Compassion for the wanderer.

Matthew 9:35-38

           Sometimes when I look around me I am amazed at how people are wandering around aimlessly trying to find satisfaction and fulfillment in all the wrong places.  If it isn't money, it's sex or any variety of 'things'. People are confused, misled and all the while still yearn for wholeness and purpose that only God can give. It would be easy for anyone who has been graced enough to know the love and fullness of God to make rash judgements about people and how wrong they are or even how wrong hearted they are. I suppose I have done that very thing from time to time and perhaps even right on these pages.

           Jesus however sees a much broader picture than we do and has a heart as big as the universe. Jesus sees the crowds and has compassion.  Sometimes when we achieve something, almost anything, we feel satisfaction in knowing what we have accomplished. We look at wealth and say we have earned it. All the while, we still are wandering aimlessly in so many ways.

            I imagine there are quite a few people who think how foolish I am, having wandered for about 50 years not realizing I am gay.  I myself am amazed when I look back in hindsight. But Jesus did not look and say " you stupid child" of mine, you wasted so much time and heap on insults. Jesus loved me, supported me and had patience and love for me.  It was really no different than when Jesus had compassion for the crowds in this passage. Jesus sees the bigger picture that, more often than not, we cannot see.

            It should be enough for us to know that we all wander from time to time. Didn't the Israelites wander in the desert for 40 years? Is this not a metaphor for our own lives? Should we learn something from all this? If nothing else, we should appreciate that we all wander in one way or another. We should be much less judgemental, more understanding and more compassionate. That is what this passage is all about. That is what our lives are all abut. Love, compassion and the journey to wholeness.

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he 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 labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’