>>The first reading that Joyce read for us from Exodus and the Gospel reading that I just read from Matthew are really beautifully paired up together. How so?  

In the Exodus reading, we have a beautiful reminder of the covenant between God and the people of Israel. We hear that very clearly in the first reading. God tells Moses, “Remember, I brought the Israelite people, my favorite people. I brought them out of slavery, out of Egypt? Remember how much I love them? Remember how much I care for them? All I ask is that they listen for my voice and that they follow me. They listen to my voice and that they look for me. They listen to my voice and they keep my commandments.”  

That’s the covenant that God reminds us between God and the Israelite people. It’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful reminder of God’s covenant with the Israelite people.  

In the gospel, we have another kind of covenant. Did you hear it? It was between Jesus and His disciples. These are the people who He invited to follow him. And so they did. They followed Jesus. They follow him wherever he wants. And they saw him perform miracles. Now Jesus is sending out His disciples to share what they’ve received, and He promises them, “I’ll give you the authority and I’ll give you what you need to cure those who are sick, to heal the lepers, to drive out demons and raise the dead.”  

Jesus is committing himself to giving them the authority and the healing power they need to transform the world around us. How powerful, how absolutely powerful. I hope that we hear in these two readings about the covenant. I hope that we hear our role in this covenant. We too, like the disciples, are invited to go out there and to be a healing balm to the people that we encounter every day. That’s what our job is to be, a healing balm – a transforming balm to the people that we encounter every day.  

Before I end up today, I want to remind us what happened also in the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel as you hear it. Jesus said to his disciples, “Ask the master for what you need.” Ask the Master to send out laborers for the vineyard, laborers for the harvest.  

So I want to ask three things. First thing, I want to ask our generous God to send out more disciples, more missionary disciples for the transformation of the world around us. And so generous God, help us to be and help there to be more missionary disciples who transform them the world around us.  

Secondly, I’d like to ask Jesus to send out His strength upon all fathers as we in this country celebrate Father’s Day. We’ve got some beautiful, gifted fathers. We have some fathers who aren’t doing so well. We want to ask for Jesus’ strength for all dads to be really supportive and generous fathers to their children.  

And lastly, we want to ask and make sure that the Holy Spirit is inspiring us to ignite, acknowledge human dignity amongst all people as we celebrate Juneteenth Day tomorrow, the 19th of June. There’s a lot of challenges in the world around us. How do we hold everyone’s dignity up from conception until natural death? Those are the three things we ask the Lord.  

Not only send laborers, help us to be good fathers, and also help us to be just people holding up everyone’s human dignity, as Jesus taught us. We participate in the covenant between God and His people – ourselves. Let us celebrate that well. Amen.