Your Father's Love

Pentecost 3, Proper 6

Fr. Tim Nunez

May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

We are in a wonderful season. Summer is great. The days are long. Many people have opportunities to get away to visit family or take a vacation. Traffic is a little less horrible. It’s nice and warm. And it is a season of growth, including spiritual growth for our children and youth.

When we moved to Belleview in 2003, one of the first things Meg did was get a list of all the vacation Bible schools in the Ocala area. (I think the paper published a list. But in any case, she found them!) So, our younger kids were going to VBS somewhere almost every week.

And as things turned out that summer, our son Philip went on a trip with my parents while we were moving to Belleview. He came to his new home and I think it was the very next day I dropped him off, alone, at Camp Wingmann for the first time. He didn’t know anyone, but there he went and had a great week.

We’ve had our VBS and about half the kids were members of our church and half were not. Some of our kids enjoyed a new Christian basketball camp at First Baptist and I hope others will go to Vacation Bible Schools at other churches in the area. We have kids going to Camp Wingmann all month, and some will go to other church camps.

We’ve got youth involved with the Care Center’s Stay at Home Work Camps. And we have volunteers involved with feeding them lunch two days last week and they will feed them breakfast for a week in July. All of these opportunities are ways we fulfill the mission Jesus laid out for his disciples.

“When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Here we have a mix of two agricultural metaphors. Together, they underscore a couple of key points about the Kingdom of God. The first is that the sheep need a shepherd. We know that God is the ultimate shepherd as we hear in Psalm 23. “The Lord is my shepherd…” We all have that and must never forget it. When Jesus refers to himself as “the good shepherd” in John’s gospel, he’s making a clear affirmation of his own relationship Father, of being one with the Father.

And clear testimony of scripture is that The Lord works through leaders that he appoints.  The Kingdom isn’t passive. It must not be left to random chance or the ebbs and flows of life. We don’t leave livestock to wander and we don’t gather grains or fruit in the wild. We cannot expect that if we just leave people alone everything will work out. It doesn’t. People need leadership. We need guidance. We need direction.

Here, Jesus is saying that about the crowds that are gathering to hear him and witness what he does. And what does that show us? That the religious structures that were set up to provide that leadership, guidance and direction were not getting the job done. The Temple and its sacrificial rites, the local synagogues where the scriptures were read and contemplated, where prayers were shared, the religious piety of the Pharisees, and the knowledge of the scribes and lawyers were not reaching all of those people. And they needed shepherding.

And not just them. Jesus is sending these disciples, 12 men he selected and whom he has and will continue to shepherd. They have been disciples, taking on disciplines so that they are able to be sent ones - apostles - representing Jesus wherever he sends them. Their instructions are simple: proclaim the good news about the Kingdom, cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and cast out demons. The only way they can do any of that is because they have been empowered and shepherded by him.

The second image is the harvest. Looking out at all those people following him and listening to him, Jesus knows many of them are ripe for his call to the Kingdom, to faithfulness, to new life.

When Jesus sent his disciples into the world it wasn’t to expand the club. He sent them into the world for the very same reason his Father sent him into this world. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten so that all who believe in may not perish but have eternal life.”

That’s what drives us to have vacation Bible schools, camps and mission opportunities - anything to get our children and youth to know Jesus, to learn more about him, to build community in Christ withering peers and to start exercising their faith in action.

But please note this isn’t to make them good enough for Jesus. When Jesus looked out at the crowds he had compassion for them in their misery. They had not yet changed their lives, had not yet taken up their cross to follow him. Yet he loved them. As Paul so profoundly puts it, “While we were yet sinners, he died for us.”

We are blessed this weekend to have our son Phil, his wife Rachel and our 16-month old granddaughter Mabel with us this. It’s a real joy to watch them as young parents doing a superb job caring for Mabel. This being Father’s Day, I love watching him be a dad. I see him doing some things that he clearly learned from me, which is fun, but he’s way better than I was. His love is not contingent on Mabel’s current or future behavior. He just loves her, and he will do anything healthful for her.

That’s how a father’s love should be. That’s the way your Father’s love is. He just loves you. Receive it, reflect it and share it.

AMEN