Dai­ly Reflec­tion
July 10, 2025

The 10^th chap­ter of Matthew fea­tures a cou­ple of firsts.  This is the first time that we see the twelve clos­est fol­low­ers of Jesus referred to as apos­tles.  The word apos­tle comes from the Greek word apos­to­los, which trans­lates gen­er­al­ly as “mes­sen­ger” or “one who is sent out.”  This is also the first time we see Jesus send­ing the apos­tles on a mis­sion of preach­ing and heal­ing.  In our Gospel vers­es for today, we read the instruc­tions Jesus gave for their first out­ing.  In short, the apos­tles were told to bring good news, heal­ing and peace – and not much else.

Bring the good news that God’s king­dom is near.  You can get there from here.  God has not aban­doned you.  It was good news then for those under Roman rule, for those under the weight of rules placed on them by the Phar­isees.  It is good news today, wher­ev­er you are, no mat­ter what you are fac­ing.
Bring heal­ing.  Some­times we may be called to facil­i­tate phys­i­cal heal­ing.  For those of us not med­ical­ly gift­ed, per­haps our role will be akin to that of the Good Samar­i­tan.  Oth­er times we may play a role in emo­tion­al or spir­i­tu­al heal­ing, as we vis­it the sick and impris­oned, pro­vide food, water and clothes to those who need them – like the sheep in Matthew 25.

Bring peace.  In our soci­eties, we are repeat­ed­ly told to be anx­ious.  Com­mer­cials tell us we will not be safe unless we get more insur­ance, a retire­ment invest­ment plan, a secu­ri­ty sys­tem for our home, a par­tic­u­lar med­ica­tion, and so on.  Politi­cians around the world solic­it sup­port for their poli­cies by stok­ing fears of peo­ple who think, act or look dif­fer­ent­ly.  We, though, are called to place our hope in God.
Today’s first read­ing pro­vides a good exam­ple of what hap­pens when an indi­vid­ual brings faith­ful good news, heal­ing and peace to a very ner­vous group of peo­ple.  Joseph’s broth­ers were already anx­ious as they found them­selves far from home in the pres­ence of an impor­tant polit­i­cal admin­is­tra­tor.  Their anx­i­ety must have inten­si­fied as they learned this pow­er­ful fel­low was the broth­er they had abused and sold into slav­ery.  Joseph calls for peace – do not be dis­tressed – and describes God at work in the world.  In the process, he brings heal­ing in the form of for­give­ness and reconciliation.

It occurs to me that I/we need to adjust our approach to being Christ’s mes­sen­gers.  It can be tempt­ing to try to deter­mine who mer­its heal­ing and peace, but that is not what Jesus told the apos­tles.  It may be that some­one refus­es what is offered.  Make the offer any­way.  It can be tempt­ing to think we can know who needs heal­ing and peace, but it is not always pos­si­ble to rec­og­nize the pain and tur­moil a per­son car­ries with­in them.  In fact, a per­son may not real­ize it him­self.  For instance, Joseph looked like a per­son who was thriv­ing, but encoun­ter­ing his broth­ers brought him to tears; and the recon­nec­tion with his fam­i­ly was a cause for cel­e­bra­tion.  And by extend­ing for­give­ness to his broth­ers, Joseph expe­ri­enced heal­ing himself.