Sermon preached at the Sung Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday after Trinity 2026

At the very beginning of the chapter from which today’s Gospel reading is taken, the disciples have a rather shocking, sudden realisation. Just moments before, Jesus has encouraged them to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send labourers into a harvest which is overflowing with potential. There is so much to do, if only people could be found who would do it; so Jesus tells them to pray. The next scene offers an answer. The twelve are summoned to Jesus, given his authority, and entrusted with the Gospel. They are the answer to the prayer they have been told to make, and the rest of this chapter is concerned with Jesus’s instructions and warnings as to how they should behave. Today’s gospel is the conclusion of this rather long narrative, and having set them on a pretty uncompromising path, Jesus sums up with some beautiful words of comfort and encouragement:

‘Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me.’

These twelve apostles – Jesus’s closest circle – are to be the sent ones of the Sent One. The sent ones of the Sent One. Their identity is his identity. His mission is their mission. And their mission is our mission. It is, on one level, as startlingly straightforward as that. The role of the Christian in the life of the world today, as in every previous generation, is to live the life of Christ’s Gospel. Our calling is not to be successful, or relevant, or clever – our calling is simply to be faithful to the beauty of Jesus’s Good News, and for that faithfulness to be demonstrated in our lives. Jesus’s followers are to be the answers to the prayer Jesus tells them to make.

We see in this one of the most important and distinguishing features of Christianity. God gives Godself to us, entrusting Jesus’s mission to the Church as Jesus’s body in the world today. That is why when a martyr gives her or his life for the sake of the Gospel, we say that they share Christ’s own suffering. When we know ourselves to be forgiven, or assure others that they too are forgiven or made whole, the joy we share is Christ’s own joy, because as St Paul taught some of the earliest Christians, Christ is the head of the Body, which is the church. That is the context of our discipleship: an intimate, loving closeness to Christ, as the one who is God-With-Us. The Christian image of God is not some kind of distant deity making impossible demands, or trying to control us from a distance. That is a hideous image. Rather, in Jesus, we see God sharing God’s mission with us, inviting us to participate in what is going on in Jesus’s orbit.  We are called to bear Jesus’s message – his Gospel, his Good News – but also to reveal his mission.

We know that work is demanding. In fact, if we view it as ‘our work’ it will be overwhelming, because it is not actually ours to control. We will be exhausted if we try to kid ourselves that the best way to be a Christian is to pursue goals and tick off jobs done, swiftly moving on to the next task. Jesus’s earliest followers worked out pretty quickly that their call to follow Jesus – and their vocation to be sent out – was not something which could be carefully wrapped up or contained; this is not ‘work’ as opposed to ‘life.’ Because the Gospel impacts on our whole lives and our whole personalities; what and who we love, what we decide to do with our lives; how we use our minds and our bodies; what gets us out of bed in the morning; how we treat others; what we value.

The earliest followers of Christ were ordinary people, who discovered that ordinariness to be transformed in the light of Jesus’s teaching and Jesus’s ministry. We share that discovery. And as we share it, we become aware that through the Holy Spirit, we are closer to Jesus, more fully involved in his mission and service, than we thought possible. Let us treasure that in our prayer; let us notice it as we engage with others and with the world around us in issues of justice, mercy and truth; and let us allow that relationship to be fed, most fully through the gift of the Eucharist. In the Eucharist we are revived, us sent ones of the Sent One; re-energised; made whole once again.

This is not work we do alone. This is a life we share with Jesus, and with all those who follow him, in every culture and in every age.

‘Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me.’