June 14, 2026
William G. Carter
Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching
in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing
every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had
compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without
a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but
the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers into his harvest.”
Then
Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean
spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These
are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and
his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; Philip and
Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and
Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the
one who betrayed him.
These twelve Jesus
sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to
gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The
kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead;
cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without
payment; give without payment.
For the last couple of
weeks, we have considered the call of God. God summons us, just like the
prophet Isaiah who responded, “Here I am, Lord; send me!” And last week, God
called Abram and Sarai and said, “Leave your familiar surroundings and go; I
will tell you when you get there.” At the end of last week’s sermon, I noted
there are three essentials for answering the call. The first is courage, because
the road ahead is always uncharted. The second could be summed as devotion, noting
Abram built altars along his journey.
Today, let me tell you about the third essential. God calls us into a community. When God calls us, there are other people with us. We are never called to go it alone. Even those exceptional cases like the prophet Isaiah, who heard and saw the glory of God in a moment tailored just for him – he was called to speak to others. And a community of faith kept his words, wrote them down, and preserved them for the past 2700 years.
No surprise, then, that when Jesus sets out to change the world, he creates a community. He will not do the work by himself. He calls twelve others to join him, to extend his reach, to spread the power and love of God into every direction. Did you catch their names?
Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John. Phillip, and Bartholomew. Thomas, Matthew, and the other James. Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanean, and Judas Iscariot. There are twelve of them, just like the twelve tribes of Israel. Most of us could not name those tribes without some help. We should be gentle on ourselves. Many of us past the age of forty can’t remember the three things that we wanted to pick up in the grocery store.
The Gospel of Matthew makes a list of the twelve apostles, those Jesus appointed to stay with him. That’s not to say they all stayed with him. They weren’t perfect. There is Judas, of course. But the other eleven also scattered after Jesus was arrested. Jesus chose them, and they weren’t perfect.
Of all the Gospels, Matthew says they’re pretty good. After a long day of tossing some parables into the air, Jesus turned to the twelve and said, “Do you understand what I’m saying?” They said, “Certainly! Of course we do.”[1] Other gospels aren’t as complimentary, but Matthew infers some authority to the twelve that Jesus called. Even so, there were moments. One day, Mrs. Zebedee showed up. (Remember, the mother of James and John?) She begged Jesus to give her boys some preferential treatment. “Make them a little bit better than the other ten rascals,” she said.[2] Jesus rolled his eyes and shook his head.
There were twelve of them. Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John. Phillip, and Bartholomew. Thomas, Matthew, and the other James. Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanean, and Judas Iscariot. Did you notice anything about that list?
It is not a complete list. These are the names of twelve men. Everybody knows there are more women in church than there are men. Just look around the room. Elsewhere, the New Testament reminds us that women followed Jesus. They funded the ministry of Jesus out of their own purses.[3] The Bible never says anything like that about the men. The Bible says they argued about money, but it never says they coughed up any. Matthew’s list is not complete. Women belong on the list. In many congregations, women actually run the place.
What’s more, this is not an accurate list. Forget what somebody told you about the Bible. The Bible does not agree who is on the list. Matthew copies Mark’s list, but Luke doesn’t mention Thaddaeus. Instead, he names a second man named Judas, son of James. When we get over to the Gospel of John, there’s somebody named Nathanael. We don’t have a clue who that is. Some pious scholars scramble to say Thaddaeus, Judas, and Nathanael must be the same person – yet the Bible never worries about straightening that out.
The only time we see all twelve disciples standing together is when Leonardo DaVinci said, “Hey guys! Stand on the same side of the table. I want to paint you into the picture!”
Matthew’s list is not complete list. We can’t even say if it’s accurate. But let me say this: this is a diverse list. Sure, Mark tells us about twelve men. In our imaginations, we can picture them at thirty years old with curly hair. Yet it’s hard to imagine a group like this holding together.
There are two sets of brothers, Simon and Andrew, James and John. They left behind their fishing boats and their fathers. Jesus knew them up in the hill country, a euphemism for “the sticks.” We don’t know anything about Thomas, Thaddaeus, or James 2.0. But we know something about Matthew – a tax collector, a despised collaborator who worked for the Empire. He swindled his own neighbors to fund the foreign soldiers who occupied their town.
Standing next to Matthew is Simon the Canaanean. He was a Zealot, a revolutionary with a dagger under his cloak, ever ready to take out the tax collectors like Matthew. Jesus called both of them to be part of his team. That would be like Russell Vought handing the matzoh to Jamie Raskin at the Passover Seder. Or J. D. Vance and Elizabeth Warren sharing a hymnal in the same pew. Diversity is Christ’s plan, not uniformity.
Not only that. Eleven of the disciples came from the northern territory of Galilee. The twelfth may have been the man from Kerioth – “ish-Kerioth” or “Iscariot” – Kerioth was a town way down south in Judah. So, there may have been eleven Yankees and Judas the Confederate. Jesus wants them all at his side. Diverse backgrounds, different political views, distinct geographies – none of that matters to Jesus, because he chooses them all.
Think of how remarkable this is, that the grace of Jesus Christ would transcend human opinions and divisions! Diverse, young, old, male as well as female, whoever, wherever, however. There is no unanimity in the group, but there is harmony as Christ calls us to sing together. That’s the point of it all. Standing at the center of this new community is Jesus. He is what they hold in common.
Look at the list. There are two sets of brothers: Peter and Andrew, and James and John. Ever have two brothers who agree on everything? I love my brother; we agree on a lot of things, but not everything.
And who knows how many of them were married? Earlier this Gospel says Simon Peter had a mother-in-law. That means he had a wife.[4] But we don’t know her name, or how she felt about him quitting the fish business and running after Jesus. Did they have kids? Did she have to watch them while he gallivanted around Galilee?
It’s almost as if Matthew says that family status is irrelevant when it comes to following Jesus. What matters is that you know that he is calling you into a community called “Church” – and that he is giving you work to do.
That brings us to the heart of the matter. Jesus calls the twelve and gives them two-fold work: to proclaim his Message and to heal the world.
The Message proclaimed is clear: that God is coming close, that God shall rule over earth as clearly as God rules heaven, and that we must make the necessary adjustments to welcome God’s ownership of our lives. “Preach the Message,” Jesus says. “The time is right here, God rules over us right now, change your lives to claim God’s love.
And then, he calls us to heal the world. This requires laboring in internal medicine (cure the sick), dermatology (cleanse skin diseases), and mental health (cast out the demons). And if that’s not enough, “raise the dead.” Breathe the new life of God where everything has withered away. Not too much to ask, is it?
The point of it all is that Jesus gives his power to ordinary people. He equips them to work together, to make a difference for God and humanity. This is what matters. Jesus calls together a bunch of diverse people, with different backgrounds and skills. And he says, “Proclaim the authority of God over all of human life!” This is our extraordinary calling, to be the baptized – for the benefit of the world.
Now, consider what this means. In the diverse community that Christ calls, you might not get your way all the time. You might not get your way at all. Our calling is greater than that. We are called to work together to pursue God’s way. The most important question before us is always this: What does it mean, in our place, in our time, that God rules over human lives? What would it look like for us to build the love of God? To welcome the justice of God? To do the work of God?
I’ve noticed that when churches stop asking these questions, they start to fizzle out. Perhaps they get tangled in personality disputes; the “Sons of Thunder” start mouthing off rather taking care of the neighborhood, or Matthew the tax-collector and Simon the revolutionary start plotting harm to one another. If a church, like any other organization, is merely a human organization, it can go off the rails in a hundred separate ways. And it will need a Book of Order to keep Christian disciples from beating up on one another.
But the true church of Jesus is always more than a human organization. It is called into existence as a holy fellowship, commissioned by Jesus to do the work of God. We are God’s tactical team in this neighborhood. We welcome God’s Breath to fill our lungs, we pray for God’s Power to push us into action, and we trust God’s Spirit will animate our spirits. Christ infuses his people with his own presence. When we put a bridle on our own whims, when we submit our willfulness to God’s greater will, the Gospel Message takes on skin and bones – and the world’s ills can be healed.
That is why we are here, my friends. That is why he chooses us. We are here to enflesh the life of Jesus Christ. We are here to love all the people that Jesus loves. We are here to do the work that Jesus inaugurated.
We don’t have to have faith figured out in advance. We don’t have to be right about everything. We don’t have to compel everybody else to agree with us. We don’t have to worry about who is on the list and who is not, because it is not our list. It is Christ’s list. And as we are fond of saying whenever we baptize a child, “Your family is a whole lot bigger than you think it is.” And here you are. Thanks be to God.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
Posts
