.
Which is why Jesus’ response to the harassed and helpless crowds is not just to teach them but instead to summon the twelve. To give them authority over unclean spiri ts. To give them healing power. And to send them out.
Remember that list of the twelve. Matthew’s quite canny. He lists them in pairs. It’s not a list of singletons. It’s a list of pairs of disciples. Because that’s how Jesus sends them out. Together. With companions. As friends. Brothers and sisters in Christ.
That ragtag group of twelve, including a betrayer and an abandoner, are the ones Jesus entrusts to go out and proclaim the Good News. And this is the Good News: The Kingdom of Heaven has come near. God’s gentle rule has drawn close.
It’s all around. It’s not over there, or there. It’s here. You just need to jump in. Just need to trust that the world, and all that is in it, was lovingly made for love. And when we love, peace erupts. Justice bursts out. Hope expands. Joy breaks out.
Jesus asks us to be shepherds, to bring people into that Kingdom where the gentle rule of Jesus is to be found. That Kingdom in the middle of which he stands loving us with a gutwrench ingly fierce love.
Our faith is not one that is finally about ideas and dogmas. It’s not a rule book or a moral code. It’s not a philosophy.
It’s about a person. It’s trust in the person of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. And the only way for the faith to live is for it to be embodied. For there to be persons who witness to that person.
Vicars are persons. Shepherds and apostles are persons. Even some bishops are persons. Because Jesus is a person, who stands in our midst and loves us with a gutwrenchingly fierce love.
And so he sends us out. Not as individuals. But in pairs. In groups. As one; one body, the Church. He sends us out as persons together to be Christ to others.
He sends us out to love with a gutwrenchingly fierce love. He sends us out to be witnesses to God’s gentle rule. He sends us out to do the joyful work of bringing others into the Kingdom. And, yes, it is good for all of us to have shepherds who guide us, who show us how to shepherd we all need shepherds here on earth, as in heaven but this fact remains:
The one who stands amongst us loving us with a gutwrenchingly fierce love is sending us out today as shepherds to say to friend and stranger: Hey you, the beloved of God, the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.