Wednesday of the fourteenth week

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 48 (47): 10‑11 Your merciful love, O God, we have received in the midst of your temple. Your praise, O God, like your name, reaches the ends of the earth; your right hand is filled with saving justice.

Collect O God, who in the abasement of your Son have raised up a fallen world, fill your faithful with holy joy, for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin you bestow eternal gladness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: Hosea 10:1-3.7-8.12; Psalm 104; Matthew 10:1-7

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called 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 Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' (Matthew 10:1-7)

The Mission There is a fashion that I have commented on before, of referring to Jesus Christ as having begun “the Christian movement.” Some have said that the Ebionites or perhaps the Nazarenes were the true fruit of the work of Jesus. By contrast, there are scholars who regard Paul of Tarsus as being the real founder of Christianity, re-inventing the person and mission of Jesus Christ and giving to it the makings of a world religion. These distortions are the fruit of the rejection of dogma which, as Newman pointed out, is essential to Christianity. Christ began a structured institution with the power to develop in accord with its divinely-endowed constitution. He would be with it as its living head to the end of the world. He called it his “Church,” and in the person of Simon Peter, its appointed rock and pastor, he gave to it the keys to the kingdom of God which he was establishing. Moreover, this intent became manifest from the outset. Immediately after our Lord’s baptism he recruited chosen disciples. Follow me, he said to Philip, who in turn brought to him another, one in whom there was “no guile.” Our Lord attracted great numbers, but he also sought out his disciples because he had a great mission ahead of him. We remember the rich young man whom he invited to leave all and to follow him. As we read in our Gospel today, he appointed twelve to be the foundation. Moreover, his Church had a stupendous mission with specific stages. While in our gospel today our Lord directs his Apostles to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” they would soon be directed to go to the whole world. John the Baptist alluded to this world-wide dimension when Jesus came for his baptism. Jesus was the one who would take away the sin of the “world.” Christ himself said that he was the “light of the world.” He said that when he was lifted up he would draw “all men” to himself. Risen from the dead, he told his disciples that they were to go to “the whole world” and make disciples of “all the nations.” Those who believed in him and his teaching as it came from the mouth of the Apostles would be saved. He was establishing not a mere movement but a very concrete, world-wide and eternal kingdom.

It is a plain understatement to observe that this was an extraordinary project. It was breathtaking. On our Lord’s ascension into heaven, the disciples, and the Twelve in particular, found themselves with a mission like no other. Alexander had led his troops to the end of what they thought to be the known world — into Afghanistan and beyond the Indus. He finally halted near the Ganges River and because of a near revolt of his troops, headed back. The following century Carthage and then Rome began their expansions, Rome even reaching Britain — but it too called its halt at the borders of the countless Germanic and Scythian tribes. Jesus Christ founded a kingdom he meant to conquer the world. His disciples were to go to the whole world, and make disciples of all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem. He, unseen, would be at the head. But now, look at his troops. They were ordinary men. Look at his supreme commander, the one with power to bind and loose, and who carried in his hands the keys to the kingdom. They were not dazzling generals, but seemingly ordinary persons. In this respect, let us notice one detail in the list of the Twelve that Matthew gives. It concerns himself — he is “Matthew the tax-collector.” Matthew is saying, yes, I was chosen to be one of the Twelve, a Patriarch of the new People, the new Kingdom. But look at me — I was a mere tax-collector, a person of poor repute. He is the only person in the list whose occupation is given. His description of himself is followed by the open mention of the greatest shame of all, that of “Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.” The power behind the Institution was unseen. The One who would give the increase, the One who would bring forth the fruit, was the King of kings and Lord of lords, the one to whom had been given all authority in heaven and on earth. It is in him that the Twelve listed in our passage today would place all their trust in the prosecution of their unique and amazingly ambitious mission. Our Gospel passage today (Matthew 10:1-7) is both soaring in its goals and consoling in its assurance.

Let us be spiritually regaled by the thought of the high mission into which, as baptized disciples of Jesus Christ, we have been drawn. I remember one newly-consecrated bishop publicly saying that his new mission was exciting. Our daily mission on behalf of Jesus Christ is exciting. At the same time it is utterly and completely beyond us — if we regard ourselves as alone. But while this is impossible to man, all things are possible to God. Jesus Christ is our head, and he leads the mission by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us fight with him then, and never lose heart!

(E.J.Tyler)