All in the design
Saturday of the First Week of Advent
Gospel: Mt 9:35–10:1, 5a, 6-8
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120625.cfm
This is the second time during this advent season that the gospel of Matthew states that Jesus was moved to pity. While the previous reading was later in the gospel (Mt 15:29-37), they both showed how Jesus was moved by his time shared with us. He was problem solving from what he was observing. He was responding to his feeling of empathy towards his fellow people. It’s as if creation and human community are coded to the divine.
In becoming man, Jesus gave up on having all the answers. His experience of the world, his experience of us, led him to what he needed to do. In the previous “pity” gospel, he felt empathy because he didn’t want the people to go hungry. In today’s gospel, he feels empathy because, as one man, he would not be able to address the needs of everyone. In Jesus’s divinity, he could have just satiated the hungry crowd or miraculously given the second crowd a sense of belonging and well-being to rid them of being troubled and abandoned, but this is not how God works. God gives us free-will and works within creation.
Creation is like a board game and God is the game designer. What good is it to create rules to a game to only break them because you can? Each player has the ability to make their own decisions within the limits established within the game’s design. In Jesus, God was one of us, so he played by the rules of the game. God, while infinite, chose not to be infinite in Jesus, but to be one within the design. God wants God’s creation to find its salvation through its design. For this reason, we are all created in God’s image and can help others discover that image for themselves.
All of us, at times, feel that we are lost and abandoned and need others to help shepherd us. We also have the capacity within us to lead others. We are both shepherds and sheep. Likewise, we are both laborers and the harvest. Jesus is calling us all to be laborers. In tough times, the laborers may be few, but good labor inspires more good labor. Over time, this pattern will lead us to a plentiful harvest. As we continue to bear fruit, we help others do the same. We build real community through participating in the divine. We, likewise, participate in the divine through building real community.
