There is a lot going on in today’s gospel, Matthew 9: 36 – 10:8. Jesus sees a crowd of ordinary people who are “troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” Recognizing that he cannot reach out to all these people himself, Jesus sends out his twelve, “hand-picked” disciples” to carry on his ministry. He commissions them to proclaim “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” and to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.”
The disciples were ordinary people just like the people in the crowd. He called them not for what they were but for what he knew they could become. Jesus calls all of us as well. At our baptism we are anointed to become “a kingdom of priests, a holy nation,” just like the children of Israel. Jesus knows that none of us is perfect. That is the point of our second reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans 5: 6-11, “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” And he expects us to make sure that his message of love, his message about the Kingdom of Heaven is present in the world.
Today is Father’s Day. It is a day set aside for us to honor and remember our fathers if they have died and to honor and thank our father’s if they are still with us. The very first place we learn about God’s love for us is in our homes. The very first people who demonstrate God’s compassionate love for us are our parents. Fathers have a special responsibility to make God’s love present to their families, their communities and to our world. And so, on this day we say a special prayer for all fathers.
God is the giver of all life, human and divine.
May he bless all fathers.
With their wives
they are the first teachers of their children in the ways of faith.
May they be also the best of teachers,
Bearing witness to the faith by what they say and do,
In Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen
