Lie With the Dog
June 17, 2001
Matt 9:35-10:16  

Yahshua started out as a one-man show. He was unique; one-of-a-kind. And when he began his ministry at the age of 30, he started from scratch. The life expectancy in those days was about 29 years. In the Hebrew tradition, attaining the ripe old age of 30 qualified a man to be an elder in the local synagogue. (A synagogue is a gathering place with exactly the same function as a church building.) Yahshua started out teaching Sabbath school. Soon he was called out of the synagogue to preach the good news - that the Kingdom of Yahweh had come - in him. His message was unique; he preached that his Father in Heaven didn’t hate the world, but loved it. Yahshua soon gained a following.

Society of Yahshua

Teaching, preaching and healing: these acts were paramount in Yahshua’ ministry. These acts are still employed by today’s ministers, in imitation of their Master. But in his day, there was not enough of Yahshua to go around. When he was on the scene, thick crowds gathered. He considered these clouds of needy people as sheep. Sheep are easy pray for dogs, wolves, lions and thieves. Sheep haven’t the capacity or the facility to fight back, nor even the mentality to know who their enemy is. The people who came around when Yahshua was ministering were not the wealthy, the powerful or the famous. They were the peasants, the dregs of society, the lepers, the diseased, the prostitutes, the racially inferior, the slaves, the foreigner, the unwanted, the retarded, the desperate, the morbidly curious -- all of whom were harassed -- by the tax man, by the Roman soldier, by the greedy teacher, by male-centered society, by the abusive husband, the abusive wife, the abusive parents and children, the abusive masters; they were victims of circumstances, accidents, plagues, diseases, infirmities, cruel slave masters or acts of the wrath of God.

Like sheep, these people were helpless and tossed about by every wind of circumstance or every whim of the persecutor or every whisper of the preacher -- they were sinners and victims seeking a Savior, a deliverer, a healer. Yahshua could hardly believe how many came to him. He wasn’t ready for such popularity; not physically strong enough to endure such strenuous ministry; not emotionally prepared for the suffering that he was now forced to witness. Yahshua was a man; he couldn’t be in two or three places at once. Although he fulfilled his ministry, he was drained, tired, depressed and sought places where he could be alone and recuperate, for the desperate hounded him as though he were a sheep for the slaughter himself.

On a lighter note, Yahshua found a partial solution to his being used up. Yahshua invented the first multilevel marketing system, which has become today the proven business plan for making lots of money. You know how MLM works -- you get a 3 people to sell something for you, then each of them gets 3, which makes nine, then each of them gets three which makes 27, and on and on, and you get a cut of everybody’s profit. And if you are a good leader and hard worker, you get a lot of recruits who get a lot of recruits, and you make gobs of money. Multilevel marketing recruits are often called associates.

Yahshua recruited twelve associates to help him. He gave the twelve authority to teach, preach and heal - abilities that could be extremely profitable then and now. But he tells them that they can’t sell anything. What they had, they had to give away, free. And in order to freely give these tremendous benefits to desperately poor people, he tells them that they have to become poor people, with no money at all and not even a change of clothing.

The disciples Yahshua picked were not poor people. They were not from among the lower class. They were young tradesmen who made a lot of money and stood to inherit profitable businesses. They were not used to being broke, touching lepers, living off charity, sleeping on bug-infested straw mattresses, wearing rags and being criminals and heretics. This was not their bag. They were young, respectable and popular. So why did they become Yahshua’ marketing associates?

The one qualification they all had in common with Yahshua is always overlooked. We get the idea Yahshua just picked his men and women arbitrarily - one here, one there, one somewhere else. Often, the preacher will say, "Well, if a tax collector and a fisherman can be a disciple, so can you." But these associates he chose had a very rare qualification that Yahshua was looking for. We find that quality in Matt 9:36 (and many other places; i.e. 14:14, 15:32, Luke 7:13). It is compassion.

In the language of the Bible the word translated ‘compassion" is esplagchnisthe. We get the word "spleen" from it. The spleen is an organ found deep within the human body. One might literally translate esplagchnisthe as "something out of the bowels." One professor translates the passage this way, "When he saw the crowds, he was gut-wrenched for them...." Another professor translates, "When he saw the crowds, he was internally terrorized...." The picture we get from these descriptive translations is that Yahshua was more than just a little concerned about these people, but he was absolutely, utterly internally moved by their plight. Perhaps you have experienced something like this. Did you ever see such suffering that you became physically ill over it? That it made you sick?

Well, that is just part of the meaning of compassion. The ‘passion’ part of ‘compassion’ means to feel deeply moved for someone; it’s usually employed describing erotic or extremely caring feelings, including pity. The ‘com’ part of ‘compassion’ means simply ‘with,’ implying that there is an action to be taken ‘with passion.’ Therefore, compassion is not only a deep feeling often connected with love and care, it also requires a powerful action. If one feels deep passion and pity for the suffering of others, that is not compassion. Compassion is only when that feeling is acted upon. The father in our story saw a girl in trouble and in response got out of the car. Now that is compassion in action, and he gave his life as a result.

Likewise, Yahshua’ motivation for teaching, preaching and healing was not duty, it was compassion. He was gut wrenched about the plight of these desperate people and could have limited his ministry to just teaching and preaching, but he didn’t. He healed them also. All of them. Of every infirmity, disease and affliction.

And this was the qualification that he perceived in the men and women he picked to convey his power and authority -- those who had deep enough compassion for the desperate and humiliated that they were willing themselves to become desperate and humiliated to alleviate the suffering of others. And Yahshua’ chosen men and women joined Yahshua’ marketing gang because they were compassionate as he was, and saw in him a way of acting out their compassion, even though their method seemed pretty radical them and now.

This is something of the stuff that Paul is addressing in our Epistle reading today:

Since Yahshua came specifically to die for the ungodly, he was looking for the rare man or woman who would also be willing to be humiliated and perhaps even die for the diseased, wretched rabble which made up the bulk of the Roman protectorate they called Palestine. It is a wonder that he found anybody to answer the call. But the ones he chose had been disciples of John the Baptizer, they had repented of their sins, they were followers of Yahweh’s law, they were compassionate, they were seeking a messiah and a mission. And they found their mission. And they eventually became patriots and martyrs in the Kingdom of the Messiah.

Friends, we are experiencing the legendary Golden Age in the United States -- the highest point of culture and quality of life that has ever been known in the entire history of the world. No matter how poor we claim to be, we’ve got it made here. But not far outside these borders is a world full of people living in culture at its very ebb. Almost everywhere else, life consists of starvation, poverty, slavery, misery and martyrdom. There are huge geographic areas in which the people who belong to Yahshua are being systematically destroyed by their persecutors by the millions. Outside our borders, 50,000 children die every day of malnutrition. In some places in Africa and Asia, 50% of the population has AIDS -- mostly children -- and again we are talking about multiple millions in Christian communities. And every day on TV we find ministries begging for help in alleviating some of the suffering.

But I don’t want to hear about it. I rationalize that maybe the suffering is God’s will or God’s punishment, or that these people deserve it, or that, well, that’s in some foreign place -- what does it have to do with me, anyway? If I don’t have compassion, it has nothing to do with me. Nothing, that is, until I hear again the words of the Apostle, "Christ died for the ungodly" and the Holy Spirit, which we claim lives within us stirs up some kind of gut-wrenchedness. That happens sometimes.

I also found that, if you don’t have natural compassion for diseased folks or starving children or persecuted believers, you can just pick any needy group, learn something about that group, begin praying for that group everyday, and while you’re at it, pray that the Father will give you a gift of compassion so you can take some of that power that you claim to have and fulfill the ministry that your Savior conveyed to his disciples. The Apostle stresses this possibility in today’s Epistle reading:

If you don’t have it already, pray for the outpouring of compassion!

Finally, I want to return to the notion that Yahshua invented multilevel marketing. Palestine was very small. Everyone knew everyone else and was related to everyone else. Yahshua sent these guys out in twos to towns and villages to people they already probably knew. These disciples went out teaching, preaching and healing for the rest of their lives, some of which were quite short. All of them ended up receiving death on the mission field in payment for their compassionate acts. Yet if each of the initial twelve disciples in six groups recruited 12 compassionate associates, there would then be 72 new recruits. That is the number of recruits that we find in Luke 10 (in the older manuscripts). It says there that Yahshua appointed these 72 and sent them out by 2s, in this case 36 new groups. If each of these new groups recruited 12 associates, that would make 432. If Yahshua then appointed these 432 and sent them out by 2s, in this case 216 groups, with each group recruiting 12, there would be 2592. In our day, there are over one billion people who at least call themselves associates of Yahshua. Of course, not all are naturally compassionate, but, as I mentioned before, compassion can be a gift from Father, a fruit of the Spirit or an answer to prayer.

One day, one of Yahshua’ associates came your way, and now you are his associate, too. I challenge you to develop the qualities of compassion. If you don’t have any love for the unlovely, ask for it or petition the Father on behalf of a desperate group until you do. You may not make a lot of money, like some modern-day multilevel marketers do, but you will definitely be rewarded with something far greater in due time.

There is a dog in the neighborhood that has been constantly howling night and day for several days, to the disruption of our lives and particularly our sleep. The other night I was awakened again by the howling and was very frustrated. At the same time, I was worrying about how I might finish up this message to bring the point hometo you. Then the Holy Spirit started speaking to my heart and I spoke back. The conversation went like this:

Holy Spirit: "Jackson, you learned today that the dog had just become a mother and that she lost all her pups. You know that’s why she’s howling -- she’s bereaved and miserable. If you can’t have compassion for a dog, how can you have compassion for people."

Jackson: "Holy Spirit, you are right. I stand groggily convicted. Please give me a gift of compassion for this mother dog. I know, I’ll pray about it. Holy Spirit, please comfort this miserable mother dog who has lost all her pups. Send a spirit of comfort over there. I pray not so I can sleeps so much as that the dog might be consoled. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for showing me what compassion is all about."

Well, I felt pretty pious about the whole thing. And my soul bragged on itself like Little Jack Horner, "What a good boy am I. How compassionate and wonderful I’ve become tonight." About this time, the dog began to howl again and the Holy Spirit whispered one last thing, "Go now -- lie with the dog."

I was just going to end there, but Mignon thought that I better explain it. She’s usually right, so here goes: It’s a good thing to have pity to pray, but it’s a perfect thing to take action. Amen.