This Sunday was Harvest Festival at our church followed by a church lunch. I’m not sure if all churches do this but ours seems to be pudding filled. So one eats soup and a bread roll then overdoses of puddings and finishes up with a sugar headache later in the day. Or maybe that’s just me.
Anyway our vicar was talking about Harvest and its meanings and I was struck by the parts about how harvest is about bringing in mature crops, crops that were at the end of their growing seasons, and if they weren’t harvested they would go rotten in the fields. These then generate income for the farmer and nutrition/food for both the farmer and whoever they sell their produce to. Harvest is all part of our global economy. Without it we all die – literally. I think for so many of us that buy from shops and supermarkets we lose the importance of this. Even though who do have allotments or grow in their garden they still are not fully reliant on what they produce for their livelihoods or to feed themselves.
With those thoughts in mind it makes this verse seem slightly different –
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.”
Matthew 9:37-38
Now I’ve always taken this, and probably heard it preached, that this meant we were to go out and evangelise the poor lost people, put them on the right track, and teach them about Jesus. But if you think about the crops being mature, being ready, important for the economy and likely to go rotten if not harvested I think it puts a different spin on it.
I wonder if Jesus meant for us to look at people and to see that they were more than ready to be harvested. They weren’t immature people needing us to treat them like they know nothing, but were/are people who know a lot, have a lot to offer and are able to feed us who are already in the church. It is a waste to just bring it into barns and store it for some unknown future. The harvest has to be inputting into the economy immediately. In fact it is integral to the ongoing life of the community.
I wonder too if Jesus’ disciples understood something more than we do when Jesus said this. Back in Jesus time the multitudes who were following Jesus would have believed in the One God who led them out of Israel and made them a people group and would have been looking for the Promised Messiah. Really, I think, what Jesus was saying was that his disciples was that they needed to take these mature crops/people and bring them fully into His Kingdom – which is what happened at Pentecost. When “those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day” [Acts 2:41] they didn’t have to them go on Bible study courses, discipleship courses, how to be part of our church courses. No. They were accepted as mature and ready and it was left to God the Holy Spirit to train and lead them. Yes it is said they did listen to the apostles teachings [though I wonder if that was just the disciples and those who had travelled regularly with Jesus just saying what had gone on and not a sermon of what had to/had not to be done] but it did not preclude them from being part of things.
I think we need to be looking at those we know, those we come into contact with, and realise which ones are mature and ready to be harvested. Then we need be willing to let them loose into the church and trust that God will do as God knows what’s best to do.
I know one of my biggest frustrations when I first was “harvested” was being held back and told I was not “mature”. According to the description of what harvest is and the Matthew 9 verse those who are harvested are mature and ready to contribute to the life of the Kingdom. Ok they will maybe mess things up a bit, make things a bit untidy because they don’t “know the rules” [which are often manmade anyway!] but is that really such a bad thing?
Aspirational Adventures 