07 Jul 26 | Troubled & Abandoned
Jesus saw the crowds and felt it in his gut. Then he told his disciples what to pray. Then he answered the prayer by sending them.
The Gospel: Matthew 9:32-38
³² As they were going out, a demoniac who could not speak was brought to him, ³³ and when the demon was driven out the mute person spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, "Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel." ³⁴ But the Pharisees said, "He drives out demons by the prince of demons."
³⁵ Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. 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."
Today’s Focus
A mute man is healed and the two responses it provokes reveal that clear evidence of God's power does not determine what a watching heart will conclude, followed by Jesus' gut-level compassion for the crowds seen as lost sheep and a ready harvest, which produces an immediate instruction to pray for laborers and an immediate commissioning of the Twelve.
In the Margins
As they were going out, a demoniac who could not speak was brought to him, and when the demon was driven out the mute person spoke. Matthew barely slows down for this healing. It arrives almost as a passing detail in what has been a dense series of miracles. A man could not speak. Now he can. The crowds were amazed and said nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel. The Pharisees said he drives out demons by the prince of demons. Both responses are looking at exactly the same event. One sees the unprecedented presence of God. The other sees demonic collusion. The miracle itself determines nothing about which reading you will choose.
This is a sobering thing to sit with. The evidence in front of both groups was identical. What differed was not the quality of what they witnessed but the condition of the heart doing the witnessing. Clear demonstration of God’s power is not, by itself, coercive. It can be received with wonder or explained away with hostility. Both are always available options for a person who has already decided what they think is happening.
Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. This is one of Matthew’s summary passages, a pause to describe the scope of what has been happening before what comes next. The ministry is total: teaching, proclamation, healing. Nothing is being withheld. And then Matthew tells us what Jesus saw when he looked at the people receiving all of it.
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. The Greek word for moved with pity, splagchnizomai, is one of the most visceral words in the New Testament. It describes a physical movement, a response felt in the gut, not a mild sympathy observed from a safe distance. Jesus is affected by what he sees. The crowds are troubled and abandoned. This language reaches back to Ezekiel 34, where God indicts the shepherds of Israel for scattering and exploiting the flock rather than gathering and caring for it, and to Numbers 27:17, where Moses asks God to appoint a leader so the people will not be like sheep without a shepherd. The crowds Jesus sees are the product of a long failure of leadership, left without real guidance, vulnerable and adrift.
Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is abundant but the laborers are few, so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. The image shifts from sheep to grain without warning, and the shift is the point. The same crowds who are lost sheep in need of a shepherd are also a ready harvest in need of reapers. The compassion Jesus feels and the urgent need he identifies are not two separate problems. They are the same reality described from two angles, the human need and the divine opportunity present in that need.
The prayer Jesus instructs comes before the commissioning. Ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers. The next verse opens the chapter that commissions the Twelve. The ones praying for laborers become the laborers sent. The prayer was never meant to be passive, and the same dynamic is available to anyone who lets the compassion of Jesus for troubled and abandoned people land long enough to produce a response.
Reflection Question
When you look at the people around you who are troubled and without direction, does what you see produce any movement in you (any prayer or action) or have you learned to observe that lostness from a comfortable distance?