The Faith of Disciples and Trillionaires

The Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
Sermon for June 14, 2026

My friends, I speak to you today in the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.

Good morning, Church of the Epiphany. Happy World Cup; happy summer. I wrote in the enotes this week that this summer’s soccer tournament, like the Olympics, points to a time of global connection and togetherness in all our diversity and difference, no matter what any government tries to say or do, and I celebrate that with you this morning.

There’s another current event that has been equally on my mind this week, alongside the World Cup, and it is one that shares a few unfortunate similarities when it comes to commercialism and greed. This one was not as enjoyable as the soccer games were for me, though I know a few friends who strangely looked forward to it with a similar level of anticipation. I’m talking about Friday’s historic IPO, or initial public offering, of SpaceX. SpaceX, if you have not heard of it, is Elon Musk’s rocket making company: it is an “American aerospace manufacturer, launch service provider, and satellite communications company,” according to their website. Some may be familiar with their Starlink internet service, others with their many (and often explosive) attempts at space travel over the last few years.

Regardless of what you know about SpaceX, know this this morning: their shares debuted for trading and public ownership on the stock exchange just two days ago, and the company is now valued at over two trillion dollars. SpaceX is apparently worth more than every single aerospace and defense company combined: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and more. It is worth nearly 4x the value of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, combined. SpaceX, the investing community believes, is worth more than Tesla, more than Meta and Facebook, around as much as Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple.

This public offering this week made Elon Musk – the man who owns nearly half of SpaceX’s stock, alongside Tesla and the site formerly known as Twitter, the man who spearheaded government cuts to programs like USAID, our global efforts against the spread of HIV/AIDS, and the Department of Education – Musk is now the richest man on earth, the world’s first trillionaire. For those who cannot comprehend what it may be to be a trillionaire, that is one thousand billion… one million million. If you spent one million dollars every single day, it would take you 2,739 years to burn through one trillion dollars. If your family spent $100,000 every single minute, it would take your family nineteen generations to spend $1 trillion.

One trillion dollars is unfathomable.

Good morning, welcome to church. This morning’s gospel is a good one, though you may have gotten distracted or lost in the weeds when I read the names of all twelve apostles just a few minutes ago. This reading starts with Jesus doing what we know Jesus does during his years in ministry: he “went about all the cities and villages.” He teaches, proclaims the good news, cures every disease and every sickness. He recognizes great need among the crowds, and he looks at his disciples and delivers a favorite and familiar line: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” There is a lot of good work to be done, Jesus says to his followers, so pray to God that God would send someone to go out and do that good work. Often, as we may know, especially if you hang around the church where we believe “prayer shapes believing,” praying that God would send “someone” to “go do it” might end up shaping the pray-er to be the one that goes themselves. Go. Love.

But Jesus is doing Jesus-y things, this part is not surprising. The following instructions though, they may be a little surprising. This gospel story comes near the beginning of his ministry; Jesus is just naming his twelve apostles after all. He summons them, gives them authority, and then says this: “Go first to the Jews, no one else; proclaim the kingdom of heaven that they’ve been waiting for has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” Now that is quite a charge, one none of us could imagine being asked to do today.

As was mentioned at Gather & Grow this week too, we often think of the disciples as a bunch of groupies, twelve men that sort of follow Jesus around on his Galilean Tour. But here, early on, Jesus is telling them to go do the good work that needs to be done. We know from other passages that they do just that, they leave Jesus, they preach, they perform miracles. These Jewish men go first to the Jews, the rest of us Gentiles come in later, but they go and speak of this Messiah, this miracle worker. They are welcomed, and they are persecuted. Later in this charge in Matthew’s gospel, we read that Jesus warns the disciples they will be handed over to councils and flogged, dragged before governors and kings and likely killed. We know from history texts that they were, many of them brutally so. But here, Jesus gives them their first of many charges: go, do the good work, proclaim the good news, perform miracles, and suffer for following me.

What do they get in exchange for their service? Come on now, it’s 2026; we know surely they’re getting paid something. We wouldn’t do this work without pay; in our time, people are even urged to monetize their hobbies… we call it a side hustle. To be honest and transparent, you know that I wouldn’t be up here preaching this morning without a salary. None of you who hold or have ever held jobs would do your work without pay, and I know none of us are out there performing miracles and avoiding persecutions. What do the apostles, the followers of Jesus get? “You received without payment. Give without payment.” I continued the passage from what you have in your bulletins, an extra verse that helps make this point: “Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff, for laborers deserve their food.”

The first century was a different time and cultural context, I will admit that freely this morning. But the contrast of Jesus’s charge to his disciples – go do the good work, preach the good news, suffer, die, and take no payment but food and lodging – the contrast of this charge with the crowning of the world’s first trillionaire in a world full of need and hunger and disease and inequality, that is too strong of a contrast to ignore. Jesus freely gave his love, his compassion, his good news, and the disciples were to do the same, no payment required.

Now, this is not a sermon against capitalism; we know other forms of government and economics over the last two thousand years have struggled to rein in greed and ambition and a thirst for power as much as capitalism does. But this is a sermon in support of Christ’s gospel, in support of a different way of life, in support of trusting in God and always keeping the main thing the main thing; not money, not accumulation, not a race to the top, but compassion, love, and following Jesus our Lord.

We need to be paid to survive in this life, in this economy, and the disciples could rely on the hospitality of strangers. I appreciate that, and I do wonder if that says something about our so-called advanced society, but I appreciate that. Abbey and I would not do what we do without pay; we could not feed our daughters if we did. But friends, there is still something deeply important this morning about the trust that Jesus asks his disciples to have in him. “Go, do what I’ve asked you to do, trust that you will be provided for.”

I wonder today if we have anywhere near that level of trust. Do we truly believe that love is enough to change our world? Do we believe that money and power corrupt, that, as Jesus says, it is difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? Do we believe that everyone is worthy of love, that we are worthy of love, no matter what their or our bank statements say? Do we believe that preaching and speaking about love for all our neighbors is just as important as labeling and calling out the injustices that others commit? Do we believe in the teachings, the life of Jesus, in the promises of our God?

Did Sarah? In our first reading today, Abraham’s wife Sarah laughs when God promises her a son in her old age. (“I did not laugh,” she said, but God said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.” I love that.) God promised her a son in her old age, when she thought it was impossible, and “the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised.”

We have four gospels, we have two thousand years of tradition, that lets us know what God promises us. We are promised that love is the way, that happiness and joy come from giving of ourselves, not hoarding for ourselves, not buying more for ourselves.

Friends, this morning, we do know who is truly rich in this life; it is not the millionaires, billionaires, or trillionaires. It is those who listen to the promises of God, those who trust, do the good work, proclaim the good news, go forth and love without end. This is our call. Today, may we put all our faith in God’s promises alone, and may we live as though we believe them to be true.

Amen.