Lectionary: The Harvest is Plentiful, the Laborers Few - June 14, 2026

Well, good morning and welcome to Trinity.

My name is Mike, and I'm one of the pastors here.

And this morning I'd like to invite you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 9.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, please don't hesitate to hop up and grab one from the table in the back.

You can find chapter 9 on page 764 and 765 in the church Bibles.

We have some wonderful, well-loved texts this morning, don't we?

Jesus with his compassion on the crowds, followed by his famous statement in verse 38, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

And then he calls and sends the twelve disciples.

Meanwhile, in Romans, we've got this magnificent declaration of the grace of God and its adequacy for all circumstances.

There is not a single instance in this life, including suffering, for which God's grace does not provide.

This is the gift of the lectionary.

Helps us to read and hear and learn from the Bible by receiving the text in conversation with itself, which is such a gift.

But before we dive in, let's pray.

Gracious God, thank you for this morning for the chance to gather, to sing, to pray, to hear from your word.

Now, gracious God, I pray that as my words line up with your words, that they would fall on ears and hearts, ready to receive them and respond.

Gracious God, if I say anything that isn't from you, I pray that those words would quickly be forgotten.

I pray all these things through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

And it felt really weird.

All right, let's start right here.

Verse 35.

You've got a Bible in front of you.

What is Jesus doing?

Someone in the Bible, read to us verse 35 nice and loud.

Somebody among all the cities of village.

Thank you, Tammy.

What does Jesus do?

Right here in the start of chapter 9, 35, he goes.

And as he goes, he teaches, he proclaims the good news of the kingdom of God.

He heals all diseases and afflictions.

He's actually already done this once before.

If you're a Bible nerd, you'd like to go back at some point.

Matthew 4, he says the exact same thing.

And then he preaches the Sermon on the Mount.

He teaches on it.

And then here again, he says the same thing and he shows it.

He goes, he teaches, proclaims the good news of the kingdom of God, heals all diseases and afflictions.

And if you've got a Bible, open in your lap, underline these three words: all the cities and villages, every disease, and every affliction.

That's a lot what Jesus is doing.

All the cities and villages, every disease, every affliction.

Just the thought alone of the afflictions in this room is overwhelming.

And Jesus goes to all the cities and villages, heals every disease and every affliction.

It's a lot.

And it moves him.

Look at verse 36.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Most scholars agree that the word for compassion here is the centerpiece of the story.

Maybe you've even heard a sermon on it before.

In the Greek, the word is splag knitzami.

It's a mouthful.

If you want to write it down, it's right up there.

It's the English transliteration.

Preachers love making a big deal of this word because the literal translation is like a yearning or a moving in the innermost of a person's being.

And modern Americans particularly like to talk about it because in the Greek it talks about like a movement of the bowels.

Preachers love to hone in on that, but in the ancient world, it was commonly thought that emotion, the deepest inner parts of human feelings, emotions come from your guts.

So that's what's happening here.

Jesus is moved in his guts, in his innermost being.

But before Jesus feels this deep-seated, innermost being compassion, look at what he does.

If you've been here the last two weeks, you probably already noticed it.

What does Jesus do?

He sees the crowds.

Jesus sees.

And he doesn't just see a large group of people, but he sees their deepest needs right to the heart of the matter.

That they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd, and it moves him to compassion.

So he turns to his disciples and he says, The harvest is plentiful, laborers are few.

Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

Maybe you've heard someone say this before, see a need, pray for a need.

So Jesus tells them, and here's what happens next: Jesus calls the disciples, all of them, by name, fishermen, tax collectors, even the one who will betray him.

Nobody particularly special in this bunch except that they're called by Jesus.

And Jesus gives them authority and sends them out to do the work he's given them to do.

Specifically, this is verses 6 and 7, to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and proclaim as you go, saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.

Do you notice?

It's the exact same thing that Jesus did back up in the verse 35.

Go.

Proclaim the kingdom of God, heal every disease and every affliction.

I'd like to make two brief observations here.

First, Jesus calls the disciples to be the answer to their own prayer.

Did you notice that?

Jesus sees a need, he asks his disciples to pray, and then he calls them to be the answer to their prayer.

Friends, Jesus does this all the time.

He calls us to be the answer to our own prayers.

When I arrived as a freshman at Trinity University in San Antonio, I signed up for the local chapter of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.

It was one of the more active ministries on college campuses.

And the next day, two upperclassmen guys knocked on my dorm room door and invited me to an intervarsity freshman guys Bible study that they were leading.

And because they came and knocked on my door, I went.

I think like maybe two other freshman guys went as well.

Those other two freshman guys didn't return.

But to the credit of Mike and Josh, those were the two juniors tasked with leading a freshman guy's Bible study, they kept knocking on doors.

And they kept knocking on my door every week and inviting me to Bible study.

And I kept going, mostly because of their persistence.

They'd knock on my door, I'd answer it, they'd say, Hey, you want to come to Bible study?

It's right now and be like, Well, I mean, I guess.

So I kept going, me and Josh and Mike.

Towards the end of my freshman year, another older university student encouraged me to apply to be a student leader for the following year.

And I remember saying to her, I don't think so.

I'm not sure how involved I want to be in the future.

There's not really very many guys in university.

I think maybe I'll just plug in somewhere else.

And I'll never forget what she told me.

She said, Mike, you can complain about the need, or you can do something about it.

The next year it was me leading the freshman guy's Bible study, and it changed my life.

I'd go on, be a student leader in university for three years, and then later down the road, university staff for another four.

And it completely changed how I think about life and ministry.

Sometimes Jesus calls us to be the answer to our own prayers.

See a need, pray for the need, be ready to do something about the need when Jesus sends.

Second, and I mentioned this briefly in passing before, the disciples, what they're asked to do here, well, they don't do anything they haven't already seen Jesus do.

This is a leadership truism.

Maybe you've heard it before.

You can't lead people somewhere you yourself aren't going.

And Jesus does that here.

He's already demonstrated exactly what he wants his disciples to do.

He's not asking them to do anything new or anything different.

He's just asking them to mimic him.

He still does this today.

We're called to do what Jesus does: nothing more, nothing less.

Of course, to do that, we've got to know Jesus, follow Jesus, pay attention to Jesus.

But what a relief that we don't have to make it up as we go.

Now, normally at this point in the text, I don't know about you, but I start feeling guilty.

I feel guilty that I don't see people the way that Jesus sees people, that I'm not moved, the way that Jesus is moved, that I'm not doing enough out there in the world like Jesus did.

I start thinking, oh man, the harvest is still awfully plentiful.

So maybe I better just buckle down, not doing enough.

I start thinking, man, there's still so much need in the world.

What am I doing?

I should be doing more.

Clearly, we need more laborers.

I should be laboring.

Anybody else ever feel like this?

And it's at this point in the text when a preacher could start really laying it on.

Maybe you've sat in the room for one of those sermons before.

Look at the need around you.

What are you doing?

Are you going?

Preaching, praying, healing, making disciples?

God needs laborers, get to work.

And perhaps that sort of challenging word is necessary at times.

But this is where reading Matthew or Romans 5 in tandem with Matthew 9 is so helpful.

Listen to it again.

Pay attention.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Through him, only we've also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance.

Endurance produces character.

Character produces hope.

Hope doesn't put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, I don't know about you, I still am, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Wasn't that good news?

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since therefore we've now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God?

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life?

More than that.

We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we have now received reconciliation.

When I read the back half of Matthew, of this Matthew text through that lens, through the lens of Romans 5, looking for grace rather than guilt, I start noticing things.

I start noticing the utter ordinariness of the disciples.

Jesus doesn't call them because of their gifts or because they can change the world.

He calls them because he calls them.

Normal guys, fishermen, tax collector, even a betrayer.

Look at this in verse 10.

The authority he sends them with, it's not their authority, is it?

It's his.

No.

All they do is receive the authority and then obey.

Now, I don't know about you, but I've always found Jesus' instructions to his disciples super intimidating.

But read in conversations with Romans 5, things change.

Look at this.

These disciples, these 12, Jesus sent out, instructing them.

This is the intimidating part.

Go nowhere among the Gentiles, enter no town of the Samaritans.

There's a little like parentheses, that's for later.

Time will come.

But go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Listen to this.

Proclaim as you go, saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Okay.

Maybe on a good day I could manage that from time to time if my neighbor initiates.

Then he says, Thank you, somebody laughing.

Then he says, Heal the sick.

Raise the dead?

Cleanse lepers, cast out demons.

I'm in way over my head there.

Seems rather intimidating, does it not?

Go preach, presumably to strangers, and then heal the sick, cleanse lepers, cast out demons and raise the dead.

That's a tall order.

If ever there was one.

But Jesus continues.

You received, this is the key word.

You received without paying.

Circle received in your Bibles.

Then he says, give, give.

There's that word again, without pay.

Circle, give.

Acquire, no, he says.

Circle acquired, no.

No gold, silver, copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff.

The laborer deserves his food.

Whatever town or village you enter, find out who's worthy in it.

Stay there until you depart.

As you enter the house, greet it.

If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it.

But if not, let your peace return to you.

If anyone will not receive you, there's that word again, receive.

If anyone won't listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet and go on your way.

You notice the theme?

They received authority from Jesus to go and do as Jesus did, not because they were awesome, but because Jesus, or and not because Jesus had hopes for them they needed to live up to, but because it's in God's character to be gracious.

He gives them his authority.

They receive it because it's in God's character to be gracious.

Likewise, as they go, their ministry is to be marked primarily by grace.

They're to give freely.

They are to receive freely.

They're not to go and try to earn anything.

They don't need to prove anything.

If someone doesn't receive them, they're to move on.

If someone does receive them, they're to stay and give.

This is the pattern: giving and receiving, receiving and giving.

And this is at the heart of the way of Jesus.

Friends, we don't go to earn anything or prove anything.

God in Christ has freely given himself to us.

This is grace.

And the only way that you can receive Jesus is like this.

That's it.

You can't receive a gift like this.

You can only receive Jesus like this, with open hands.

And likewise, the only way that his disciples, and by extension, us are to participate in his mission ourselves is like this.

God in Christ has freely given himself to us.

This is grace.

All we do is receive it.

And as he gives himself to us, he sends us.

Not in our own authority, but in his.

Not to prove ourselves worthy, that would be an adventure in missing the point.

But because in our going, and this is important, God's Spirit moves grace from an idea in our heads to a reality.

We receive grace, we participate in it.

And as we go, by offering freely what we've freely received, he moves grace from our head to our hearts by giving us Christ's compassion and then to our hands as we offer it to others.

The invitation is to offer to others freely with open hands what God has freely given to us.

Now do you notice?

It's not up to the disciples to make people respond.

Did you see that?

It's not their job to win them.

All that they're commanded to do is to freely offer what God has given to them freely.

And if they respond yes, praise be to God.

And if they don't, well, if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.

That's between them and God.

Jesus is saying, as verse 15 makes perfectly clear.

Grace is all the disciples of God.

It's all that you and I have got.

Thank God.

Because if it was up to us, we'd be toast.

Okay, so what?

Let me make one thing clear.

To be a disciple of Jesus means to be sent, to do what Jesus did, to go where Jesus goes, to love as Jesus loves.

It's non-negotiable.

So listen.

And go when he sends you, which he does.

He's sending you to your neighbors and to your schools, your families, your sports teams, your workplaces.

And as you go, do the work he's given you to do.

Proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God.

Bring hope and healing.

Offer life to those living in death.

But remember Romans 5.

It's not up to you to muster up the strength and the courage to be obedient.

Jesus' way and his invitation to go and join him in his work is a way that's marked by grace.

Open hands, freely received, freely given, freely offered to others and given away.

And as we go, God's mission of grace becomes our mission of grace.

And it forms us to be a people of grace.

And in doing so, it takes grace from an abstraction to a reality.

And our witness, we're reminded over and over and over again that God shows his love for us in this.

That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Grace, grace, it's all grace.

Oh gracious God, if we wanted to feel guilty, there's plenty to feel guilty about.

And there's a time and a place for that.

Your spirit does convict us of sin.

And we'll confess that momentarily.

Oh, but gracious God, would you form us to be a people of grace?

To receive grace from you, from one another.

To offer it freely to one another, to our friends, neighbors, coworkers who don't yet know you.

God, we live in a world that's starving for grace.

So you would would you form us to be the sort of people who offer others freely what it is you've freely given to us.

That we might together be a people marked by the gracious way of Jesus.

It's in his name that we pray.

Amen.