PROPER 6, YEAR A

June 14, 2026

Sts. Matthew & Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Matthew 9:35-10:8

 

I’ll probably date myself by saying this, but, in my opinion, one of the greatest war movies of all time is The Dirty Dozen, released in 1967. The film dramatizes a military operation behind enemy lines during World War II. Lee Marvin plays John Reisman, an American officer assigned to parachute into France and eliminate high-ranking Wehrmacht officers on leave at a resort chateau to disrupt the German chain of command ahead of the D-Day landings.

 

The mission is so dangerous that Reisman adopts an unusual recruiting strategy. Instead of assembling a team of the best and the brightest, West Point graduates, or members of elite commando units, he goes to a military prison containing the army’s dregs: thugs, murderers, and thieves—men who’d been criminals in civilian life and who continued in their lawless ways in the army until court-martialed and incarcerated.

 

Five of these convicts have been sentenced to death, and the remaining seven face lengthy imprisonments at hard labor. Reisman offers the convicts a pardon and freedom if they’ll volunteer for this one mission and survive. Odds are nine to one that the mission will fail, and they’ll all be killed. But the twelve who do volunteer become the Dirty Dozen.

 

Reisman is scraping the bottom of the barrel. But the strategy’s wisdom soon becomes apparent. The Dirty Dozen have developed skills in their criminal careers that prove perfect for the mission. One knows how to pick locks. Another is good with his fists. They all excel at lying, cheating, concealment, and other criminal tactics that are exactly the talents needed to get this job done.

 

Now, I’m not endorsing a policy of using convicts in the military. Such a policy can have bad consequences, as we’ve seen with the Russians in Ukraine. But the movie’s appeal is that in the right circumstances, with the right team and leadership, those whom the world considers losers can become heroes. Even so, when the mission succeeds, only one of the Dirty Dozen survives and lives to tell the tale. The rest are nonetheless redeemed from a fate of living and dying ignominiously as convicts. 

 

Today’s Gospel tells of another dozen, this time chosen and recruited by Jesus—not the Dirty Dozen to be sure, but a collection who also seem at first glance totally lacking in qualifications for the mission to which he calls them.  In his compassion for the crowds, who are like sheep without a shepherd, Jesus selects the Twelve Apostles from his disciples and sends them out to do the very same work that he’s been doing: preaching the good news, healing the sick, cleansing lepers, raising the dead.

 

These Twelve Apostles are a motley crew. Some years ago, I read a whimsical piece of writing that speculates on the kind of personnel evaluation that Jesus might have received from a management consulting agency. The report reads as follows:

 

“Dear Sir:

 

“Thank you for submitting the resumes of the twelve individuals you have selected for managerial positions in your new organization. They have all now taken our battery of tests. We have not only analyzed the results, but have also arranged personal interviews for each of them with our psychologist and vocational aptitude consultant.

 

“The test profiles of all twelve candidates are included. You will want to study each carefully. As part of our service, we provide some general recommendations at no additional fee.

 

“Our staff’s opinion is that most of your nominees are lacking in educational background and vocational aptitude for the type of enterprise you are undertaking. They do not have the team concept. We recommend that you continue to search for persons with experience and proven managerial capability.

 

“Simon Peter is emotionally unstable and given to fits of temper. Andrew has absolutely no leadership qualities. The two brothers, James and John, place personal interest above company loyalty. Thomas demonstrates a questioning attitude that would tend to undermine morale. It is our duty to tell you that Matthew has been blacklisted by the Greater Jerusalem Better Business Bureau. James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus have radical leanings.

 

“Only one of the candidates shows any potential. He is a man of ability and resourcefulness who meets people well and has a keen business mind. He has contacts in high places and is highly motivated, ambitious, and responsible. We recommend Judas Iscariot as your controller and right-hand man.

 

“Wishing you every success in your new venture.

“Sincerely yours, 

“Jordan Management Consultants

Jerusalem, Judea”

 

So, from a contemporary management perspective, Jesus could have done better. But, like Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen, Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t choose the brightest and best of his society: the most accomplished rabbinical students, or the most eminent priests, lawyers, and scribes. Instead, he chose fishermen and tax collectors. And his strategy paid off. After his death, resurrection, and ascension, eleven of the twelve became the leaders of a missionary movement that spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

 

(Another parallel with the Dirty Dozen is that only one of the Twelve, Saint John, lived to die a natural death. The rest died as martyrs for the faith, but their deaths ensured the mission’s success.) 

 

The choice of the Twelve Apostles teaches us something about how God works. In today’s Old Testament reading from Exodus, the Israelites are a band of escaped slaves, complete nobodies in the world’s eyes. Yet God tells them that he’s chosen them out of all peoples to be a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. And in today’s Epistle reading, Saint Paul reminds us that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. So, the theme running throughout today’s readings is that God chooses us, calls us, and sends us out to do his work despite, or maybe because of, our complete unworthiness.

All baptized Christians, not just the clergy, are entrusted with a share in the Church’s mission. Studies of church growth demonstrate that there’s no substitute for all members of the congregation taking responsibility for their share in the task of recruiting new members by means of personal, one-to-one evangelization.

 

We instinctively recoil from that idea, I think, because we have a healthy dose of self-doubt about our ability to do the job. Who among us is qualified to proclaim the Gospel to an unbelieving world? Who among us is qualified to be an agent of healing and reconciliation in Jesus’ Name? I'm not, and you're not. But the Lord chooses us anyway. He sees more potential in us than we see in ourselves. He sees gifts and talents he can develop and use in totally unpredictable ways.

 

That’s how Jesus works. He delights in calling the most unlikely people. He promises us that he’ll give us everything we need to be faithful to him and to his mission. And then he sends us out to share in that mission of proclaiming the Gospel and bringing salvation to a hungry and hurting world.

 

 

 

Acknowledgment: Key ideas for this sermon came from a sermon of Will Willimon, published sometime in the 1990s or early 2000s.