Dock
Resource Kit
Sunday sermon, 13 Sep 2026
Summary
This week Brigid talked to us from Matthew, where Jesus, moved with compassion for crowds who are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd,” tells his disciples that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. She explored how God has already done the work of readying the harvest, leaving us simply to pray for workers and go out as labourers, trusting the Spirit to give us the words as we do. Brigid closed by inviting everyone to take their own next step as a worker in the field, whatever shape that takes for them.
Key Points & Takeways
Jesus's compassion for the crowds sets his mission in motion - After chapters of extraordinary healings in Matthew 8–9, Jesus looks at the crowds and sees people who are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36), not projects or opponents, but people longing for meaning and hope, just as people are today.
The harvest is already ready, ours is simply to work it - Jesus's image of a plentiful harvest (Matthew 9:37–38) means God has already done the work of drawing people towards himself; what's needed isn't skill or technology, just workers, much like the East London tradition of thousands travelling to Kent each year once a farmer's letter announced the hop harvest was ready.
Jesus gives two roles: pray earnestly, and go as labourers - The word ‘harvest’ is used three times in two verses, signalling urgency, so now is the time to respond, both in prayer for workers and in going out with the good news.
The disciples move from watching to participating - Having only observed Jesus's healings so far, the disciples are suddenly given authority to heal and drive out evil, and sent out with the message that ‘the kingdom of heaven has come near’ (Matthew 10:7–8).
Jesus gives them a posture, not just a task: stay, move on, and trust God with the outcome - The disciples are told to stay where they're welcomed and move on where they're not, resting in the fact that they don't need to control how people respond, they simply need to be available.
The harvest is real and waiting today - Brigid cited Alpha's 2025 statistics: around 4 million people in the UK know about Alpha and would be willing to try it if invited, and that a majority of guests grew in Bible engagement, faith commitment, or confidence to talk about Jesus by the end of a course.
We don't have to control the outcome - In Matthew 10:19–20, Jesus instructed the disciples not to worry about what to say, because the Spirit will give the words.
The harvest, and the workers, don't all look the same - An impromptu, uncoordinated harvest of fennel, lavender, sage and pumpkin brought in from the church allotment that morning became a picture that each of us is called to be a worker in the field in our own way.
Dock Discussion Questions
Brigid described the crowds Jesus met as “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Where do you see people around you; family, colleagues, neighbours, who fit that description today?
The East London hop-picking tradition was like a letter inviting whole families to bring in a harvest that was already ready. What would it look like for you to respond to that same invitation from God this season?
Brigid shared her own story of inviting someone to Alpha and being met with an awkward, mortified reaction. How do you typically respond to rejection when you step out to share your faith, and how might trusting God with the outcome change that?
Jesus tells the disciples not to worry about what to say, promising the Spirit will give them words (Matthew 10:19–20). Is there someone you've been hesitant to invite to Alpha, or to talk to about Jesus, because you're not sure what you'd say?
The harvest that morning included fennel, lavender, sage, and even a pumpkin; Brigid noted that the harvest, and the workers, don't all look the same. What's one concrete, practical step you could take this week to be a ‘worker in the field,’ in a way that fits who you are?
Long-form, edited transcript
The Harvest is Plentiful
Matthew 9:35–10:8, 16–20
We are going to look at Matthew chapter 9 and 10, starting at verse 35 near the end of chapter 9, before jumping into chapter 10:
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
Across this passage, Jesus is speaking to his disciples and giving them instructions for what they should do now that they've been watching him.
Compassion for the Crowds
Chapters 9 and 10 of Matthew's eyewitness account come off the back of a couple of chapters of extraordinary healings. I read through chapters 8 and 9 this week, and if you want to be reminded of just how baffling it must have been for the disciples to watch Jesus do all these amazing things, go and read those chapters, it's healing after healing, restoration after restoration. It's quite extraordinary.
But even as Jesus does this, he knows there's more work to do, because he notices something about the culture and society they're travelling through. Jesus describes the crowds he's meeting as harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
I wonder if anyone else has seen the film Sheep Detectives, which came out earlier this year. Those who have will know it's bonkers but brilliant. Hugh Jackman stars as a shepherd of a small flock, and, this isn't a spoiler, it's in the trailer, Hugh Jackman gets murdered, and the sheep take it upon themselves to solve his murder and get the farm back to how it should be. These sheep are extraordinary, I can't do it justice, so you'll have to go and watch it yourselves. There's a great bit where one of the sheep tries to explain to the other sheep what God is like: he's a lamb, but he's also a shepherd, and he tastes of bread. It's brilliant, I really recommend it. These sheep go to very extreme lengths to make sure the police catch the bad guys, unfortunately I don't think real sheep have quite the same capabilities, as fun as that would be.
When Jesus describes people as sheep without a shepherd, what he's saying is these are people who are lost, who are hurting, who are searching, who are carrying more than they can hold. In Jesus's mind, these crowds might not understand exactly who he is, but they're not projects or programmes or opponents, they're people longing for meaning and hope and a direction to point their lives in.
Jesus's mission, we're told in this passage, starts with him feeling compassion; his gut, deeply moved towards these people who are looking for something. It's exactly the same today. People across our city are searching for meaning, wondering where real hope can be found; in our neighbourhoods, the people we work with, those we live alongside. I want to ask you this morning: do you have that motivation of compassion and love for the people around you? And if not, ask that God would give it to you, ask for an understanding of some of Jesus' compassion for the people we meet in our lives.
The Harvest Is Already Ready
Out of this compassion and love that Jesus has for the crowds, he uses a farming analogy for what happens next. He says to the disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” The farmer, the Lord of the harvest, of course, is God.
I find this instruction deeply hopeful and reassuring. This is not a ‘come on guys, pull your socks up, do better.’ This is really hopeful, and I'll tell you why: Jesus is saying that the fruit of God's work, God's mission in the world, is already there. God has done the work. God has moved towards humanity, towards the earth, and said, ‘I want you to know my love, I want to work in partnership with you.’ The fruit is ready to be harvested because God is the one who ultimately affects change. This means harvesting the field doesn't rely on particularly skilled labourers, or cutting-edge technology, or the latest agricultural science. God has readied the harvest, it's just the workers who are needed.
There's a great tradition of this kind of work across the East End of London. Every year through the 19th century, basically up until the 1960s, towards the end of summer as the harvest was getting ready, as many as 200,000 East Londoners a year would head down to Kent, the Garden of England, and help bring in the hop harvest, hops, for making beer. It was a kind of working holiday: every year Londoners would go back to the same farmer, get a bit of fresh air, and come back to East London with some money for the autumn and winter.
Families would look forward to the day the farmer would send them a letter saying, ‘Come down, the harvest is ready to be taken in.’ Hopping was an annual tradition involving every generation; grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, kids, everyone went hopping down to Kent. The work was manual but easy to learn, so children could join in with the picking.
This image is so like what God invites us to do. Every one of us, young, old, women, men, confident or not so confident in our journey of faith, has received that letter from God saying, ‘Come now, the harvest is ready. Will you join in?’ In our society, complex geopolitics, disillusionment among young people, conversations about what it means to be a man or a woman, and the online world are all contributing to a sense of searching and looking like never before. God has been at work in his world, God is always at work in his world. So this morning: are we ready to go to the fields, to go to the harvest, and bring it in?
The Harvest Today
Right now in the UK, Alpha statistics suggest there are about 4 million people who know about Alpha and might be willing to try it, but have never been invited, 4 million people waiting, perhaps, for you to invite them, that they might come and experience new life with Jesus.
Over 2025, Alpha found that 42% of guests who didn't regularly read or listen to their Bibles before were doing so by the end of the course. 55% of guests who hadn't made a personal commitment to Jesus before Alpha said they had made one by the end. 50% of guests said they hadn't wanted to tell people about trying church or Jesus before, but by the end were excited and ready to go. The harvest is not just plentiful, it's waiting. It's ready. It's longing for new life.
Jesus identifies two roles we can play in this harvest: first, pray earnestly; second, go out as labourers with this good news. The word ‘harvest’ is used three times in these two verses, which implies a sense of urgency, I think the time is now. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, there's no time to lose; we don't want to wait, or the harvest gets spoiled. In the same way, for us in our world, now is the time to respond. Our world is crying out for God's kingdom to be made real, and each one of us gets to play a part in being the bearer of that good news.
From Passengers to Participants
Up until now in this passage, the disciples have been like passengers in the car, watching the journey go by, taking in the views, enjoying the ride. But in Matthew chapter 10, Jesus says, ‘Right, it's time for you to take the wheel.’ Before they can protest that they couldn't possibly do any of that, Jesus quickly says, ‘I am giving you my authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, to cure every disease and every sickness.’ And he sends them out with a message: the kingdom of heaven is near, heaven is coming to earth through me, so turn to God.
He gives them a posture too, to bring peace: stay where you're welcomed, move on where you're not, and trust God with the outcome. In short, the disciples were to go out and tell people that Jesus is the Messiah, the one who will save the world. Jesus isn't offering a new religious experience or a moral decision-making framework, this isn't just another way of being spiritual. This is it: Jesus, the way, the truth, the life, the one who will save us, and the disciples just needed to be available.
I imagine some of them were raring to go with excitement, and some were probably feeling a little nervous. Maybe that's how you feel in this room now as I'm speaking, some of us are like, ‘Yeah, let's get on with it,’ and some of us are like, ‘Oh, I'm not really sure I'd know what to say.’ One thing through all of this remains: Jesus talks about persecution and the challenges they might face, but through this we see again and again that God loves his world. God loves London, every Londoner there is, and he would give his Son so that whoever turns to him might get eternal life and see heaven on earth.
Trusting God with the Outcome
I love the way this passage ends, and this is the verse Kelly told me I had to speak on today. Verse 19: Jesus says, ‘Don't worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time, you will be given what to say. It will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.’ That sounds a bit like another part of Matthew's gospel, in Matthew 6, where Jesus says, ‘Don't worry about your life, what you'll eat or drink, what you'll wear, is life not more than this? Look at the birds of the air, how God takes care of them; are you not more valuable than them?’
In the same way, Jesus is saying, don't worry about the words that will come. Don't worry about being a stunning evangelist or having all your theology worked out. Jesus is just saying: go and speak the truth of your life, tell people about the Jesus you've encountered, and trust God with the outcome.
Earlier, at our prayer gathering before the service, Sarah had gone and done some harvesting of her own from the allotments out the back of church, and brought me this lovely bit of fennel, which smells great, if you want to come and have a sniff after the service, you definitely should. She brought all sorts: lavender, fennel, sage, and apparently there's a pumpkin growing out the back too, very exciting. What I love about this, God speaking to us through that harvest this morning, is that it wasn't planned, we didn't coordinate it. The harvest doesn't always look the same. The workers don't all look the same. Each of us is called in our own way to be workers in the field.
Over the Alphas I've had the privilege of being involved with, there have been some amazing stories of Jesus meeting people and people meeting Jesus. But I've also had my fair share of rejections. I once invited someone to Alpha who worked in a plant and florist's shop near my old church, where I was about to run an Alpha course. Over a series of weeks we'd had some great conversations, I bought a lot of plants and pots in those weeks as I was trying to build up the courage to invite her, and she seemed really interested. So I plucked up all my courage, took a flyer along, and said, ‘Hey, I'd love to invite you to Alpha.’ She looked mortified. I was like, ‘Oh.’ To be honest, I think she was just being polite, and I was embarrassed, I have to say.
But I then quickly remembered that God does not ask me to be in control of the outcome. I did my bit, I offered the invitation to come and see. When we trust that the Holy Spirit will speak through us, Jesus promises here ‘the Spirit of your Father,’ a beautiful picture of the Holy Spirit. We're promised that the words will come, and if all we can say is ‘come and see,’ that is good enough. The disciples in this moment could not have believed the extraordinary things that would come when they faithfully said to people, ‘come and see.’ Imagine getting to tell Peter or John that centuries later, across the world, a group of people would be gathered here in East London getting ready to tell people about Jesus, they would be blown away. What will the story be, generations from now, that we just can't believe?
Closing Prayer
Lord of the harvest,
You look at the people around us; harassed, helpless, searching for a shepherd, and your heart is moved with compassion. Give us that same compassion. Open our eyes to see the people you already see: the ones longing for meaning, for hope, for a place to belong.
Lord renew our hearts and make us willing to be sent. Send us.
Where we feel nervous, give us courage. Where we've been met with rejection, give us the freedom to trust you with the outcome, and try again. When we don't know what to say, speak for us by your Spirit.
Make us ready, whatever shape our part in the harvest takes. And write a story through us that generations from now, we could never have believed.
We ask this in Jesus's name.
Amen.