Every word and action of Jesus revealed the essence of His mission. The casting out of the demon in Mt.9:32-34 shows His mercy towards the dumb man and He restored his ability to speak. Yet this miracle received two-fold reactions: the crowd were amazed but the Pharisees accused Him of blasphemy. Such a miracle together with many others are signs of the Kingdom of God - that salvation has been brought to the poor, the needy and the oppressed in society.

It is in this context that Mt.9:35-38 helps us to look back to Jesus' ministry and to look forward to the Mission of the disciples. This Mission takes on two biblical images i.e. the 'Shepherd sheep' and the 'harvest.' They point to us that Discipleship of Jesus involves Mission - to being the Good News to the poor, marginalized and rejected in society and to pray the Lord of the Harvest to send labourers into His harvest. In this we see that even Prayer takes on a missionary dimension here. In Matthew's Gospel, this passage is one which prepares us for the missionary discourse which follows (Mt.10: 1-42).

If we fail to see Jesus' Mission as ours today, we will face the consequences as stated in the First Reading (Hos. 8: 11-13) "Yahweh is now going to remember their iniquity and punish their sin; they will have to go back to Egypt."