Called to the Harvest
Matthew 9:35 – 10:8
I don’t know whether you have noticed this or not but we live in farm country. Have you noticed that? Some live in small towns, small villages but those towns and villages are surrounded by farms and fields that stretch for miles upon miles. Has anyone else noticed that or is it my imagination? There are lots of farms in rural Licking County. I suppose the word rural gives it away.
Some of you, many of you are actually farmers. Some raise livestock; cattle, sheep, goats, maybe some pigs for a variety of reasons. Most of what I see out there however are fields and fields of crops, mostly grain; corn, beans, wheat, hay maybe some other crops, I don’t know what else. So there are farmers out there listening today or at least former farmers and grew up on farms.
It is one of those circle of life things right; born, live, die, renewal, rebirth. In the spring the ground is worked, the seed is planted, hopefully there is the proper amount of sun and rain for the seeds to sprout. Enough sun and rain during the growing season and the crops come up, growing into what God made them to become. Then in the fall after all the waiting and praying, seemingly you open the back door and see that the fields are ready, the harvest is ripe, the farmer is Called to the Harvest!
My grandfather was a full-time farmer and part-time Baptist preacher. He raised cattle for slaughter but the cash crop on his West Virginia farm was tobacco so I would see over the years how he worked, planned, prepared, toiled and prayed to set a harvest in motion.
I grew up in a small college town in northwest Ohio. My friends were mostly either faculty brats such as myself, local merchants’ kids, kids of folks the worked at the Ford plant in Lima or they were farmers. So I knew a saw what it was like to be a farmer through them.
In the fall many of us would go into the fields of friends to bale hay. Decent money but not much fun but the farmers had deadlines to meet. When the hay was ready to be bailed and put up, it needed to be done right away or it would begin to turn so there was a need for as many harvest workers as they could find.
After all of the work, the planning, the preparation, the toiling and the praying the harvest was plentiful but the workers were few and the need was real so many so us were Called to the Harvest.
In our lesson today we find Jesus working the fields, doing the planning, the preparation and the toiling. Jesus has been traveling around Galilee during the second year of his ministry, telling the people about who he is and working miracles to establish himself as the promised Messiah. In fact in chapters 8 & 9 of Matthew he performs eight different miracles.
We have talked about it before, Jesus and the disciples are just walking from town to town and the locals rush up to him, begging for mercy, for a healing touch for a miracle that will change their lives. He has sown the seeds of faithfulness and righteousness in the fields and communities around the countryside but he knows that is time is short and needs are many.
Jesus, Matthew tells us, is going through all the towns and villages; teaching in the synagogues, proclaiming the good news and healing every disease and sickness. Then one day, in my mind’s eye I see it happening like this, Jesus and His disciples come up over a hill top as they walk from town to town perhaps the day after he heals two blind men and a demon processed man that couldn’t speak.
As Jesus and his disciples are walking and talking they come up to the crest of the hill and Jesus sees thousands of men, women and children in valley below. The people are slogging their way through their seemingly pointless lives, ignored by the powerful Jewish elites, struggling to provide for themselves and their families, pain and illnesses making their journey more difficult. They had never met Jesus, never heard the Gospel, but maybe today by God’s grace they will.
Our lesson tells us that “when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’” So what did he see in the crowds that made him feel compassion of the people?
Jesus saw all the lost people. There wasn’t anything unusual about the crowd that Jesus and the disciples saw that day. But on this day Jesus saw all the people, felt their pain and He had compassion for them. Jesus saw these lost people as distressed.
Jesus saw these lost people as sheep without a shepherd. The Jewish religious leaders should have been shepherding these people, pointing them to God. But instead they were self-righteous and self-seeking, looking down on the common people as simply sinners to be fleeced. Jesus viewed them as sheep needing a shepherd.
Jesus also saw a Harvest of Lost people that needed someone to come to them. He said, “The harvest is plentiful.” There was a harvest of lost souls waiting to be gathered in. Gathering them doesn’t depend on theological knowledge but rather on willingness to show the same compassion for them as Jesus did.
It depends on our willingness to go into the field to fulfill God’s divine, saving purpose. He has prepared a harvest and we are Called to the Harvest. Jesus saw the great need in lost people. He saw the need for people that could and would toil to bring peace and comfort to those lost people and gather them in.
The last thing that Jesus saw when he came upon this scene, was that there was a great need for workers to tend to the Harvest. Jesus said the Harvest is ready but “The workers are few.” It is interesting but hardly random or incongruent that Jesus changes metaphors here. Pasto Steven Cole tells us that first, Jesus used the metaphor of lost sheep without a shepherd. But now, it’s a harvest waiting to be brought to the Master.
They are different but show the distinction between God’s work and man’s work. The sheep and the shepherd show man’s need met by God. The good shepherd seeks out lost sheep and tends to their needs. The harvest and the workers show God’s “need” met by man: God uses saved people to save other people. He uses us to bring other lost souls to the Gospel message. We are Called to the Harvest for God’s purposes.
You see on the one hand, the Lord will accomplish all of His purpose, which includes salvation for those that chose it. Yet at the same time, He has chosen to save lost people through those whom He has already saved.
It is like a beggar telling another beggar where to find the free food. He chooses to use us to tell the lost where we found the Bread of Life so that they may find it as well! The harvest is plentiful and ripe but there is a need for workers, we are Called to the Harvest.
Hear the Good News my Friends…………
John 4:35 says “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”
Jesus had spent all of His ministry doing for the lost and the broken by teaching, proclaiming and healing these souls while the disciples watched and hopefully learned. Our lesson today was a transitional point in Jesus’ development of his disciples. He had always done for the people that needed help while the disciples watched. Now he takes his hands off and empowers them to do as they have been taught. They were Called to the Harvest to gather in the lost souls as Jesus had taught them.
It should be a transitional point for us as Christians as well to understand that all of those lost, bewildered and broken souls are yearning for something better, they are ready to be gathered in, told the Gospel truth and have their lives changed for the good and for Eternity.
Friends are we willing to see what Jesus sees in the world around us lost and desperate people that are ready for a change, for someone to come and care for them. Do you ever look carefully into people’s faces when you’re in public? Have you looked at the television lately? All those people roaming the streets well into the nights doing things out of frustration and distress.
We know what we think of them. We ask that they be sent away as the disciples might have done but how would Jesus react? I think that he would see a lot of distressed, troubled people and he would have compassion on them. Can we be willing to care for the lost souls that we encounter during our daily journey and bring the Gospel truth to them, to gather them in, bring them close for the saving purposes of God?
The Holy Spirit is always active in the world and just like the farmers that we began with today He has worked, planned, prepared, toiled and prayed to set a great harvest in motion. Friends the great harvest is always ripe, it is always plentiful and the workers are always needed, maybe in our world today more than ever before. Christian we are being Called to the Harvest! Amen.