So what does Jesus do? He calls twelve unlikely fellows together and gives them the power "to cure every disease and every sickness," and he sends them out to "proclaim the good news." He charges them to "cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons."

I envy the disciples because they know they have the power to do all these wonderful things. It's not a question of whether they can cure the sick, it's only a question of who, where, and when. Wouldn't it be wonderful to know you had that power? Wouldn't it be wonderful to know that Jesus has personally commissioned you?

Or would it be frightening? After all, if we know that Jesus has called us to proclaim the good news, we cannot escape our responsibility to do so. Knowing that we are called just as the twelve disciples were called puts us in the position of the disciples: will we be like Peter, impetuously proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God one moment and cowardly denying him the next? Will we, like Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot, the one a collaborator with the Romans, the other a revolutionary against them, suddenly find ourselves thrown in with people who are seemingly opposite and be expected to live together in one community? Will we be asked to leave family and possessions behind, like James and John, who left their father Zebedee in the fishing boat in order to follow Jesus? (Happy Father's Day, by the way.)

In some ways, it would be easier not to be called to join in Jesus' work. And I don't know about you, but I tend to identify more with the harassed and helpless crowd than with the miracle-working disciples. And yet, we have all been called out of that harassed and helpless crowd by the Good Shepherd. We are no longer lost sheep. This does not mean, of course, that we no longer feel harassed from time to time, but it does mean that we are no longer helpless, even when we feel we are.

Think back for a moment to a time in your life, perhaps recently, perhaps not, when you felt harassed and helpless. How did you get through that time? Did you experience the compassion of Christ? If so, how was that compassion mediated to you?

Now think for a moment to a time when you saw someone who felt harassed and helpless. What did you do? Can you think of an example? I would bet that if you've been involved in this community, you have shown Christ's compassion even without realizing it. Heyward told the vestry just the other day of how much this community has meant to him and to Sandy this past year.

In our community, all around us, and including ourselves, are people who from time to time, at least, feel harassed and helpless. But they-and we-are not sheep without a shepherd. For we are led by Christ, the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls, as one collect in the Prayer Book puts it. Perhaps this morning is a good time to remind ourselves that we have been called to model Christ's compassion to each other and that when we see others in need, we have been empowered to do just that.

Sometimes, I know, it may not make sense to us why we should be the ones whom Christ calls, and yet just as with those twelve rag-tag disciples, we know that God has a sometimes disturbing habit of sending the unlikeliest of characters to accomplish God's work. In other words, God may not necessarily call the equipped, but God always equips the called. We see that principle at work in the gospel lesson this morning, and if we are attentive to it, we will be able to see it at work in our own lives as well. Amen.