The world is often not a pretty place.  Too often it seems like a beautiful mural of life that has been hit by vandals and graffiti now hides the original beauty and intent of the artist.  Jesus is the artist that gazes out at the world so marred by sin and suffering.  He remembers the act of creation and the beautiful vision of life that the Father had intended in commissioning this great work of art.  He remembers the careful strokes that the Word crafted at the dawn of time and how beautiful everything once was before the night of destruction brought such disfigurement to the original creation.  Human beings once were created with such dignity and purpose, such perfect order being created in the image and likeness of God.  Now this beautiful creation seemed so lost in the ugliness of sin, neglect and disregard.  Jesus remembered the love and care that was put into each stroke of creative genius.  Somehow this great creative work had to be cleansed and restored to its original beauty so much did Jesus love what he had created from the beginning in the power of the Father’s love and to his Father’s praise and glory.

     We can look out at the world through the compassionate eyes of Jesus and see the harm that sin and evil have wrought upon the lives of God’s people.  There is sickness and suffering everywhere, corruption and decay.  It is not a pretty sight.  So many people are weighed down with illness and disease in their lives, with broken images of a once promising life.  Perhaps we have grown so accustomed at times to the layers of graffiti that have hidden the original glory of God’s creation and we have just accepted the presence of so much ugliness that it seems natural to us.  Sometimes we even try to argue and convince ourselves that the graffiti is really new art a new and valid expression of our human experience.  Human dignity overwritten by the degradation of sin.  Like living in a large city and no longer noticing the filth, the litter, the excrement, the garbage lying openly in neglected city streets, human lives scattered about broken and abandoned.

     Today in our gospel we are told that Jesus looks out at the crowd of humanity that surrounds him and that his heart is moved with pity for them, with compassion, a compassion that in the original Greek signifies a deep suffering in the pit of his stomach much like being sickened with compassion for this once beautiful creation.  He sees them as being “troubled and abandoned”.  What he sees is the sickness and corruption of sin that weighs them down.  People are possessed by demons, battling chronic illnesses and disease and shadowed by death.  Was there no one else to see this?  Was there no one who could help these people?  Was there no one to gather the lost sheep into a place of safety, protection and new life?  Where were the shepherds and guardians of this people?  Where were the leaders that will reclaim and restore what had been lost?

     Jesus turns to his disciples and followers and asks them to pray for laborers.  He asks them to pray for someone who cares and can share his vision and compassion.  He asks them to enter through prayer into his contemplative compassion and feel the pain of suffering humanity.  Little do they know that they themselves will be the answer to their prayers.  We cannot pray without being infected by the creative hope of Jesus, without longing for the glory to be restored to a once beautiful work of art, without feeling our responsibility and call to be a part of the solution, the salvation of a people.  If not now then when?  If not me then who?  Immediately following this Jesus names twelve apostles to help him with the work of the restoration of Israel.  A people born from the twelve tribes of Israel will now be restored to glory by the twelve new artists of recreation.  Before anything new can be created among the Nations first the house of Israel, God’s original work of art and grace, must be restored.  Jesus gives them the power to accomplish the work that is to be done, to heal, to preach and to teach.  He sends them out to begin the work of restoring what was lost to sin and death.  Already they had experienced their own lives remade and refashioned in the power of Jesus’ words and actions.  Now what they had freely received they also were called to give without cost.

     Pray my friends for artistic laborers.  There is still great need.  As you have received, as you have been empowered, now you must be a part of the continuing work of restoration.