Matthew 9:36 “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

The crowds of people that came to Jesus were a mess. They were harassed. Sickness and disease hounded them. They didn’t have decent medical care. They couldn’t even take an Advil or a Tylenol if they were in pain. Many of them were disabled, all of them were overtaxed, and there were no food stamps or social security checks to try to make ends meet.

Instead of bringing them a little comfort, instead of offering them a little relief in God’s grace and promises, their religious leaders just piled on. On top of God’s commandments, which are already more than anyone can keep, they added hundreds of their own rules for holy living. In another place in the gospels Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for tying up heavy burdens and putting them on men’s shoulders, but then they won’t lift a finger to help them carry them.

So here are the crowds before Jesus: dealing with physical pain, struggling to survive, convinced that they are spiritual failures and that their lives are grave disappointments to God. Should it surprise us that some of them may have become skeptical of the old Bible promises, or that many of them just gave up on trying to live a decent, godly life? Should it shock us if some of them jumped at the opportunity for a few moments of pleasure, even sinful ones, or fudged on some of the things God’s law demands? Understand, their situation did not make their sinful choices acceptable, just not a huge surprise.

The priests and Pharisees looked at these crowds with nothing but criticism. In John chapter 7 they complain, “This mob that knows nothing of the law–there is a curse on them” (vs 49). Jesus saw them differently. “He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” He was not okay with their weak faith, their spiritual faults, their selfish choices, their sinful behavior. But he was not so filled with righteous anger that he was ready to deal out death and judgment. He was moved to compassion. He was filled with mercy. He genuinely felt sorry for the people in front of him. On this day it led him to preach and teach, to heal and to pray. On a day not far in the future it would lead him to die in their place on a shameful cross to take away their sins.

People like this are still “the field” in which we work. This is still what Christian ministry looks like. How do the “culture wars” make you feel? We live in the middle of a crowd that now embraces every kind of perversion of God’s good gift of sex. We are more a part of that crowd than we may be able to recognize or care to admit. People no longer know which rest room they should use. Mothers will kill their own offspring before they are born, and children will kill their own parents when they have become old and weak. We hear otherwise intelligent people arguing that all of this is okay, even a matter of basic human rights. All of this can get conservative, Bible-believing Christians stirred up. Sometimes it gets them so stirred up that in personal conversations or comments online they can sound a lot like the priests and Pharisees, “This mob that knows nothing of the law–there is a curse on them.”

If Jesus shows us what Christian ministry looks like (and he does), then the proper reaction to the field in which we have been placed is compassion, “because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” That is what the people in our mission field are, sheep without a shepherd. We cannot be okay with their weak or lacking faith, their spiritual faults, their selfish choices, or their sinful behavior any more than we can be okay with our own.

But have compassion. See their spiritual pain and sickness, even if they don’t fully realize it themselves yet. Bring them the medicine of God’s grace, the good news that God loves them and will forgive them–the woman who terminated her pregnancy to keep it a secret, the young people who practice little or no self-control over their bodies, the mass of people who don’t seem to understand why God created two genders. They need Jesus just like we do.