Matthew 9:35-38 – The Father’s Will, Part 4

Before we begin this week, let’s flip back a few pages in the Bible and read the following verse,

23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

Matthew 4:23

Remember, after Matthew wrote those words he recorded Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, his teaching perfectly describing the sort of Kingdom for which we pray when we pray “Your kingdom come.” Following the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew wrote a Little Sentence with a Big Meaning,

28 And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

Matthew 7:28-29

Matthew had just recorded Jesus’s authoritative teaching and, with that little sentence, transitions to Jesus’s miracles over nature, disease, sickness, demons, and death. And, while Jesus’s miracles tell us about his power and authority, they also provide a picture of the perfect fulfillment of the prayer, “Your will be done.” Following Jesus’s miracles, Matthew writes,

35 And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.

Matthew 9:35

It only requires a quick glance at Matthew 4:23 and Matthew 9:35 to see the similarities between the two verses. Given the content between the two, it is a fairly easy step to conclude that Matthew uses these verses to frame his explanation of both the kingdom for which we pray when we pray “Your kingdom come” and God’s will for which we pray when we pray “Your will be done.” But we shouldn’t jump to the faulty conclusion that Matthew is saying God will grant supernatural powers to his disciples so they might perform miracles. Matthew has been showing us the ideal: how Jesus, with his heaven-granted authority, preached the kingdom of heaven and fulfilled the will of the Father.

What I mean is, it’s like — and I’m hesitant to use this analogy, but I think it fits in many ways — I once worked in a laboratory and one of the things I learned very quickly was that what worked in the lab didn’t always work in the field. In the lab, you can reduce the number of variables and control the environment so as to achieve ideal results. But once that same experiment is taken out of the lab and performed in the “field,” the number of variables and environment are no longer under your control. When Jesus taught and performed miracles, his power and authority removed nearly all the variables in the surrounding environment so he could perfectly teach God’s kingdom and perfectly perform God’s will. (There is, however, one variable seemingly outside of Jesus’s direct control, but that won’t come up until we get to Matthew 13:53-56. So, for now, without jumping ahead, let’s just consider that Jesus could eliminate all variables; the lone variable will be discussed later.) Thus, whenever Jesus taught and healed, it was as though he was in a laboratory, but we aren’t Jesus.

But, just because we aren’t Jesus and we can’t control the environment doesn’t mean that reading this section of scripture is meaningless. Seeing how Jesus taught the kingdom and performed the will of the Father helps us assess how our lives are, or are not, reaching toward the ideal of accomplishing those lines of the Lord’s Prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done.”

But, it’s not just that. Don’t forget that Matthew is telling the story of Jesus’s life for a purpose. Sure, Matthew wants us to meditate on Jesus’s words and ways, but he also wants us to learn how we, while on earth, can teach the kingdom of heaven and accomplish the will of the Father ourselves. This, I believe, becomes apparent when we look back a few verses to Matthew 5:1. We are told that Jesus looked upon the crowds before he ascended the mountain to teach his disciples. Then, following the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 8:1, we are once again told that Jesus looked upon the crowds, but this time he responded, not with more teaching, but with healing. And now, in Matthew 9:36, Matthew tells us,

36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them,

Matthew 9:36a

I don’t think Matthew is suggesting Jesus didn’t have compassion for the crowds while he taught them or while he healed them, but Matthew emphasizes his compassion last, as a precursor to what was in Jesus’s heart. Matthew writes,

because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 9:36b

We probably all know from our Sunday School lessons that shepherds were necessary because sheep were stupid or, in Matthew’s more politically correct terms, “harassed and helpless.” Shepherds watched over their flocks (by night) to make sure they didn’t get in trouble or that trouble didn’t find them. Shepherding is a constant job because sheep, like Toucan Sam, follow their noses all the time, but instead of finding fruit loops, they get stuck at the bottom of crevices or fall over the edges of hills, and they don’t have the slightest clue or ability to figure out how to get themselves unstuck so they can return to the flock.

Jesus had compassion for the crowds because he knew they — the “harassed and helpless” stupid sheep — lived in circumstances beyond their control: there was nothing they could do about the Roman occupation, their own diseases, and what they were being taught. And even though Jesus knew he could teach them, heal them, and lead them, he also knew that his time on earth was short. There would come a day, very soon, when he would no longer be on earth to be a shepherd to the lost sheep. This is why Jesus’s next words are very important.

37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Matthew 9:27-28

At the time Jesus said this the number of laborers was one: Jesus. Certainly, there were disciples — shepherds-in-training — but at that moment, Jesus was a one-man show. He knew the lost sheep would need more shepherds, but instead of telling the disciples what the solution to the problem was, he pointed his disciples to prayer.

Don’t, please don’t, miss the power of this profound moment. Jesus had already told his disciples how to pray (Matt. 6), and now he was telling them for what they should be praying. At first glance, this may seem like an odd contradiction because the what (Matt. 9:37-38) doesn’t seem to be in the how (Matt. 6), but upon closer look, I think the how contains the what. The Lord’s Prayer — the how — is prayed for the purpose of asking God to grow his kingdom and to fulfill his will. And, as we just saw with Jesus’s teaching and his miracles, the kingdom comes and the Father’s will is done when someone teaches and ministers to the lowly and the sick. These people — those teaching and ministering; the what — are the very ones for whom Jesus tells his disciples to pray.

But before we move on to seeing how Jesus suggests this prayer is answered, I’d like to point out what might seem like a somewhat unimportant point: this verse is the first time the word “shepherd” is used in the New Testament. There are many uses of the word shepherd in the Old Testament, but there is one specific use that sheds some very important light on Jesus’s upcoming answer. In the book of Jeremiah, we read the following,

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 23:1

Jeremiah, in case you don’t recall, was a prophet during the time of Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, as well as during the first few months of the Babylonian captivity (Jer. 1:1-3). And a major part of his message to Israel was that Israel’s leaders — the kings, the priests, the wealthy — had not been good shepherds of the people. They had destroyed and scattered the “harassed and helpless,” instead of shielding and protecting them. And this did not sit well with God. Jeremiah writes,

2 Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 23:2

God specifically spells out what he expected of those who followed the Lord (Eze. 18:5-9), but the leaders of Israel did not meet that criterion; they worshipped other gods, were sexually immoral, were oppressive, robbers, stingy to the hungry and the naked, unjust, financially oppressive to the poor, and generally unfaithful to the Lord. Judgment came upon Israel because the leaders were bad shepherds and mistreated the common man. But God did not only judge the bad shepherds; he made a promise for the future. God said,

3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 23:3-4

God said he would bring his sheep back from exile and they would no longer be “harassed and helpless” because he was going to give them new shepherds who would properly care for them, and he did just that. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of how God brought his people back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and reconstruct the temple. Along with a rebuilt Jerusalem, God provided new shepherds to lead the people into a pledge of promise that they would now be obedient to the Lord’s commands (Neh. 8-13).

It seems like that might be a good place to write, “and they lived happily ever after,” but that’s not the way it happened. Israel’s history over the next 400 years was a bit turbid. Arguably, the high point of those 400 years came when the Maccabees brought to Israel a few years of peace between 129 BC and 63 BC (BCE for the modern politically correct people), but that period of independent rule was short; it ended when Roman rule began. It was during that time that Israel saw the growth and rise to rule of the Pharisees and Sadducees who then became the moral shepherds of Israel until Jesus’s time. But they were not the shepherds of the promise from Jeremiah 23:3-4. In Jeremiah 23:5 we read God’s words

5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

Jeremiah 23:5-6

I’m guessing you recognize this king: the son of David, a righteous branch, and his name is called “The Lord is our Righteousness.” Just like most questions in Sunday school, Jesus is the answer.

Jeremiah’s prophecy in chapter 23 is about a king, Jesus, who would bring justice and righteousness to God’s people and they would no longer be harassed and helpless sheep; they would be protected and they would “dwell securely” in their land. And this, as you may have already guessed, brings us right back to Matthew 9:36 and Jesus’s words that his “harassed and helpless” sheep needed a shepherd.

I realize John tells us that Jesus is the good shepherd, (John 10:11). But John also tells us that Jesus, shortly before he ascended to heaven, asked Peter to tend and feed his sheep (John 21:15-19). And, in what are probably Jesus’s last words on earth, he tells his disciples to go throughout the world and make disciples of all people (Matt. 28:18-20). With these words — both those in John and in Matthew — Jesus sent his disciples out to teach the kingdom and to do the will of the Father on earth.

Now, with a better understanding of Jesus’s use of the word shepherd, let’s return to what Jesus said in Matthew 9:37-38,

37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Matthew 9:37-38

Jesus was the good shepherd, but he also saw the need for a shepherd, so he told his disciples to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send workers to tend the harvest. And this prayer for shepherds to guide and protect his people was a prayer to fulfill, in part, Jeremiah’s prophecy. Now, with all the anticipation…we won’t get to how Jesus tells us this prayer is answered until next week.

What a tease.

Yeah, sorry about that.

Right.

Anyway, as we conclude this week, I’d like to point out a couple of things. First, Matthew uses Jesus’s command to pray for workers as an indicator that he is moving on to the next line of the Lord’s Prayer: “on earth as it is in heaven.” We’ve seen what the kingdom of heaven is like; we’ve seen the sort of work fitting under God’s will; next, we will see how this happens on earth.

Secondly, I think it’s a good time to suggest we meditate on Jesus’s command to pray for laborers. Certainly, Jesus is the good shepherd and he spent a few years on earth shepherding his people, but we mustn’t forget, as I’ve previously stated, Jesus asked Peter to tend and feed his sheep in his absence. But, when Peter died, the need for workers and shepherds did not go away. And unless I’m way off, I think Matthew provided the answer to where these workers and shepherds come from in the next section of his Gospel.

Until next week, I would encourage you to continue praying “Your kingdom come, your will be done” because God desires that it will be done “on earth as it is in heaven.”

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