What the World Still Needs

This sermon was preached on our Sunday morning service on 14th June 2026. The Gospel was Matthew 9:35-10:8.

 

 

Did you ever – at Sunday school maybe – have to learn the names of the twelve disciples? I think, for me, it was one of the things we had to do when I was a member of the Boys’ Brigade in Scotland. To be honest, even now, I’m not sure I could do it from memory…

 

Let’s start with the easy ones: Simon (also called Peter), James, John, Judas Iscariot, Doubting Thomas – ok, that’s five. Seven more then – feel free to shout out!

·         Matthew the tax collector – sometimes called Levi

·         Philip

·         Andrew! (Simon’s brother)

·         Another James (son of Alphaeus, rather than Zebedee)

·         Another Simon as well – Simon the Zealot, or the Canaanite

·         Bartholemew

·         Nathaniel

·         Thaddeus

·         Judas (not Iscariot)

·         Matthias

Er… hang on, I think that’s at least fifteen names we’ve got in total there. No wonder I was so bad at learning this back when I was a child.

Some of this confusion is the gospel writers actually give them different names. Bartholomew in most of the gospels is called Nathaniel in John’s gospel.

Thaddeus in Matthew and Mark is called Judas (not Iscariot) or Judas the son of James in Luke and John.

Matthias is the disciple who replaced Judas Iscariot too. He was chosen out of a choice of two, the other being Joseph Barsabbus, also called Justus.

And, of course, other names that sometimes find their way into this group are the two gospel writers themselves who weren’t members of Jesus’ disciples; Mark and Luke, and also other ‘big’ new testament names who were clearly leaders in the early church; Paul, Barnabus and James the Just (the brother of Jesus), who is traditionally thought to have written the letter of James in the New Testament.

Honestly, the list of names that find their way into this group really does sometimes belie Jesus’ statement that we heard today that the harvest is plenty, but the workers are few. They seem so numerous, we can’t work out who was in and who was out!

 

But, it was true. The workers were so few. Just twelve of them – small, confused, ordinary – and yet these were the ones Jesus sent to heal, to free and to proclaim the gospel. This tiny group was tasked with the changing of the entire world. Those really are some ratios.

 

It’s true today too, isn’t it? The workers are still few.

Here at St Michael’s, we’ve actually a fairly large congregation size – certainly greater than the average church. For many, though, this Sunday morning, congregations will be in the tens and twenties. Any higher than that, and a church is doing very well – the average weekly Church of England attendance in 2024 for a middle-sized church was 26, which included only one child.

 

We have no problem at all believing that the workers are few, though here in St Michael’s, we should count ourselves fortunate. I think, what we have an issue with today is the first part of Jesus’ statement; the harvest is plenty.

 

Oh, sure, back in Jesus’ day, this was all new. Jesus’ message was ground-breaking, and had never been heard before. The harvest certainly was plenty. He had crowds in their thousands listening to him explaining that God cared individually for each and every one of them, that he loved them – truly loved them and knew them so intimately that he could number off all of the hairs on their head, and that living a life in relationship with God was about being set free, to live life to the full, rather than having to tie yourself up in reams of religious rules. And what’s more, he demonstrated it, by spending time with those in the margins, with those who the world did not see as important, by healing people and setting them free from the things that kept them captive. The harvest was plenty. People were banging on his door, probably even literally.

 

But now? It’s common to hear that we live in a post-Christian world. Everybody’s heard of Jesus. It is naïve to believe in God, let alone one who intimately intervenes and cares. We as humans are confident in our own supremacy, and – where we do not have the answers – we can create greater, artificial intelligence to show us the way and direct our lives. We are on the cusp of branching into space, living beyond our planet, creating an intelligence so powerful it could destroy us all, or even enable us to become gods ourselves.

What need is there in this brave new world for a broken Palestinian on a wooden cross?

 

What need?

What need?

The need is – as it has always been. Our most basic, human need. Our fundamental need that makes us all human.

The need to be loved.

Despite our power. Despite our independence. Despite our genuinely impressive strides forward in ground-breaking technology. Despite all of this, humanity is still the same.

We all need to be loved. Our world needs to be loved.

 

And God loves this world so much that he became that broken man dying on a cross so many years ago. And in that death, showed us all what love really means. What it can do.

 

That great commission that we heard of this morning, with Jesus giving his disciples power and authority to heal the sick, and free those in captivity and tell the incredible news about God is nothing more than this. Nothing more than this, and yet it is everything that ever was worth doing. The power and authority to love.

 

Reaching

 

 

Where can you find this plentiful harvest this week? Where can you help? One person. One conversation. One act of compassion.

Because, if you look at our world you really can see, the harvest is plenty.

 

Amen.

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