The Harvest Is Great, the Laborers Few
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The Harvest Is Great, the Laborers Few
Herb Montgomery | June 12, 2026
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
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: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 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 the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. (Matthew 9:35-10:8)
In our reading this week, Jesus travels through cities and villages, teaching, healing, and proclaiming what Matthew calls the “good news of the kingdom.” The passage concludes with Jesus looking upon the crowds with compassion because “they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” He then tells his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” These verses still carry profound implications for us today because they reveal a vision of community and a spirituality rooted in compassion for those neglected and wounded by systems of power.
First, the passage reminds us that genuine spirituality is inseparable from public compassion. Jesus does not isolate himself from suffering people. He goes directly into towns and villages where ordinary people struggle under poverty, sickness, exclusion, and political oppression. In the first-century Roman world, many peasants lived under crushing taxation, economic exploitation, and socio-religious hierarchies that often favored the wealthy and powerful. When Jesus sees the crowds as “harassed and helpless,” he recognizes not merely personal pain but also collective social suffering. His response is compassion.
This compassion is deeply political, in the best sense of the word. Jesus identifies failed leadership as part of the problem. The phrase “sheep without a shepherd” echoes past Hebrew prophetic critiques of rulers and religious authorities who neglected the vulnerable. Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Micah all condemned leaders who enriched themselves while the poor suffered. Matthew’s Gospel continues this prophetic tradition. Jesus exposes systems that abandon people while presenting himself as radically different.
This passage also teaches that justice requires action, not mere sympathy. Jesus doesn’t simply feel sorry for the crowds around him. He heals their diseases, restores marginalized people to community life, and commissions disciples to continue the work. The vision of justice in Matthew’s Gospel is therefore participatory: followers of Jesus are called to become “laborers” in the harvest. That means confronting suffering wherever it appears, whether through poverty, racism, gender privilege, LGBTQ phobias, economic inequality, violence, or exclusion. Compassion without action is incomplete.
Importantly, the “harvest” language challenges believers to see marginalized people not as burdens, but as human beings filled with sacred worth and possibility. Too often societies treat vulnerable communities as disposable or invisible. Jesus instead sees abundance. The harvest is “plentiful.” There is is so much hope, suppressed dignity, and transformative potential among the people society overlooks. The problem is not the people; the problem is the shortage of laborers willing to participate in the work of moving toward a more just society.
Our reading this week also critiques religious communities that become disconnected from human suffering. Jesus’ ministry combines teaching, proclamation, and healing. Faith is not presented as abstract doctrine alone. It must touch bodies, communities, and material conditions. A church, movement, or spirituality unconcerned with the wounded crowds has drifted away from the heart of Jesus’ gospel.
Ultimately, the beginning of our reading calls listeners to cultivate compassionate solidarity. Jesus does not stand above suffering humanity but moves toward it. The lesson here is that discipleship means entering the pain and injustice of our world with courage, mercy, and active commitment to collective healing, transformation, liberation, and change.
Next in our reading, Jesus gathers twelve people and commissions them to participate in his work of healing, liberation, and social transformation. At first glance, this passage may appear to be little more than a list of names, but beneath the surface it contains profound justice implications. This window into Jesus’ formation of this group reveals how his “kingdom of God” would confront systems of exclusion, hierarchy, violence, and division.
The first justice lesson in this passage is that Jesus intentionally empowers ordinary and marginalized people. The disciples are not religious elites, wealthy aristocrats, or political rulers. They are fishermen, laborers, and common people from occupied Galilee. In the ancient world, power and authority were concentrated among the wealthy, the priestly class, and the Roman Empire. Yet Jesus gives authority not to the powerful, but to those on the margins. Matthew says Jesus “gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.” This is significant because healing in the gospels is never merely private or spiritual. Illness often carried social consequences: exclusion from community, economic hardship, and religious stigma. By empowering his disciples to heal, Jesus commissions them to restore people to dignity and community life.
The list of disciples itself also carries important political meaning. Among the twelve are Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector. These two figures represented opposite ends of a debate within Jesus’ community on how social change was to be brought about. Tax collectors collaborated with the Roman Empire and were often viewed as traitors by their fellow Jews. Zealots, on the other hand, resisted Roman occupation and sometimes advocated for violent revolution. In most societies, these two men would have viewed each other as antagonists, yet Jesus calls them into the same community.
This reveals a radical social vision. Jesus doesn’t build movements based on initial differences or methodological purity. Instead he forms a community where former antagonists learn to work together for healing and justice. We don’t build the kingdom of God by destroying one another but by transforming one another through the patience that relationship demands. In a modern context marked by polarization, racial division, and ideological hostility, this passage challenges communities to move toward change by learning to listen to one another and possible being affected by our proximity to each other.
Another important lesson is found in the symbolic number twelve. The twelve disciples represent the renewal of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus is forming an renewed social order, a renewed people shaped not by domination but by compassion and justice. Rome ruled through violence, exploitation, and fear. The socio-religious elite often reinforced systems that burdened the poor and excluded the vulnerable through collusion with Rome. Against this backdrop, Jesus creates, within the symbolism and meaning of his Jewish community, a movement centered on restoration, compassion, and justice.
Our reading this week emphasizes that justice work is communal. Jesus does not send isolated heroes to change the world alone. He forms a collective. Social transformation requires communities committed to shared purpose, mutual accountability, and collective action. The disciples are flawed people with conflicting backgrounds and imperfect understandings, yet Jesus still calls them, with their differences, to benefit from the change that will result in each of them from their interaction with him and with each other. Meaningful justice movements do not require perfect people or even homogeny. They require people who are willing to not only work toward change but also work toward being changed themselves.
Jesus’ movement in our reading this week involves healing bodies, restoring dignity, breaking down barriers between antagonists, and forming communities rooted in justice, love and compassion above all. The kingdom Jesus announces is not merely about personal salvation after death; it is about the transformation of human relationships and society here and now.
Lastly, rather than calling these disciples to seek power, wealth, or domination, Jesus sends them to serve the vulnerable and restore human dignity. The instructions Jesus gives challenge systems of exclusion and invite communities into practices of compassion, healing, and solidarity. The disciples are told to proclaim that “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The kingdom of heaven is not about the afterlife; it is a social reality where the poor, sick, marginalized, and oppressed are restored to community. The kingdom stands against systems that exploit people and instead promotes justice, mercy, and shared humanity.
Jesus commands the disciples to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons. Each of these acts carries social meaning. Lepers were excluded from society, the sick were often viewed as cursed, and those suffering mentally or spiritually were frequently isolated. Jesus sends his followers directly toward those society pushed away, so following the Jesus of this passage means refusing to abandon those suffering injustice and working instead for restoration, inclusion, and liberation.
Jesus says to his disciples, “Freely you have received; freely give.” This challenges Christian systems built on greed and exploitation. The disciples are not to commodify healing or turn compassion into profit. Justice requires generosity and mutual care rather than treating people as opportunities for gain. Ultimately, our reading reminds us that faithfulness is measured by how communities care for the vulnerable. It presents a vision of discipleship rooted in individual and social healing, rooted in solidarity, and rooted in the restoration of the human dignity of whomever our society is pushing to the margins. And it calls Jesus followers to embody a world shaped by that compassion.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, today? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
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Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 3 Episode 25: The Harvest Is Great, the Laborers Few
Matthew 9:35-10:8
This passage also teaches that justice requires action, not mere sympathy. Jesus doesn’t simply feel sorry for the crowds around him. He heals their diseases, restores marginalized people to community life, and commissions disciples to continue the work. The vision of justice in Matthew’s Gospel is therefore participatory: followers of Jesus are called to become “laborers” in the harvest. That means confronting suffering wherever it appears, whether through poverty, racism, gender privilege, LGBTQ phobias, economic inequality, violence, or exclusion. Compassion without action is incomplete.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/the-harvest-is-great-the-laborers-few
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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