For Sunday
Proper 6A
Collect
Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
The crowds were “harassed and helpless” it says. That they were”like sheep without a shepherd.”
I’m not sure I had noticed the word “harassed” before. Helpless? Yes. Sheep without a shepherd? Definitely. Harassed is something else.
We tend to talk passively in the church. We don’t always like to say who does a thing so much as what has been done. Notice how frequently our prayers involve our being acted upon—either by God or by those around us.
Being harassed isn’t a passive experience. It doesn’t simply occur. We don’t wake up one day to a spontaneous act of harassment by no one in particular. We’re harassed. By other people. They harass us.
I know that many Christians love to talk about being harassed and persecuted. Not actively, of course. But by some nebulous pressure to not discriminate. So I know a lot of us are reluctant to talk about harassment.
But this is essential to the story. The harassment and helplessness they feel comes from occupation and oppression. So these results originate with Rome and the Temple authorities who are aligned with Rome.
When Jesus feels sympathy, he sees the people at the victim end of a relationship. It isn’t simple confusion he’s helping out. Because he isn’t feeling sympathy for Roman officials who have their own struggles. Nor is he sympathetic to the religious elites who are persecuting their own.
Sometimes, when we speak only to our own struggle, we miss the wider context. Jesus provides power to people who have none.
And most of us have some already.