Today St Matthew recounts the sending out of twelve apostles, but with the direction that they are to go to fellow Jews and not to the lands of the pagans.  This does not mean that Our Lord does not care about them.  Rather it is a statement of priorities.  God chose to work through a particular people in order to make himself known, through them, to the rest of humanity.  The bringing of the Good News that God’s Kingdom is close is an invitation and challenge to his people to embrace this mission and set aside a narrow focus on political independence.  Jesus does not fail to show compassion to non-Jews who seek his help and have faith in him.  A wider mission to the whole world will come when his people do not respond in the way he hopes.  St Paul bemoans this failure to rise to the challenge and uses the image of the pagans as grafted on to the root stock of the olive tree which symbolises Israel, but continues to hope that one day Israel will recognise Jesus as their promised Messiah.