A Lazy Harvester

 

 

The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. (Mt. 9: 37-38)

 

The end of chapter 9 is a turning point in the book of Matthew. Up to this point Jesus is the preacher, teacher, and healer, the sole missionary if you will. In chapter 10, the disciples are summoned and sent out to preach and share the gospel. The note in my study Bible suggests that the verses are directed to the Matthean community because they are not engaged in mission or sharing the good news, and they should be. Here they receive a how-to manual.

 

Before the how-to manual we have verse 37-38 of Chapter 9. It teaches us three important things:

 

Abundance – the harvest is plentiful

How often do we go into the world with a perception that the world is out to get us? That there are scammers and thieves lying in wait? We go out suspicious of groups or those who are other? Are we not clouded in fear or anxiety, convinced the world is falling apart – with gangs, narcissism, apathy, drugs, violence?

 

For the non-farmers among us, harvest is the product of much work. Someone cleared the land, prepared the soil, planted seeds, tended the plants, weeded, picked bugs, worried that the plants would bear produce. And now after all that hard work, it is harvest time. And it was a good growing season - the right amount of sun and rain – worries can be set aside as there is an abundance of produce. Plentiful!

Before Jesus, before the disciples, before Matthew’s community the farming was done.

 

There is now a plentiful harvest. How often do we go into the world with a perception that God is already there? That there are people waiting to hear that they are loved and welcomed and belong? That someone cares? That there is freedom from bondage, redemption, and wholeness? Do we go with confidence, passion, and faith that people will gladly follow if asked, if invited, if given a ride.

Living from a perception of abundance, this passage makes me think about the harvesting of strawberries in a bumper crop year. Those are the summers where there are so many berries, you start picking a row and remain in the same row. No matter how many berries you pick, and others pick, there are berries that rot on the vine because the harvest can not be picked fast enough. This kind of harvesting is not onerous. It is a lazy person’s dream come true – sit in one spot and pick.

 

The second, important thing to note, there is an invitation to prayer.  – ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers

 

Pray.

The words of Mother Teresa sum up the reason so well. She wrote: “I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that he will guide me to do whatever I’m supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.”

We do that, we regularly ask in the ‘Prayers of the People’ for courage to serve. We pray in the communion liturgy that we may ‘give ourselves away as bread for the hungry.’  I wonder if we approach these prayers with the belief that the prayer will change us. Are we courageous enough to keep praying? And do we dare to pray for God to send labourers into the harvest – when we know that means us?

 

The third point to note is that labourers go into his harvest. – God’s harvest.

Labourers are not working for themselves, not working for their own gain or wealth, not working to fill their church. Labourers are working in God’s abundance in the currency of love, compassion, mercy, gospel-good-news. The magnitude of the work is as big as creation– God’s garden flourishes in the proclaiming of the good news of the kindom and curing every disease and every sickness, along with compassion for the harassed and helpless.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his Advent reflection, “God Is in the Manger,” wrote,

In total reality, he comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes, asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbour, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you.

God, in Christ, is already in the abundance of the harvest. The Matthean community – we- are being invited into that harvest.

 

And get this, the harvest is so abundant, labourers are so needed –

You can sign up as a lazy picker and still cause change in your part of the berry patch.

You can pick one spot. You can sit on your butt. And you can participate in the harvest.

 

I don’t know about you, but I really do not like to see fruits or vegetables of any kind go to waste.  I am saddened when berries rot in the field. This passage is talking about God’s harvest. I don’t want to see people rot in the field, - succumbing to hopelessness, loneliness, worry, anger, marginalization, guilt - because I am walking in the world thinking it is out to get me, rather than living by grace through faith and sharing good news.

 

So here is a challenge for this faith community – if we each were ‘lazy pickers,’ this part of God’s harvest would get underway:

So here it is -

Choose a few hours each week – or a day or two- through the summer to be at the church. Open the doors so people can peek in or perhaps stop and pray for a moment or two. Talk with those who come in and welcome them. As they leave share a “Peace be with you.”

Sit on the church steps or at the picnic table - say ‘hello’ to the passersby. Welcome and be open to conversation.  

Have some sidewalk chalk and colour the street with words and pictures of welcome and wholeness. Blow bubbles with those interested. Bring cookies and share.

Whatever you do be present in the harvest.

 

And in this harvest you and the neighbourhood will be abundantly blessed.

 

The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.