Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Matthew 9:36—10:8
June 18, 2023

In recent years, a new and very lucrative career has emerged: social media influencer. Young, attractive, charismatic people take to the Internet and make enormous amounts of money by “shepherding” people towards fashion trends, health and so-called beauty products, restaurants and clubs…etc. etc. etc.

Basically, these folks are paid — and paid well to create an appetite for a lifestyle that is costly, certainly in terms of a big hit to the credit card (or cards), but also in terms of mental and spiritual health and well-being.

Those who can afford to buy into this dreamworld very often end up feeling unsatisfied…unfulfilled… looking to their “online shepherd” for directions to the next “new pasture.” Those who can’t buy into these fantasies are left behind feeling “troubled and abandoned.”

As we return to Ordinary Time, we find Jesus empowering and commissioning “12 SPIRITUAL influencers.” The Apostles were specially prepared by The Lord to go out into the world to create an appetite among the people for a radically new world order…a new way of living in this world.

These “new shepherds,” directing the crowds toward a New Age, were not using their youth, or beauty, or enthusiasm to draw people into a dreamworld. Jesus shared with them the ability to do miraculous things to attract and convert their listeners into followers. It was the miracles that captured people’s attention…but it was the power of the message that ultimately made them believers.

The 12 were not promoting changing fashions or the latest trends; quite the contrary. They were entrusted with a vision of something that had begun…would continue to unfold, develop, and flourish…until, someday, it would be complete and infinite. These 12 social influencers were ambassadors for the Kingdom of God.

Once a listener became a follower, they were most often totally committed to The Way, The Truth, and The Life; in other words, they were totally committed to Jesus Christ. This was the case because they no longer felt “troubled or abandoned.” They found the kind of Peace that had been evading them no matter where they searched. Once they experienced Christ’s Peace, from that point forward, nothing less than the Peace of Christ would satisfy them. They stopped searching because they understood that there is no greener pasture in this world.

And it cannot pass without noting that the 12 influencers went about their work with a total sense of selflessness…never counting the cost…even when “the cost” was their very lives.

Over the coming months, we will be focused on Matthew’s Gospel. As we move through Ordinary Time, hopefully, each of us will feel the urge to be more than listeners. At the core of Jesus’s teachings, as reported by Matthew, is the call for followers to become influencers. Through our Baptisms, we are empowered and obliged to participate in the work of creating a world-wide appetite for the Kingdom of God.

Over the coming Liturgical Season, we are offered a vision of how things can be…should be…and someday will be. What we see will hopefully help us to better understand our role in the world.

Although we are gathered together as ONE FLOCK…A COMMUNITY OF FOLLOWERS COMMITTED TO A NEW AND RADICALLY DIFFERENT WORLD VIEW…we Christians should not isolate ourselves. Our role is not to stand on the sidelines, sheltered in and defending an Institution. Rather, much like the 12, we are sent out to engage the world as spiritual influencers…spiritual activists!

And this what is especially critical to know:

Our responsibility with respect to this vocation of spiritual influencer is especially challenging in this day and age…because there are so many competing voices trying hard to drown us out and draw people in directions that are full of peril. But we will prevail.

Those Baptized in Christ have been given miraculous powers. We might not be able to cure the sick, but we can definitely give care, concern, and assurance of our prayers to those in need. Obviously, we do not expect to be able to raise the dead. However, it is well within our power to raise people’s spirits. There are few lepers left in our world to be cleansed, although there are vast numbers of humanity marginalized because their differences challenge the sensitivities of others. Those who are discriminated against are in need of Christian charity and tolerance. It is relatively easy for us to drive out demons. All we need to do is demand truth.

Over the next months as we hear and ponder Matthew’s Gospel, permit your minds and hearts to surrender completely to the message and the challenge it offers to disciples of Jesus Christ. And, once it has created within you an appetite for peace, justice, love, and truth…you will become a spiritual influencer.