June 14, 2026

Pentecost 3

Matthew 9:35-10:23

Epiphany, Winnipeg

I guess you could say that Jesus kind of pulls a fast one on his disciples. He’s been doing all kinds of things – healing and preaching, casting out a demon or two - and then he tells his disciples to ask the Lord of the harvest (that would be God) to send out workers (that would be someone…) into God’s harvest. I could imagine the disciples then, earnestly saying a prayer to ask God to send workers into God’s own harvest, then opening their eyes, and Jesus says, “Surprise! You’re the workers!”

Be careful now. In a few minutes we will pray. We will ask God for all kinds of things: to bless the work of the church and make us faithful, to heal creation, to watch over those who are sick or in prison or are refugees, to bring peace to troubled places and peace to troubled people. And then Jesus will say, “Surprise, you’re the workers!”, and it will all end with someone saying, “Go in peace. Serve your neighbour. Serve the Lord.” And we the workers will go out into God’s harvest.

This past week I was in Gimli for a few days for the Clergy Study conference, where Pastors, priests, and deacons from our MNO Synod and from the two Anglican dioceses in Manitoba got together to study, listen, speak, worship, relax, and socialize together. We heard some great presentations about church buildings and the church’s mission, which turned out to be way more interesting than you might expect, and we all got to listen to someone else preach for a change! So I’m going to pull a few thoughts from the sermons at the opening and closing services – it’ll be just like you were there.

Rev. Bonnie Dowling, from St. Margaret’s Anglican Church here in Winnipeg, preached on this story from Matthew, and she kept coming back to those few words where Jesus tells the disciples to ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into God’s harvest. She stressed again and again that the harvest is God’s harvest. Or you could say that the field is God’s field, or the world is God’s world. Her point seemed to be that while we do what we do as the church – we build community here, we work in the community out there, we invite people to join in this faith community and in the Body of Christ….We support one another in our life together, we serve our neighbours, we work in different ways for justice and for peace and for the well-being of creation. Good things, all. That’s the kind of life we’re called into as followers of Jesus and people of faith.

But we always need to remember that while we do the work, the harvest is in God’s hands. I can preach and preach all I want, but how that preaching affects whoever is listening is not something I control. The harvest is in God’s hands. We can invite people to join this faith community, we can design worship services to be contemporary and traditional and new and old and hope that it all serves the well-being of worshipers, but we don’t control the outcome of all that. The harvest is in God’s hands, and it’s God’s harvest.

We will pray and work for the good of the world around us. That could look like gathering food for a school pantry, or giving money to support development work or going to a pride parade or volunteering or protesting or serving soup…all kinds of things. And whatever work we do, the harvest is God’s harvest.

In a gracious sort of way, that sets us free from thinking that it all depends on us. We don’t need to do enough things just the right way to make sure that it all comes out well in the end. We plant seeds all over place, and the harvest is God’s to make happen. We do what we do as the church and as Christians in the world, and we place all of our life and work in the hands of God, the Lord of the Harvest, who raised Jesus from the dead and who will surely bring life out of death. Always. The harvest is God’s, and that’s good news. You and I cannot save the world and fix every little thing. But our whole life, the life of all creation, is held in the love of God, who is healing the whole creation. The harvest is God’s harvest, and God promises that the harvest will always be life and healing and new life for all.i

The sermon at the opening service was preached by our own bishop, Jason Zinko. He preached on this same text from Matthew, and somewhere right in the middle of it all he talked about all the challenges that we face in the church and in the world. He asked if we have the power to face and to fix all those challenges, and he said in no uncertain terms – I think he might even have pounded the pulpit – that we do not have it in us to make everything right. We just can’t, and the problems are bigger than you and me and us. But even so, God calls people like us to be workers in the harvest. We don’t need to be rich or famous or strong or influential. God just calls us to do the work of healing and setting free. We can’t make it all happen ourselves, but we go about our lives, seeking to be faithful, always trusting in the Lord of the Harvest who is always bringing life out of death.

It all got me thinking about our worries and challenges. Attendance in churches is declining, the health of creation all around us seems to be declining, we have all these struggles with poverty and homelessness and addiction and loneliness that we don’t seem to be able to solve. We don’t really see the world as full of demons these days, but we see “unclean spirits” like racism and homophobia and violence and war and the worship of wealth. We have our own things that seem to have a grip on us, our addictions or our angry accusing voices inside, our world where we now have our first trillionaire, alongside people who have no place to live other than a bus shelter. We can’t just make this all go away. But we live our lives, trying to follow Jesus, which means trying to follow along with this one who always sides with life and hope. And Jesus calls us, even us, to join in the work that he does, always trusting that the Lord of the harvest is giving life and healing for all.

Jesus calls these twelve disciples to join with him in this life in God’s field, in the world where God is working a harvest of life and healing. And maybe the most important part of this is that Jesus never calls just one person, because one person alone is, well, one person alone. He calls disciples together, he calls his people together – James and John, Simon and Bartholomew, Mary and Martha, Dave and Doug and Maureen and Kareen and Willem and Olivia and Everly and Betty. Jesus is always just pulling people together so that we can live together in this Body of Christ, we can struggle together and celebrate, we can work for the well-being of our world and our neighbour together, we can succeed together and we can fail together. And we can be raised up to a new day and raised up to new life together.

Jesus calls all kinds of workers in the field together. That’s us, and that’s countless others across boderlines and personal lines and dividing lines of any kind. And he sits down at the table with us today, feeds us and draws us close to one another, and goes with us into the world around us, into God’s beloved field where a harvest of life is already being prepared.