Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 384​

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."

In today's gospel, we hear that Jesus feels enormous sympathy for the crowds who follow him into the wilderness. Troubled and abandoned, they are lost sheep.. A kind man, he wants to do something helpful and effective.

But many people might be disappointed by his response. First he urges his disciples to pray and then, as we hear in tomorrow's gospel, "he summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness."

Where we thought he would act godlike and erect a hospital, health spa, or pleasure dome to house and heal millions, he created a church. Really?

This is God's long term solution to an immediate crisis.

Reading the newspapers daily, I have lately felt overwhelmed by the crises that seem to pile up in every direction. There are few stories that don't demand immediate action of someone. Typically, if the author knows who that someone is, and what they should do, the reporter also knows it won't get done.

But hard experience has often shown that short-term solutions, if they are not immediately followed by long-term solutions requiring courage, commitment, and sacrifice, do little good. Sometimes all we can do is plant a seed and hope that it germinates, flourishes and bears fruit.

Jesus, of course, will act effectively as he sets out for Jerusalem. And his Church will be an effective remedy for our ills.

Genesis records the Lord's first short term solution to a long term problem, the deluge. It was supposed to wipe out all sin from the face of the Earth. Nothing good came of it. Our salvation cannot come from outside. There are no chemicals to make us right, no surgeries to cure us of evil, no safe places to save us from ourselves. There are no good ideas, formulas, programs or institutions to force us to choose the good life. Original Sin runs deeper than all of those quick fixes. Not even the Sacraments can effect a change unless we are willing to pay more than we can afford.

Genesis 12 recalls the earliest beginnings of a new approach, God's election of one man to be the ancestor/patriarch of a blessed people. Jesus' choice of twelve apostles, a host of disciples, and billions of believers signals the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, and a "new age" for humankind. We should surrender our stony hearts and receive hearts of flesh.​ His work does not end when the crowds in the desert are fed. Nor when he has healed all of them.

He must give his life as a ransom for many. And you and I must follow.