The Harvest is Plentiful
There is a strange link between last week’s sermon about Noah and his ark, and this week’s where Jesus commissions the disciples – the animals came in 2 by 2, the disciples were sent out 2 by 2! (see Mark’s account). We touched on this in our P.C.C. meeting last week when talking about the Xian Aid collection, how much better it was to go with someone else when door-knocking. There are other parallels too. Noah and the ark prefigure the saving work of Jesus which is demonstrated in His preaching of the gospel and healing the sick. There is also the way in which God and Jesus view “the crowd”. In the story of Noah God perceives the crowd as in the mass of humanity as being corrupt in every way, Jesus sees the crowd as being like sheep without a shepherd. Finally the solving of a seemingly massive problem involves the response of ordinary people. In a very real sense “God has no hands but ours”.
I want to look at this passage by asking three questions: “How do we view the crowd? How earnestly are we asking God to send out labourers?” And “To what extent are we the answer to our own prayers?”
There’s been a lot of publicity recently about young people and how threatening they can be when present in significant numbers hiding behind their hoodies. What is our perception? In a similar way we can often be dismissive or negative about whole groups of people – asylum seekers, homeless people, drug addicts, old people, those with mental health problems and so on. How do you view the crowds today – the people who pass by the doors here, those among whom we shop or with whom we commute? Jesus looked at the crowds around him and he had compassion on them. He saw them as being harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Is that how you see the crowd? Are you compassionate towards them? Do you see them as being lost?
Jesus is not afraid to mix his metaphors, from sheep without a shepherd to harvest fields ripe for harvest. I came across this example quoted in Private Eye the other day: “I thought we started very, very brightly but then the Achilles Heel which has bitten us in the backside all year has stood out like a sore thumb” ! So let’s get behind the metaphor to see what Jesus is talking about – people, the crowd. They are helpless, harassed, lost which renders them ready for the gospel, to be gathered in to God’s kingdom. However we might perceive the crowds around us: friendly or hostile, successful or dropouts, people-like-us or outsiders in reality all are ripe for conversion – for being brought into the kingdom. If anything the harvest is even more plentiful now – there are hugely more people on the planet and far more crowded around us and each one precious in God’s side and ready to hear and receive the gospel. What are we doing about it? How earnestly are we asking God to raise up labourers?
There is an inexorable progression in this passage. We start with Jesus going through the area teaching preaching and healing, then we have his perception of the crowd and the call to prayer, then the commissioning of the 12 to go out and preach, teach and heal. If we take seriously the call to prayer, beseeching the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers, are we prepared to be one of them? I am not suggesting that God is calling everyone to be a missionary capital “M” or minister capital “M” but we are all called to be disciples and it is these who Jesus is addressing here: v.37”Then he said to his disciples…”and 10:1 he called his 12 disciples to him”. In case you are hiding behind this being a special calling for the 12 Luke has an account of a similar episode involving 72 disciples Luke 10:1ff. This calling to pray and go is for all of us who are seeking to be disciples of Jesus.
When I was watering the garden the other day water stopped coming out of the hose. My first thought was that it had come off the tap or that someone had turned the tap off but that was not the case. So then I traced the hose to see if there was a kink or some other problem – finally tracking down a connection which had come loose. Where are we disconnected? Is it that we are failing to see the crowds through Jesus’ eyes and heart? To view them with compassion, as people who are lost? Is it that we are disconnected at the point of prayer? Are we failing to beseech God to send out workers? Perhaps the connection we are failing to make is between prayer and action. Spend a few moments quietly seeking God about this and ask Him to re-connect you