Sermon: “You received without payment; give without payment.” (Matthew 10:8)

Preacher:

Paul Thompson

Date:

Sunday 14th June 2026

Venue:

Guildford Cathedral

Service:

9.45 Cathedral Eucharist

“You received without payment; give without payment.”  (Matthew 10:8)

 

“Buy one get one free.” We may not need two bags of apples or two bottles of shampoo, but who can resist the bogof free gift? We all like to think we are getting something for nothing, even when we know that it is all a ploy on the part of the shops to make us spend more than we intended. Cynical….moi ???

But what about giving something for nothing? Now that’s a very different matter. I suspect that it is part of our human nature to feel resentful when we think we are being taken advantage of. You may know the kind of friend who is always asking for help but rarely gives anything in return? Resentment can quickly ruin that one-sided friendship. Or at work, we can become resentful and envious of those who seem to do less work for more money. Perhaps the world we live in is one in which we expect to get what we pay for, and to be rewarded for what we do.

The message of the Gospel isn’t always an easy ask. Several times over and over it appears to fly in the face of human nature. And however hard we try, we find it very difficult to believe, and almost impossible to act on. And here it is. In Christ, God bestows on us love and forgiveness which is entirely free and unearned.

And the response God looks for from us is love and forgiveness towards our brothers and sisters, which is also entirely free and unearned. Big bogof !!

“You received without payment; give without payment,” instructs Jesus in our set Gospel reading this morning….as he sends his team on their jolly mission trip.

They are off to tell their own people that the long-awaited Messiah has come, and the kingdom of heaven is here. And they are also to demonstrate the presence of the kingdom by their actions, by healing the sick, cleansing lepers, raising the dead, casting out demons. These are things that are not only about individual well-being, but about the wholeness of the community.

The sick, lepers, the dead, the demon-possessed – all are people who are set apart from the community to which they belong, in some cases because they are regarded as contagious or ritually unclean. Restoring them also restores the health and wholeness of the community to which they belong.

But healing? Raising the dead? These sound difficult things for the twelve disciple to accomplish, maybe even impossible. Perhaps, though, the most difficult thing they are asked to do is not the most obviously miraculous, but the thing that most goes against human nature – to give without payment. They are not setting off to do a job for which they will earn a good salary, with a company car and a mobile phone to help them do the job. They are not to expect fame or even gratitude for the miracles they will perform. They are to heal people only because they know that they have themselves been healed, out of hearts overflowing with gratitude and joy.

There is no reward for doing the work of God’s kingdom, apart from the promise of eternal life….. which is massive in itself !! There may indeed be hardship and danger. St Matthew’s first readers may have known all too clearly the costs of discipleship in their day. Disciples are not to expect payment, recognition, fame and fortune. All that they do is done out of gratitude.

The hope for the future, the vision of present possibilities, the knowledge of love and forgiveness, all these are things that they have been given, unpaid for and unearned. The only possible response is to tell and show this hope and this love to others, as freely as it has been received.

“Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.”  If we interpret the task for ourselves, we perhaps want to focus on things we can do to bring our communities, our own households into wholeness, and to include those whom society can easily exclude.

However, we are also encouraged to give without any payment. We are so used to concepts of fair play and just deserts that we can easily turn the Church into another place where you have to earn what you get.

But that isn't what the Gospel is about. We do not have to earn God’s love. It is ours whatever we do, as we are already redeemed and loved by God.

If we really know, deep inside us, that we have been saved from sin and death however little we deserve it, then we will want other people to know about it. And if we really know this, deep inside us, then our lives will shine with love for God, and for one another expressed in deeds of service, without any thought of payment. It is our free gift today !! Enjoy it !!!

Amen,