This morning’s Gospel reading is Matthew 9:36—10:8:

At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. 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.”

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. 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; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon from Cana, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

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

As luck would have it, my wife and I have just begun watching Season 3 of The Chosen. This Gospel passage plays a big part of the early episodes this season. The trailer below doesn’t show it, but the series focuses on the reaction of the apostles to Jesus’ command, which takes — as one might expect — the form of practical concerns, not to mention some potential interpersonal conflicts:

The questions that come up are pretty much what you’d probably ask yourself in the same situation, which is presumably the intent of the filmmaker. We’d all like to believe that we’d say, “Yes, my Lord!” and obey unquestioningly, but any honest reflection on our response to Jesus’ call in any other circumstances demolishes that fantasy.

What follows seems like both a realistic and reasonable presumed response by the disciples: How do we eat? What happens when people reject us? Isn’t this going to be dangerous? Why are you pairing me with him? And perhaps most important of all, these questions: Are we ready, and are we worthy?

Jesus answers these queries, to the extent they are made explicit, with some of the familiar passages from Matthew 9’s instructions. In another scene, one of the most touching in this sequence, Jesus has a heartbreaking conversation with “Little James,” whose physical impairment remains unresolved while Jesus heals others around him. Jesus has to lovingly explain why the Lord wants to work through his infirmity to heal others to amplify the power of the Gospel. Little James weeps in disappointment, understanding that he may never shed his burden, but nevertheless aligns his will to Jesus’.

This presents an even more difficult question for Christians even to this day: How can I proclaim the Gospel and do Jesus’ work when I am still broken? It’s yet another form of the question: Are we ready, and are we worthy?

The answer to that is: No. But the question itself is irrelevant.

Consider what we learn in our first reading from Exodus today. God calls Moses to the mountain and gives him a prophecy to tell the Israelites: “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” The Lord then details how the new holy nation of priests should be organized and the rules of worship they should follow — while the people at the foot of Mount Sinai create the idol of the Golden Calf and abandon the Lord. In Exodus 32:7, the Lord grows angry with their blasphemy but refrains from destroying them. Even while punishing them, even while acknowledging their stiff-necked natures, the Lord still wants the Israelites to be a nation of priests to the world — to call all people to His Word. The Lord protected Israel and built it into a mighty kingdom for that purpose, but it collapsed when the Israelites and Judeans chose worldly power over the will of the Lord.

The lesson from this thousand-year sequence is that the Lord calls the fallen to do His work to reach the other fallen. God sent His prophets to warn against blasphemy and sin, but even those were called from the ranks of fallen humanity. It is not a question of worthiness or even preparation; Moses needed Aaron to speak for him because of Moses’ “faltering lips,” for instance (Exodus 6:30), and Aaron himself helped create the Golden Calf. Yet Moses and Aaron succeeded because they trusted in Him and allowed themselves to be instruments of His will.

It is not through preparation or perfection that the Lord works. It is through His call and His will, and we can only succeed when we listen to His call and align ourselves to His will rather than our own.

We are all broken and sinful. None of us are worthy in a sense of perfection, nor are we fully ready in terms of preparation. Formation and catechesis is important and should not be dismissed, but we all have gifts from the Holy Spirit to offer even outside of the refining process of formation and catechesis. (It’s worth noting too that the disciples had years of direct formation and catechesis from Jesus Himself before being sent on this mission.)

We are all called, nonetheless, to work in His service to proclaim the Gospels and scriptures to others. This is the lesson from today’s Gospel, made more clear in the dramatization in The Chosen. It is not for us to know how the Lord will work through us, and certainly not to have guarantees that we will see the fruits of those labors. We may not even feel the healing for ourselves that we bring to others in that work, because it may be our brokenness and infirmity that the Lord is using.

We should mourn and atone our failings and sinfulness. But we should have faith through that process that the Lord has a mission for us and trust Him that we can accomplish it with His help. Twelve men on the road in Judea helped change the world; imagine what we can do together now.

Addendum: Most of you have probably watched at least some of The Chosen by now. If not, I highly recommend it. The link above will take you to Angel Studios, the production company creating the series entirely through crowdfunding. It’s available for free, and you can install an app on your smart TVs and Roku to more easily access the episodes and a lot of other inspirational material.

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.