The Harvest Is Plentiful: Friday of Summer Embertide (Matthew 9:35-38)

May 29, 2026, Summer Ember Day II, Friday of Summer Embertide

Matthew 9:35–38, Psalm 63:1–8, 1 Samuel 3:1–10, Ephesians 4:11–16

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you on this second day of Summer Embertide.

On Wednesday we lifted our eyes and saw what Jesus saw, the fields already white for harvest, the Spirit already poured out, and the burden of ministry too heavy for any one person to carry alone. We heard Moses cry out for help and watched God raise up others to share the burden. We remembered that we ourselves have entered a harvest we did not plant. Today the readings take us one step deeper. They ask what happens when God’s call begins to take shape in a particular life, how the Church recognizes and receives that calling, and why the whole Body must pray for the laborers Christ gives to his harvest.

We stand in the week between Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. Five days ago the Church celebrated the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and two days from now we will hear the risen Jesus send his disciples to make disciples of all nations. We are standing, in other words, at the threshold of the long Season after Pentecost, when the extraordinary events we have celebrated from Advent through Pentecost begin to bear fruit in the patient, ordinary ministry of the Church. That ministry does not sustain itself automatically. The Church needs people whom God has genuinely called, whom the Church has faithfully discerned and formed, and whom the Holy Spirit equips for service. Ember Days give the Church a recurring time to pray especially for those called to Holy Orders and, from that center, for the faithful ministry of the whole Body.

The first reading brings us into 1 Samuel 3, where the situation is bleak. The narrator tells us, “The word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.” (1 Samuel 3:1, ESV) Eli is old, his sons have corrupted the priesthood entrusted to them, and Israel is living through a season in which the word of God seems scarce. Yet the text also tells us that “the lamp of God had not yet gone out.” Into that troubled house, in a time when revelation is rare and leadership is failing, God speaks.

Samuel does not initially understand what is happening. Three times he hears his name and runs to Eli, saying, “Here I am, for you called me.” (1 Samuel 3:5, ESV) Three times Eli sends him back, until at last the old priest realizes that the LORD is calling the boy. He tells Samuel that if the voice comes again he should answer, “Speak, LORD, for your servant hears.” (1 Samuel 3:9, ESV)

That sentence gives us one of Scripture’s clearest pictures of vocation, but we should notice where the movement begins. Samuel does not invent the call. God acts first. Samuel does not yet understand what God is doing, and he needs Eli to help him recognize it. The call is divine, but its discernment is not solitary. God speaks, Samuel responds, and Eli helps him understand what is happening.

Not every Christian vocation comes with an audible voice in the night, and Ember Days should not lead us to expect one. God ordinarily calls through Scripture, prayer, gifts, circumstances, the needs of the Church, the inward work of the Spirit, and the discernment of other Christians. But the order remains the same. Vocation begins with God’s initiative rather than our ambition. The Church does not manufacture a call, and the candidate does not create one simply by wanting the work. God calls, and the Church helps discern whether what is being heard and perceived is truly from him.

There is something beautiful about Eli’s role in this story. His own household is deeply troubled, and he is far from a model of flawless priestly leadership, yet he still recognizes what God is doing in Samuel. He cannot create Samuel’s vocation, but he can help Samuel listen. That remains part of the Church’s responsibility. Sometimes an older Christian, a priest, a deacon, a teacher, a parent, or another mature believer sees gifts and signs of vocation before the person himself knows what to call them. Faithful discernment does not pressure someone into ministry. It helps a person listen more carefully to the God who calls.

Psalm 63 then gives us the posture of dependence that must accompany any genuine ministry. David prays from the wilderness, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1, ESV) Ministry cannot survive for long if the minister’s deepest hunger is for influence, recognition, success, or even the approval of the people he serves. The servant of God must first hunger for God himself.

Later the Psalm brings desire and grace together in a single line: “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”(Psalm 63:8, ESV) That is a remarkably complete picture of faithful ministry. The servant clings to God, yet underneath that clinging is something stronger: God’s own right hand upholds the servant. We seek because he has first sought us. We hold fast because he is already holding us. Vocation may require perseverance, sacrifice, study, courage, and discipline, but none of those things makes a minister self-sustaining. The one who calls must also uphold.

Paul takes us from the called servant to the ministry of the whole Church in Ephesians 4. He writes that the ascended Christ “gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11–12, ESV) Paul is not giving us a direct map of the later threefold order of bishops, priests, and deacons. His point is larger and more fundamental: ministers themselves are gifts of the ascended Christ, and Christ gives them for the building up of his whole Body.

The goal is not a congregation in which a small clerical class performs Christian ministry while everyone else watches. Christ gives ministers to equip the saints, and the saints themselves are brought into the work of ministry. Paul says this continues “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13, ESV) The goal is the maturity of the whole Church, a Body in which every member grows into Christ and every gift serves the good of the whole.

That helps us keep Ember Days properly centered without making them narrowly clerical. Their Prayer Book purpose is especially prayer for those called to Holy Orders, because the Church needs faithful bishops, priests, and deacons. Yet those ministers are given to serve and equip the whole people of God. The ordained ministry and the ministry of the baptized are not competitors. Christ gives both, and both exist for the building up of his Body.

Then we arrive at the Gospel, where Matthew shows us the heart from which all of this ministry flows. Jesus goes “throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.” (Matthew 9:35, ESV) Then Matthew tells us what Jesus sees when he looks at the crowds: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36, ESV)

The word translated “had compassion” is esplagchnisthē (es-plahngk-NEES-thay), from a word associated with the inward parts of the body. It describes compassion felt deeply, viscerally. Jesus does not look upon the crowds merely as a problem to be managed, a demographic to be reached, or a collection of religious consumers whose preferences must be studied. He is moved in his depths because they are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

That image reaches back into the Old Testament, where God’s people repeatedly suffer when their shepherds fail them. The crowds need truth, healing, guidance, protection, and ultimately the Good Shepherd himself. Jesus looks upon them not with irritation at their neediness or contempt for their wandering, but with compassion.

Then his compassion becomes a command to pray. Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:37–38, ESV) He does not begin with a recruitment campaign or a lowering of standards. He directs the disciples to the Lord of the harvest because the field belongs to God and the laborers are his gifts.

And then notice what happens in the very next verse. Jesus has just told the disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers, and immediately Matthew tells us that Jesus summons the Twelve and gives them authority for the work ahead. The ones who hear the command to pray for laborers are themselves drawn into the answer to that prayer. This is one of the great lessons of intercession: when we ask God to act, he often begins by changing the people who are praying and drawing them more deeply into the work for which they have prayed.

The disciples are not merely told to care about the harvest from a distance. They are sent into it. Prayer for laborers is therefore never safely separated from our own willingness to be used by the Lord of the harvest. We may begin by asking God to send someone and discover that part of his answer is to make us more ready to go, to speak, to serve, to encourage, or to help another person hear his call.

That brings the readings together. God calls Samuel before Samuel knows what is happening. God upholds the servant who clings to him. The ascended Christ gives ministers to equip his people. Jesus sees the shepherdless crowds with compassion and commands the Church to ask the Lord of the harvest for laborers. From beginning to end, ministry begins with God.

What, then, does this mean for us on this Friday of Summer Embertide? It means first that we need to learn to see the people around us through the compassion of Christ. The crowds around us in Hiawassee, in Towns County, and throughout these mountains are not inconveniences, statistics, or problems for the Church to solve. They are people for whom Christ has compassion. Some are lonely, some are lost, some have been wounded by churches or by shepherds who failed them, some have never heard the Gospel clearly, and some simply do not know where to turn. The prayer for laborers begins by seeing the harvest as Jesus sees it.

For those keeping a fast today, that bodily discipline can serve this prayer rather than becoming an achievement in itself. Hunger cannot manufacture compassion, but it can interrupt our comfort and remind us to pray. The purpose is not to prove seriousness to God. It is to turn attention away from ourselves and toward the Lord of the harvest and the people for whom he has compassion.

The readings also ask those of us who have been in the Church for some time to take the Eli role seriously. There may be people around us in whom we have begun to notice a hunger for Scripture, a love for Christ’s Church, unusual gifts for teaching or pastoral care, a growing burden for the Gospel, or a persistent sense that God may be asking something more of them. We should not manufacture a call or pressure someone into Holy Orders, but neither should we remain silent when we see something that deserves discernment. Sometimes one of the most important things an older Christian can say is, “I have noticed these gifts in you. Have you ever prayed about whether God might be calling you to serve his Church in this way?”

That question does not settle a vocation. It begins discernment. Samuel still needed to listen, Eli still needed to help, and the Church still needs to test doctrine, character, gifts, maturity, and suitability. But God often uses the Body to help an individual recognize what he is doing.

Ephesians also turns the question back upon every one of us. Not everyone is called to Holy Orders, but no Christian is called to passive spectatorship. Christ gives gifts to his people so that the whole Body may grow. Some teach, some encourage, some pray, some serve quietly, some visit the sick, some organize, some give generously, some offer hospitality, and some simply become the dependable people who are present when others need them. These gifts may never attract attention, but they are part of the ordinary way Christ builds his Church through the long season ahead.

So how should we pray today? The BCP provides two Ember Collects on page 634. As we said on Wednesday, one useful devotional practice is to pray one in the morning and the other in the evening, though that pattern is a suggestion rather than a Prayer Book requirement. The first Collect asks God, “the giver of all good gifts,” to give grace to those called to ministry, filling them with “the truth of your doctrine” and clothing them with “holiness of life.” The second asks that the Church, “under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, may choose suitable persons for the ministry of Word and Sacrament,”and may uphold them in their work. At the Eucharist, the BCP appoints the Preface of Apostles with either Ember Collect.

Those prayers keep the order straight. God gives. God calls. God guides. The Church listens, discerns, forms, chooses, ordains, sends, and supports. We neither turn vocation into a private career decision nor treat ordination as an institutional staffing problem. The Lord of the harvest gives the laborers, and the Church is responsible for praying for them and discerning them faithfully.

So pray today for particular people. Pray for those discerning Holy Orders, for seminarians and ordinands, for bishops, priests, and deacons, and for congregations waiting for faithful pastors. Pray also for the people you know who are harassed and helpless, the neighbor who is alone, the family member who is wandering, the person who has no shepherd and no church. Let the faces become more important than the category.

And if there is someone in whose life you have begun to see the signs of a possible vocation, pray for that person as well. Perhaps the Lord is asking you to do what Eli did, not to create the call, but to help another person listen.

Jesus says that “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” (Matthew 9:37, ESV) The answer begins where Jesus tells us it begins: with prayer to the Lord who owns the harvest. Yet Matthew also reminds us that those who pray are themselves standing before the Lord who sends. We do not know beforehand how God will answer, whom he will call, or what part he may give us in that answer. We know only that the harvest is his, the laborers are his gifts, and the Church must ask for them in faith.

So let us pray to the Lord of the harvest to raise up holy and faithful ministers, to give his Church wisdom to recognize and form them, to uphold those already serving, and to give all of us grace to offer faithfully whatever gifts he has entrusted to us.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.