Sermon for Sunday, June 14, 2026

June 14, 2026

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




Matthew 9:35-10:8, (9-23)




A traditional way of interpreting this Gospel is to see it as a companion to the “Go and make disciples” type of text that weaves its way through the lectionary. Here Jesus tells the disciples what to do as they go out to make disciples. Many sermons approach this text as a mission statement: the mission of the disciples, which then becomes the mission of the church through the ages. Traditional thinking goes something like this: if it’s good enough for those disciples who then train others to go and do likewise, then we, too, can adopt this passage as our mission statement.


But what if this approach is wrong? What if this message of Jesus is only meant for those disciples who are hearing it? What if Jesus didn’t mean for us here in the 21st century to assume that we, too, are supposed to do what those 12 named disciples were called to do?


You might ask, well, what’s it doing here, then? If it’s not direct advice from Jesus telling us how to live our lives and how to judge the success of the church, then what is the purpose of this reading?


Part of the purpose is to bear witness to the good news that Jesus embodies. One way that the writer of the Gospel of Matthew does this is to introduce us to Jesus, and also to introduce us to the disciples, the first generation to continue the work of Jesus.


Some of the first hearers of this Gospel might have actually known the disciples. I imagine them hearing this text and saying, “Curing the sick—yes, John was great at that. Casting out demons—how did Jesus know that Peter would get to be so skilled in that area?”


At this point, let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine that the writer of Matthew needed to add some additional information, some newer disciples who lived in the centuries after the original 12 disciples named in this passage. Who might the Gospel writer choose? Let’s consider some of the great witnesses of the 20th century.


There’s Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farms, which gave birth to Habitat for Humanity. There’s Dorothy Day, who founded Catholic Worker houses all over the country, showing people how to live communally. There’s Archbishop Oscar Romero who was martyred for speaking out and demanding that the killing of non-combatants in El Salvador stop. And Martin Luther King, who ushered in a new era of human rights.


And of course, there are the less famous disciples, like a woman in my old church in South Florida who taught Confirmation classes for over 60 years; imagine how many people she told about the good news of Jesus. The number of schools and hospitals kept running by faithful people are too many to list in a sermon.


When you hear me list these witnesses, do you say to yourself, “Let me go and start a farm in the red clay dirt of Georgia to show that black and white citizens can farm in harmony like Clarence Jordan did”? I don’t. I don’t have farming skills in the best of circumstances, but I admire those who do.


Why, then, do we hear sermons and theologians tell us that the mission of the original 12 must still be our mission? In part, it’s because we have a long history of this interpretation. And don’t get me wrong: if you can heal the sick, that’s a great way of announcing the good news of Jesus.


But it isn’t the only way. Not by a long shot. Take a minute. Think about your own gifts. If the writer of the Gospel added your skills to the list of healing the sick, cleansing skin diseases, raising the dead, and casting out demons that we hear today, what would it be?


Frederick Buechner has a great quote for those of us who doubt we have any sort of call or who have lost sight of God’s call or who fear it might be too late. in his book Wishful Thinking he says : “The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."


Of course, even when we find that place, we won’t always find people who are happy we found it.


In part, today’s Gospel is also a cautionary tale. We can answer our call, our call that is unique to us, our own way of announcing that the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near, but that doesn’t mean that the world will instantly accept our gifts. Jesus warns us that just the opposite might happen. It sounds pretty grim. Not a great way to win converts. But Jesus tells us not to worry. God will speak through us. We will not be left to our own devices.


Not so long ago, I would have written this sermon imagining that very few of us would face any sort of resistance when we answered God’s call. Humanity seemed on a path of improvement as we charted our way through the last several decades of the 20th century. But as I was pondering this week’s Gospel text, word leaked out that the Southern Baptist Convention has decided to curtail the ways that women can be involved in the church.


Southern Baptists already restrict women in terms of answering a call. A Southern Baptist woman who hears God calling her to be a pastor would not get support in that denomination. In a way, this is not a new development. But that denomination continues to wrestle with how to deal with the issue of women and power. Can women be guest speakers? Can they be lectors? Should women be allowed to supervise men? Can they be Sunday School teachers?


If your social media feed is like mine, you may have seen an upsurge in reminders of all the ways that women have been faithful, with Biblical examples, like Mary Magdalene, whom some call the first apostle, because she’s the first to see the risen Jesus and she tells others. And look what happened to her—most people are more likely to remember her as the woman possessed by demons than as the first apostle.

Not so long ago, I might have said that our religious communities could help us discern a call and help us to be sure that it’s God’s call we’re hearing and not the call of those who might not have our best interests at heart. Now I use the words of Jesus in advising us how to proceed: we must be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. We can ask ourselves if we’re part of a process that announces the Kingdom of God is at hand, or are we announcing someone else’s kingdom.


In this way, we will endure until the end. In this way, we will be saved.