Jesus & Associates

Third Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6A)

Matthew 9.35—10.23

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

As most of you know, before I became a priest I had a previous life as a transportation planner and traffic engineer. Part of my time was spent working for a transportation planning consulting firm and the latter part of it was working for a larger environmental consulting firm. Of course, consulting firms have to have a business name to operate. One of the most common naming schemas (at least at the time) was the name of the founder of the firm followed by “associates” or “and associates.” An associate being a coworker or business partner, depending on context. During the course of my career, I first worked for Ausin and Associates. When that firm merged with another one, we became Austin Foust Associates. I then left AFA and went to work for LSA. LSA had originally stood for Larry Seeman Associates, but after Larry retired and we became an employee-owned company, the name was shortened to LSA to honor the founder, but also to provide business and reputational continuity.

 

While younger and working for Austin and Associates and then Austin Foust Associates, I obviously knew I was one of the “associates,” but also always felt that the term implied a lesser position, a lesser status. I always knew that I was a mere employee and that the profits and real benefits accrued to the men who were the actual owners of the firm. But then when I went to LSA, the business model was different by virtue of being an employee-owned firm. We were all, from entry-level employees up to principals (the upper management), regarded as “associates” in the fullest sense of the term. While we each may have been at different levels in the corporate hierarchy and each had different amounts of time in the firm and money vested in employee stock ownership, we were all equal in the sense of being partners in the firm and having a vested interest in how well the firm did. When you know that the overall value of the company, which translates into compensation adjustments, bonuses, and retirement benefits, is dependent in part on your efforts, that makes a huge difference. You truly feel an integral part of the whole operation as opposed to feeling like you are merely a replaceable “cog in the wheel.” The sense of partnership tends to make you willing to go the extra mile.

 

It is through this lens of twenty years in private sector consulting before becoming a priest that I view today’s Gospel reading. Jesus said to his disciples, “’The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few’ . . . Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot.” To my way of thinking, collectively known as . . . Jesus & Associates.

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I Desire Mercy, Not Sacrifice

Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5A)

Matthew 9.9-13, 18-26

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

 

With our commemoration of Trinity Sunday behind us, we begin a new liturgical season and, along with it, we experience a shift in the focus of our Gospel readings. The Christian Year is divided roughly in half. For the first six months of the liturgical year, beginning with the First Sunday of Advent in late November or early December, we have a string of high holy days focusing on key events in the life of Christ and the accompanying time for us to prepare for those events. In the first half of the liturgical year, we move in rapid succession from Advent to Christmas to Epiphany to Lent to Holy Week to Easter to Pentecost. For good measure, we throw in Trinity Sunday, providing our transition to the Season after Pentecost. Also referred to as Ordinary Time.

 

Now, just to be clear—and lest you think Ordinary Time sounds boring—Ordinary Time is not “ordinary” as in the sense of commonplace. Rather “ordinary” refers to the mathematical term “ordinal”: to the sequential ordering in a series. In this case, referring to the sequential numbering of the Sundays in this season. Trinity Sunday is technically the First Sunday after Pentecost. Therefore, today is the Second Sunday after Pentecost, with next Sunday being the Third Sunday after Pentecost, and so on, until we reach the 783^rd Sunday after Pentecost sometime later in the year. Not really. Sometimes it may seem like it in what we fondly refer to as the “long green season”—referring to the six months of green, which is the color for the Season after Pentecost, for Ordinary Time.

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