Ex 19: 2-6a | Ps 100 | Rom 5:6-11 | Mt 9:36-10:8
Most might be familiar with the proverb, “You cannot see the forest for the trees.” This saying has a saintly origin. Saint Thomas More, “the Man for All Seasons,” used it when arguing a legal case way back in 1533. He said, “He might tell us that of Paul’s Church we may well see the stones, but we cannot see the church. And then we may well tell him again that he cannot see the wood for the trees.” Being English, he used the term “wood” as we would “forest.”
What More wanted to say through his analogies of church and wood was that we can fail to see the truth of the matter when we focus too much on specific details. This occurred in his time and has occurred even more so in our own, because we live in a detail-focused age. As society has gotten more complex, it has asked people to focus and specialize on very specific parts. Over time, we have lost an understanding of the big picture because even the picture can appear to be too large.
This focus on the details, the trees, can influence how we hear the Gospel. Take today’s from Matthew: it’s a wonderfully composed telling of the choosing of the Twelve. Being such detail-oriented people, we tend to notice that the passage has many trees for us to focus on. We can spend time contemplating the heart of Jesus, Jesus as shepherd or as the master of the harvest. We can ask ourselves what is meant for Jesus to give the Twelve authority over unclean spirits, power to heal the sick, direction to go out on mission, or the impetus to give without costs. Then there are the apostles themselves, each of them with their own stories. With so many trees to focus on, it can be easy for us not to consider whether there is a forest to be found. Yet there is a forest, and we would be all the poorer if we didn’t see it.
Matthew in this gospel passage is, in a way, summarizing the entire biblical story—yes, the story that begins in Genesis and concludes with the establishment of the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. In Genesis, we learn of how humanity became alienated from God, its Creator. God did not abandon humanity, however. Beginning with Abraham and Sarah, God called and guided a people that would heal all of humanity of its addiction to sin. We read on in the Bible of how these chosen people would struggle to live out their calling to reconcile the world to God.
Matthew tells of how Jesus is moved with pity because the people he encounters seem like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus takes on the role of his Father in wanting humanity to be truly free. Knowing that he is simply one person, Jesus calls twelve of his disciples, symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel, and gives them a mission. What was done before is now being done anew in Jesus Christ. While the mission at this point in the story is limited to the house of Israel, it will be expanded to all the world at the end of Matthew’s gospel. The apostles are sent to remove the shackles of sin and obstacles that keep people from living life fully. This is a mission to reconcile all things back to God, the forest that can be lost for all the trees.
We, too, abide in this forest. We who can so easily be distracted by all the trees, all the little things that keep us from fulfilling our common vocation, are called out at baptism to continue the work that the Twelve began. So let us all see the forest for the trees and accept the challenge that Matthew so wonderfully places before us this day.
May we be a ready source of healing for others and willingly shepherd those around us who may be lost, able to recognize that at any given time, we ourselves might be the lost one in great need of our Shepherd.