This Sunday we celebrate the Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time. Today’s Bible readings show God as kind, good, loving, and compasionate. While we don’t know directly about the heart of God and what moves it, in the Gospel reading, Jesus shows us God’s compassion and love in His own actions. The point to the readings this week is that we all belong to God and that He invites us to a deeper relationship. While offering comfort they also challenge us. The first and second readings call us to consider who we, the church, are in Christ and the Gospel challenges us to consider the mission of the church and our role in carrying it out.

First Reading: Exodus 19:2-6a

1 In the third month after their departure from the land of Egypt, on its first day, the Israelites came to the desert of Sinai. 2 After the journey from Rephidim to the desert of Sinai, they pitched camp.

While Israel was encamped here in front of the mountain, 3 Moses went up the mountain to God. Then the LORD called to him and said, “Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob; 4 tell the Israelites: You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself. 5 Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. 6 You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. That is what you must tell the Israelites.”

NOTES on First Reading:

* 19:1 Israel remains encamped at Sinai from 19:1 to Numbers 10:10. The priestly redactor’s 12 phase structuring of the events from Exodus to Numbers places Sinia as number seven and the threshold of the promised land as twelve. Thus Sinai is central to the events of the journey in both bulk of narrative and position.

* 19:1-25 In the course of the story Moses will make three round trips up and down the mountain to arrange the covenant: In 3-8a he relays the terms to the people who assent. In 8b-14 he purifies the people. In 20-25 he is made the mediator of the covenant with Aaron as assistant. The priests and people are kept at a distance.

* 19:2 There is uncertainty about the exact location of the mountain of God called Sinai. The case can be made for several peaks, including one directly south of Canaan.

* 19:3 Here we have two versions of the story in the same verse. In 3a Moses goes up to God while in 3b God calls down to Moses. This verse as well as all of Ex 19:2b-19 is the work of the redactor (editor).

* 19:4 Yahweh brings the people not only into the dessert but to Himself. There is a new intimacy with God that the people are called to share.

* 19:5 The Hebrew word used for special possession suggests the special private property of a king. The little word “if” became an important part of Israel’s understanding of the covenant. Failure to obey the injunctions of the covenant will later be seen as the cause for all the evil that befell the nation. The covenant is God’s; “my covenant” not “our”.

* 19:6 Inasmuch as the whole Israelite nation was consecrated to God in a special way, it formed a race of royal priests who participated in the liturgical sacrifices, even though the actual offering of the sacrifices was the exclusive prerogative of the Aaronic priesthood. The same condition exists in the New Dispensation as regards the whole Christian people and the Christian priesthood in the strict sense. See Isaiah 61:6; 1 Peter 2:5, 9.
Perhaps a better way to say it would be, “a royal house or body of priests and a holy nation.” Holy in its most basic sense means set apart for God.

Second Reading: Romans 5: 6-11

6 For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. 9 How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath. 10 Indeed, if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 Not only that, but we also boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

NOTES on Second Reading:

* 5:7 In the ancient world of the early church the ideal of the good person was especially one who was generous and kind to others.

* 5:8-9 Paul uses the argument that Jesus was sent by God to us while we were in the midst of our sinfulness. We could not possibly have done anything to deserve God’s consideration. He loved us quite simply because of His love, not because of anything we did or could do. His love was and is a pure gift.

* 5:9-11 Paul now goes on to say that if God loved us so much while we were still in our sins (verses 7-8), how much more will God show His love to us now that we have been reconciled to Him by Jesus. Paul also draws a contrast between the effectiveness of Jesus’ death in reconciling us to God and the effectiveness of His resurrection life in continuing to save us now. For Paul, salvation was both an accomplished fact and a continually unfolding work of God in the believer’s life of faith. Both aspects were to be a cause of joy and a reason to “boast of God through Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Gospel Reading: Matthew 9:36-10:8

36 At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; 38 so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

1 Then he summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. 2 The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; 4 Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

5 Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

NOTES on Gospel:

* 9:36 For parallel statements and other uses of this image see Mark 6:34; Numbers 27:17; 1 Kings 22:17.

* 9:37:38 This saying which is usually taken as coming from Q (a preexisting work of the sayings and acts of Jesus assumed by many scholars to have been used by the synoptic gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke) is only imperfectly related to this context (see Luke 10:2). It supposes that only God (the master of the harvest) can take the initiative in sending out preachers of the gospel, but here in Matthew’s setting it leads into Mat 10 where Jesus does so. Another possibility is that it intentionally places Jesus into a role that had been ascribed to God thus portraying Him doing the things that only God does.

* 10:1-4 These verses form an introductory narrative to the second of the discourses of the gospel which ends at 11:1. Although it deals with the mission now to be undertaken by the disciples (5-15), it actually has a broader perspective which includes the missionary activity of the church between the time of the resurrection and the parousia. Matthew is speaking to his community about what their mission as a church should be.

* 10:2-4 This is the only time in Matthew where the Twelve are designated apostles. The word “apostle” means “one who is sent,” and therefore fits the situation described here. In the Paul’s letters, where the term occurs most frequently in the New Testament, it means primarily one who has seen the risen Lord and has been commissioned to proclaim the resurrection. With slight variants in Luke and Acts, the names of those who belong to this group are the same in the four lists given in the New Testament. Cananean represents an Aramaic word meaning “zealot,” although the meaning of that designation is unclear.

* 10:2 Unlike Mark (Mark 3:13-14) and Luke (Luke 6:12-16), Matthew does not present a story of Jesus’ choosing the Twelve, probably because Matthew assumed that the group was already known to the reader. The number, twelve, is probably meant to recall the twelve tribes of Israel and implies that Jesus has authority to call all Israel into the kingdom. To some extent, it was seen by the early church as the selection of new Patriarchs for the new “people of God.” While Luke (Luke 6:13) and probably Mark (Mark 4:10,34) distinguish between the Twelve and a larger group also termed disciples, Matthew tends to use the terms interchangeably. The authority which Jesus gives involves activities which are the same as those of Jesus; see Matthew 4:23; Matthew 9:35; 10:8. The Twelve will also share in Jesus proclamation of the kingdom (Matthew 10:7). One important exception emphasized in Matthew’s gospel is that although Jesus teaches (Matthew 4:23; 7:28; 9:35), the twelve do not. They are not commissioned to teach until after Jesus’ resurrection, when they have been fully instructed by Him (Matthew 28:20).

* 10:5-6 Like Jesus (Matthew 15:24), the Twelve are sent only to Israel. For Matthew this saying may simply express the limitation that Jesus Himself observed during His ministry. Later, it may have been taken by some as an original Jewish Christian refusal of the mission to the Gentiles which was not overcome until Paul and Barnabas expanded the Church into new areas and won support for the Gentile Church in the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-29).

* 10:6 The phrase used here refers both to the entire house of Israel (Ezek 34:2-6) as well as to the “people of the land (am ha ares)” within Israel. These were those people who, although part of the people of Israel, were marginalized and alienated from the circle of religious leadership and zeal. Jesus had a special, though not exclusive, concern for these alienated and generally poor people.

* 10:8-11 Because the Twelve have received their own call and mission as a pure gift of God, the benefits they confer are to be given freely. The Twelve are not to take money, provisions, or unnecessary clothing with them. Lodging and food will be provided by those who receive them. This is an expression of faith in God’s providence as well as a promise that God will take care of them.

Scripture text: New American Bible with revised New Testament copyright © 1986,1970, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine.
Commentary Sources:
Vince Del Greco
The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (1990) (Eds. Brown, Fitzmyer & Murphy)