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May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight,

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O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

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Well, Happy Father's Day.

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It says, father and son will go at it.

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Parent or child will rise up against parent.

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It's a great uplifting Father's Day message.

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I'll go a little bit earlier in Matthew, start there.

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In the first verse of Matthew 10, which is the second paragraph in your bulletin for this Gospel lesson,

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the twelve are called disciples.

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Disciples are literally those who are followers or apprentices or students.

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Up until this point in Matthew's Gospel, the twelve have followed Jesus.

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They have learned from Jesus. They've sort of been in a classroom setting.

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In the following verses in Matthew, however, we hear Jesus commission or send the disciples into the mission field.

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And then they are called apostles.

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Disciples follow, apostles are sent.

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So Jesus is sending his students to gather the lost sheep of Israel.

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The twelve go from being students in a classroom to workers in the field.

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They're basically unpaid interns.

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While these first apostles do not get paid in the traditional sense,

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Jesus does equip them by giving them the authority to cure the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers.

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Jesus even gives them a job description.

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Unlike many employers, Jesus even warns the apostles of what the pitfalls of the job might be.

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You're going to be hated by your family. You're going to be persecuted.

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And when Jesus asks if there are any questions, they say, when can we start?

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Now, this sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?

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Jesus sees a lost and lonely people who are harassed and helpless like a sheep without a shepherd.

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And his solution is to gather a group of lost and lonely men to solve the problem.

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Sounds desperate, sounds short sighted, sounds like someone didn't call their references.

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Sounds like a failure from the word go.

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Jesus is going to be the laughing stock of all Jerusalem.

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God, who is Jesus, has been laughed at before, though.

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In today's lesson from Genesis, God promises 100 year old Abraham and 90 year old Sarah that they're going to have a baby.

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First of all, this is two lifetimes past normal childbearing years.

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In addition, this isn't the first time God has made this promise.

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Of course they're going to laugh. What else is there to do?

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As we all know, the climax of God's salvation story is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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God's plan of salvation is accomplished through the cross, through an instrument of death.

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And as our lesson from Romans reminds us, God doesn't just die for the good ones.

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God died for us while we were still sinners.

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The story keeps on getting more ridiculous, doesn't it?

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What would possess God to go to such lengths to save us?

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Even more, what would possess anyone, especially these first apostles, to follow God to such lengths?

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What about the ministry of Jesus is so compelling that we would follow?

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Even more, what would compel us to even go when he sends us?

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24 years ago this month, I met a man named Chris Greer, who served as a deacon in the Episcopal Church in Valley Cruces, North Carolina.

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He started a ministry called Towel Ministry, who served those who lived in poverty in rural North Carolina.

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Chris and his team helped repair and make needed improvements to homes in the area.

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This is a way to model the compassion of God and the truth of God with us.

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In addition, the ministry also served teenagers who were brought up in upper middle class communities.

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I say that it served teenagers because Chris didn't really need a group of well-to-do teenagers to repair these homes.

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In fact, these teenagers probably did more harm than good.

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He probably had to go back behind us and fix all that we messed up.

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But these teenagers needed to be a part of this mission for their own good.

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They too needed to know the compassion of God.

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They too needed to know the truth of God with us.

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I know I needed that mission trip for my own soul and my own salvation.

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As someone who grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood, I was not really exposed to poverty as a young person.

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I mean, I knew we were well off from an intellectual point of view.

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I really didn't know how well off we were.

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Yes, my parents reminded me all the time of how lucky we are to have so much.

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I knew there were starving kids in Africa.

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However, my frame of reference was limited to how the top 5% live.

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And so these trips to North Carolina every year helped broaden my frame of reference.

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I realized that many of the hardships that I experienced paled in comparison to those living in poverty.

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These trips helped me grow in compassion, which is one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.

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And I'm still working on it.

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Compassion really just means to suffer with.

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Compassion means to be with someone in their suffering.

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It's more than just feeling sorry or having pity.

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Compassion is to join someone.

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Compassion is pity converted into action.

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And it isn't something we can learn by reading books.

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It isn't learned in the classroom.

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It's only it can only is a gift only gained from experience when we go out and see the world.

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So Jesus not only sends the 12 out for the sake of the world, but also for the sake, but for their own sake,

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so that they can grow in compassion thanks to Chris Greer and a host of others.

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We were given the gift of compassion on those mission trips.

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If there's one thing the world needs more of, it's compassion.

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There's no such thing as too much compassion, for it is compassion that compels us to follow Jesus.

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It is compassion that moves us to follow a Messiah whose instrument of salvation is an instrument of death.

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Reason and logic will tell us that God's plan for salvation is ridiculous.

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Compassion, however, will tell us there's no other way than through the cross.

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There's no way around pain and suffering only through it.

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In the end, it is the compassion of God that saves the world.

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In today's Gospel lesson, we are told that Jesus is moved to help the lost sheep of Israel because he is filled with compassion.

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Biblical scholars will tell you that compassion is formed in the womb or in the gut.

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Sound familiar?

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Compassion is born from the womb of God.

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Compassion is that feeling we get in our stomach when we see pain and suffering.

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Compassion is God's way of getting our attention, compelling us to do something.

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And compassion can be a very scary feeling.

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Compassion has the power to move us towards some pretty uncomfortable places, both physically and emotionally.

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Compassion might move us to visit those places in this world that aren't as safe as our neighborhoods.

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Compassion might move our hearts to experience sadness or anger or a general sense that things aren't the way they should be.

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And we can try to ignore these feelings.

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We can try to distance ourselves from those places where there is human need and suffering.

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By doing so, I believe we're only shutting ourselves off from the gift of compassion,

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ultimately from the heart and soul and womb of God.

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Compassion can render us powerless, make us feel unequipped to address the immense pain and suffering in this world.

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And I think that's kind of the point.

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We can't fix all the world's problems.

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Sure, there are plenty of fixable problems, and we as a society have an obligation to try and fix them.

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However, most problems require more than a handyman or expertise.

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For example, according to the Gottman Institute, 69 percent of marital problems are perpetual.

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That means only 31 percent of problems are resolved.

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And these percentages come from marriages that don't end in divorce.

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So how do all these marriages survive, even thrive?

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Remember the vows that we made?

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I am with you for better and for worse and sickness and in health and prosperity and adversity.

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I am with you until the end.

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And this is why marriage is considered a sacramental rite, because marriage is an hour and invisible sign that God is with us no matter what.

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When Jesus sends the twelve out on a mission to gather the lost sheep of Israel, he tells them to take nothing for their journey, rely on the hospitality of strangers.

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Other than being giving the authority to heal a few diseases, the only thing they have to offer is the good news of the kingdom.

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News that says God is with you no matter what.

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A truth revealed fully on Calvary when Christ is crucified.

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In the end, only the promise of God with us can provide any kind of lasting hope or healing.

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God didn't send his son to fix a broken world.

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God sent his son to love a world that is short on compassion.

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God didn't send his son to fix the world so we could go back to doing things like we did and just break it again.

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God sent his son to love us so that we might grow in compassion and soften a world that has been hardened by sin and indifference.

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This past week during Vacation Bible School, our young people worked on a few outreach projects to help serve the hungry in our community.

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In a small way, their frame of reference was broadened a little bit.

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Room to grow in compassion.

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I think that's really important.

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I'm glad we did that.

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But I encourage us to take the next step.

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Consider taking your children, your youth to Avondale one Thursday this summer to feed the hungry.

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Or you might go to First Light, a shelter where we serve women and children a meal once a month.

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Like some of our families, maybe this will become a part of your regular rhythm in life.

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You might also look into sending your child or you yourself going to Sawyerville or special session.

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I know some of our adults took a meal to Sawyerville this past week.

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Emily was at special session with Bartley.

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Sawyerville provides a day camp, literacy programs, and more to young people in Hale County who have limited resources.

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Special session at Camp McDowell provides an opportunity for adults with disabilities to have a summer camp experience where they sort of are freed from the normal limitations of this life.

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Now, by doing these things, we're not going to end world hunger.

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We might raise the literacy level of some.

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We're not going to cure any chronic diseases.

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But you will share and find the compassion of God.

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You will share and find the truth of God with us no matter what.

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You will share and find the good news of a kingdom that inspires hope in a world full of despair.

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And that, my friends, is why we follow Jesus.

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Even more, that is why we go when Jesus sends us.

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You might be asking, when can we start?

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Just as soon as you can.

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The harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few.

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Amen.

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And now we proclaim our faith.