The slogans of our world can help us better understand the mandates of our faith. That we are called to better the circumstances of our neighbors.
to understand Jesus we have to try
Saint Barnabas | Matthew 10:7-16
We don’t know a lot about Barnabas, of course. His place in tradition is dwarfed by Paul. And the writings give us little to go on. No favorite color or favorite TV show. Is he a cat or a dog person?
What we have, however, is a witness to a world-transforming faith in Jesus. A willingness to embody the gospel and put that very life on the line in the service of the Lord. An idea that is as much romantic as it is acknowledged as an option for any of us.
This feast is paired with a gospel story from Matthew that is about Jesus sending the disciples out into the world to do his work, to quite literally be Jesus for people.
Today, I was struck by a particular phrase in it. Jesus is telling them to go out, but take nothing with them. He presumes their response will be but how could we survive without money. So he doesn’t let them ask it, simply offering them confidence in their work “for laborers deserve their food.”
Laborers deserve their food.
I think we can all get behind the logic, in the abstract sense. But remember why Jesus is saying this. He’s sending them out with nothing: inviting them to rely on the generosity of strangers. He doesn’t say anything else. Go, don’t take anything with you “for laborers deserve their food.”
The fear I’m certain the disciples had mimics our own personal economics. Laborers deserve to get paid. Sure. But if you don’t have cash, how are you supposed to buy any food? Jesus is pushing beyond that narrow economic theory that dominates our rhetoric. People, spreading the Good News are laboring. They deserve to eat, to survive.
And those they’re going out to deserve to eat, to survive.
We pray give us today our daily bread, not because we are worthy, but because we all deserve to eat.
As slogans go…
I was recently discussing with others some of the slogans we’re hearing. And depending on what you want to hear, there are always running questions about whether or not these are the most effective ways to communicate.
And much like “for laborers deserve their food,” today’s slogans are easily shoved into the context we want for them. We want labor to be part of an economic system. We want that economic system to efficiently share goods and services so that we can buy food we haven’t grown. So we want “for laborers deserve their food” to be about the labor.
Even perhaps an equal pay for equal work mantra. Or as a justification for an opposition to welfare—so that people must work if they hope to eat.
Of course, the context is king. And Jesus obviously had neither of those in mind.
Slogans about black lives, police funding, or even “no justice, no peace” have a context. They aren’t exclusively open to interpretation. Especially when we know there’s a different context.
Jesus was assuring the disciples they would be fed. And they were to feed. Not because he had faith in markets to regulate themselves, but because he had faith in God acting through people.
And he had faith in them. Jesus is saying Your work is worthy. You deserve to eat.
This isn’t a comment about other people and whether they deserve to eat. This isn’t an economic model or a bartering system. Jesus, who wants all to be fed is saying to people who are afraid you will be fed.
Making black lives matter
I don’t think we have that much trouble understanding Jesus. Not nearly as much as we have getting our love of certainty, of nationalism, of the ways of the world out of the way. So we can actually hear Jesus.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes in Discipleship, we perpetuate the mistaken belief that there are two realms: God’s infinity and the world we inhabit. But there is only one realm.
And in this realm, we put all of these things in front of the will of God because we don’t want to acknowledge the sacrifice Christ is calling us into. We want our safety, when Jesus is telling us to ensure the safety of others.
As Jesus says to his disciples “for laborers deserve their food,” he is saying the same to us. To you and me. Laborers deserve their food. In the vineyards making wine for capitalists and in the streets making justice for the people. People deserve their food.
Of our own statements, there should be no equivocation. We say “Black lives matter” because we believe they matter. They matter to us and they matter to God. Full stop.
But the sacrifice Christ is calling us into is not simply belief, but movement—what some might call evangelism. To transform unjust systems and make peace so that our siblings receive their food and their full human dignity.
So we must also reject white supremacy and all its evils.
We must be willing to be neighbors to those being oppressed.
To serve them by caring for them.
And change the circumstances which deprive them dignity.
In the end,
Like Barnabas and Paul, we might fight. We might go our separate ways over the methods and the process. How we need to make this stuff work.
But we must not be afraid to serve those most in need, given the least dignity. The ones beaten back and impoverished by a lack of justice. To offer them the very peace of Christ. For we are the neighbor in the parable. We are called to serve.
As apostles, empowered by the Spirit to be Christ in the world. To go out and work; to deserve our food.
The very body of Christ.