June 18, 2023

Pentecost 3
Lectionary 11

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Matthew 9:35-10:8

On Saturday afternoon I was flying home from Calgary, and the crowd around me on the flight was especially chatty; it wasn’t one of those flights where it’s quiet and you can get some rest. The young couple in front of me were especially talkative and loud. It seemed like they’d just met, and they were going on non-stop about this and that a bit more loudly than they really needed to with the nervous energy that people who just met might have. Then, I guess it was a little more than half an hour outside of Winnipeg, the one sitting by the window sort of went quiet and then said, “I think that Carberry’s just down there…that might be it there.” I couldn’t see, so I don’t know if he had the location right, but the effect was the same. He just went quiet for a minute or two, and then his new friend went quiet for a minute or two. After awhile they started up again quietly, but the mood was so different for awhile. He just looked out the window and said, “I think that Carberry’s down there.”

I’m sure that a few of us here are kind of…I don’t know…shocked?...stunned…? Numb…? This week. I’m thinking it’s possible that someone here might know someone who was on that bus from Dauphin to Carberry – Manitoba’s not that big – and we probably all know someone who knew someone if we just ask around a bit. For me this has been one of those strange weeks where there were so many other things on my mind, but the news of the crash came my way, via a text from Val, and it was hard to pay attention to those other things. And then when I got caught up in those other things again the images or the reports or just the thought of what happened has been finding its way back into my attention. The facts of it all are clear, but it doesn’t quite seem possible.

I don’t know how any of you are processing it all. Talk about it over coffee if you want or if you think you need to. Corner a friend, find a corner, corner your pastor. Sometimes you just need to talk.

Pastor Courtenay Reedman Parker shared this prayer the other day – it’s loosely based on a prayer from the red book in front of you – and I’d ask you to join me in this prayer now.

Let us pray: God our creator, through whose providing care we enjoy all goodness and life, turn our eyes to your mercy in this time of confusion and loss. Comfort us as we mourn: shine your light on those whose only companion is darkness; surround us in your peace that surpasses our human understanding. In your name we pray. Amen.

Jesus said, “Cure the sick. Raise the dead.” And this is one of those times when we just say, “Um, I can’t.” We can’t bring back fifteen and undo the grief so many others feel. So we just pray. And that’s enough when there’s nothing else we can do.

And I wonder, though, whether we might hear that instruction to “raise the dead” in a different way. We can’t breathe life into another, and I’m not sure we need to. Dying happens. But maybe “raise the dead” might simply also mean, “Raise up those who have died. Hold up their memory. Don’t let them be forgotten. Raise them up, so we remember.”

It might mean what we heard so often during uprisings in the summer of 2020, when people remembered black people who had been murdered, and they chanted, “Say their names.” Raise them up. They’re people. Don’t let them be forgotten.

It might mean the way we remember on Remembrance Day: we raise the dead and keep them in our memory.

It might in a different way be what an orange t-shirt and “Every child matters” means as we remember those who died at residential schools and those who still struggle today. Don’t let them be forgotten.

It might mean reminding someone to remember, like when someone reminded me about the boat that capsized south of Greece this week. Hundreds of people who were fleeing from oppression or poverty, and we still don’t know the death toll. To be honest, I had all but forgotten already. But someone raised the dead, held them up for me to remember.

Or “Raise the dead” might be what we do when we pray like we just did. And it might even be what happens when a young traveller looks out the window of a 737 to pause and say, “I think Carberry’s down there.”

Today we see Jesus out on the road with his disciples. He’s called together 12 of them, called together 40 or 50 or a few hundred of us, or millions of us, or…you get the picture. He sends them out, sends us out, and gives them instructions, gives us instructions: Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.

If you’re like me and you hear this you too might be saying, “When have I ever cured the sick?” Or any of us might say that we prayed for a loved one’s healing and that healing didn’t come. Or Jesus sends his disciples out and says “Raise the dead,” and who among us has done that? “Cast out demons” – and hardly anybody, I think, really sees the world or another person as populated by demons who need to be driven away.

But still, it’s somehow what Jesus calls us to do. And it’s what Jesus gives his disciples authority to do; what Jesus gives us authority to do. So what do we do with that?

At this point I might be tempted to explain what Jesus really meant, and how “cast out demons” or “cure the sick” might mean something different in the twenty-first century than it did in the first century. And that might be helpful in some way, but then all we’re really left with is a deeper knowledge of what Jesus didn’t say.

Maybe what’s most important is simply that Jesus sends us out. He starts out this whole thing by telling his disciples to ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers into the harvest. Then he names his disciples, and then he says, “Go. Out there, into the world, into the harvest…. You asked for workers, and guess what – that’s you! You’re the workers!” It’s kind of what happens here. We pray together, raising up the church and the world and the nations and creation and all these people to God, asking for healing and peace and faith and life and so much. Then…Jesus names us all, and then says, “OK now, go.”

So we go. We might find miracles and healings and resurrections happening all around us. Who knows? Why not try? Or we might be more likely to find everyday life kind of happening, as it always has, all around us. The important thing, though, is that what we’re called to do as disciples is to live our life and our faith in the world around us, where there is sickness and tragedy and where demons like hatred and violence dwell; and where there are parties and forests and laughter and jazz and the kids’ soccer game and the joy of chance encounters with strangers. And all the way through there’s this promise that Jesus is there in all those places, meeting us and meeting the whole world wherever we go. Jesus is with us always…at the intersection of Highway 5 and the Trans Canada…in a spot on the sea south of Greece where they still search for the missing…in our cities and countrysides where our own neighbours go missing. Jesus is with us always…at a dinner table with friends or a goofy parade with rainbows and drag or a powwow where some settler types awkwardly join in. Jesus is right there in the midst of Father’s Day celebrations or Father’s Day alienations.

We are sent, and the good news is that we find our life in the lives we live out there. The good news is that Jesus is there, already there, wherever we arrive, wherever we are. Or, to use the words Jesus uses today, “The kingdom of heaven is near.” Right here, right now. Out there, right now.

And the last little piece of good news? Jesus sneaks that little piece in right at the end of our reading today: “You received without payment; give without payment.” None of this is a transaction or a deal; no money changes hands. It’s all a gift. The kingdom of heaven has come near. And nobody needed to pay for it to come. The one who gives life to the world is here. With us always. Given freely. Given for all. AMEN.