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August 15, 2004
The Plentiful Harvest
The Plentiful Harvest
Exodus 18: 13-23 / Luke 10: 1-12
August 15th, 2004
This morning once again we have invited someone to speak to us about a ministry beyond Faith Church that we are glad to support. Today we will learn a bit more about Habitat for Humanity.
Again I want to address the question of why we are involved in “costly” ministries beyond our own church? Why give money that we don’t see immediate benefit to ourselves? An answer comes in looking at how Jesus started this whole thing we call the “Christian faith.” Jesus came saying, “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” and enlisted others to help Him get the word out. It seems clear from Scripture that getting the word out will continue to be important until “the time is fulfilled,” until Jesus returns to wrap up God’s project of reconciling the world to Himself. This communication had two parts: Doing Kingdom things, and speaking Kingdom words.
Jesus first chose twelve men to be His special disciples. We call these the twelve Apostles. The number twelve which is the same number as the twelve tribes of Israel makes us think Jesus was starting to unfold a new Israel. The twelve would go into all the world with the Gospel, developing the People of God far beyond the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.
But Jesus chose more than just twelve people for this task. Today we read of Jesus appointing seventy other men, or perhaps seventy-two men. I asked Fran to read about Moses choosing many wise men to help him govern Israel. Later in Exodus we learn there were seventy elders Moses chose. There seems some parallel to Jesus choosing not only twelve men, but seventy men to help in the great work He began.
Earlier in Luke we read that Jesus had more than twelve disciples, but chose from these many only twelve to be apostles. We take the word “apostle” as a technical term for the original circle of people with which Jesus started to reach out to the world. But we wonder what happened to the other followers Jesus did not call apostles.
Luke lets us know that Jesus appointed seventy of these to go speak for Him. Jesus made clear their importance when he said, “Whenever you enter a town and they receive you . . . say, “The kingdom of God has come near you.”
This meant that they were Jesus’ ambassadors. When America sends ambassadors to other countries, they speak for America. The American embassy in India or China or anywhere is seen as American soil.
Jesus told these seventy disciples their mission would not be easy. They were not to go with lots of equipment—no purse, no suitcase, no sandals—go barefoot. They were not to get involved in conversations along the way. He warned them that they would be like sheep going into the midst of wolves. They could expect hostility. We all hope for better than that in our careers.
We wonder how it went for them. We don’t read about them returning to Jesus for Him to de-brief them. We don’t know how long their missions were. We wonder what became of them when their mission was done. Perhaps they returned home to normal lives after their short-term mission was over, becoming farmers, fishermen, carpenters, etc.
But there is one thing we know about the reason Jesus enlisted these seventy people. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” Seventy is a few more than twelve, we might say. And he told them, “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” That is, more than seventy are needed.
The world is like a large farmer’s field. Jesus taught elsewhere that weeds as well as good seed got planted in this field. At the harvest the weeds will be gathered and burned. The grain will be gathered into the barn.
In the same section of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus told about how the good seed gets planted on different kinds of ground. Only seed planted on good earth grows and bears fruit. And not all the fruitfulness is the same. Some seeds produce one-hundred fold, some sixty-fold, and some thirty-fold.
We read these parables about harvesting and think about what Jesus said to these seventy men he sent out in pairs to work in the field—that is, the world. Work is needed to cultivate the good seed to get it into good soil, and encourage its success.
When Jesus used illustrations from the farm we naturally think about what we understand about farm work. We see farmers doing everything by machinery, from preparing the soil to harvesting the crop. But Jesus taught in days when everything was done by hand.
Living in Indiana we see vast stretches of land now filled with tall-standing corn, or soybeans. Farmers work these huge farms with only a few people driving tractors that till and plant many rows at once, and in the fall, driving combines that gobble up many rows of corn or beans at a time. Fewer and fewer Americans are farmers because a few can do what once needed many farmers.
Imagine if there were no tractors or combines to harvest these crops. It would require many hands. Farm families used to be large because every new child was a laborer come harvest time. Farm mothers and dads not only labored in the field but asked God to multiply the little ones around the breakfast table so there would be many hands to do the work.
I don’t know how Jesus would have taught us the same lesson today. Maybe He’d tell us about tractors and combines now. We see mass evangelism using vast stadiums and TV as the modern machinery for harvesting in the Kingdom of God. Perhaps Jesus would tell His chosen disciples today to rent the largest arenas you can find and buy up all the air time you can to plant and harvest the crops in the Kingdom of God.
But I am not sure Jesus would change how He taught if he were teaching us today. I wonder if He might say, “Remember when there were no such arenas and no TV? There are some big differences between the human heart and a cornfield.” Maybe you have watched a TV preacher and felt he was talking right to your heart. Maybe you went to the RCA Dome and were stirred with thousands of other men who were part of “Promise Keepers.” If this has happened for you, I am glad.
But not everyone watches TV or goes to these arenas to hear the Gospel. Jesus still depends on people to get into the many places, to reach out to the many people who will never turn on such a TV program or go to Yankee Stadium to hear Billy Graham.
So it is as true today as it was when Jesus walked this earth, workers are needed, needed badly in the great harvest field of the world. God needs you and me in the sector of life where we work and live.
God might have touched this world with the message of His love by zapping everyone with the information. But God has chosen a more personal way. Jesus was God coming personally to us. Jesus chose twelve people, then seventy people to continue the personal spread of the information. Why? Because it is more than information that needs to be spread. Living examples of Kingdom of God kind of living make the message of the Kingdom of God easier to understand. Living examples don’t get provided by hour-long TV shows or in mass meetings. Jesus intended His disciples to demonstrate the ways of the Kingdom of God as well as to tell about it.
If we wanted to think in terms of strategy and timing, we might see that the proportion of twelve to seventy might have kept on multiplying so that by the year 2004, so many people were enlisted in this personal embassy that all the planet would be saturated with the Good News of God’s love in Jesus Christ—and with examples of what Kingdom of God kind of living looks like.
As we know, the faith of Jesus Christ has not embraced the fascination of the whole world yet. Far from it. I wonder if Jesus would stand before us today and plead with us more than he did with those seventy people he sent out two by two on their mission. We are still to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers to do the work.
I still puzzle at this request of our Lord. Why does God need us to pray when He knows quite well what’s going on? Perhaps it all has to do with God’s desire that our response to Him be a willing response. He wants to love Him with all we are, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Love is not coerced. We offer real love freely or not at all. That’s why we pray.
If you and I are praying to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers, do you think we might find ourselves saying, “Lord, I’m available as a laborer?” We are suspicious about the sincerity of someone who will pray that others will do what he is not willing to do. Maybe Jesus wants us to pray because then willingness will develop in our own hearts.
There are not only many people need for this work, but many ways to get it done. In our fellowship are people with a variety of abilities and careers. We have teachers, government workers, doctors, people who work with their hands, people who work in factories, stores, and in the home. God has put you where you are not just to earn a living, but as an ambassador who says, upon showing up for work, “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” Jesus says to you and me, “Act like it and then speak of it.” I reminded you a few weeks ago of St. Francis of Assissi’s advice to his followers. They were to take the Gospel to the poor and if necessary, even speaking it.
There are two parts to working in God’s great harvest field: demonstrating Kingdom of God kind of living, and speaking about the Kingdom of God. Both are important not just because there is some benefit to religion in society, to soften its rough edges. But because Jesus clearly taught that a harvest day is coming when God will separate the grain from the weeds. When that time comes we might have a different view of these things we read way back when in the Gospels. How wise it is to live so that we don’t have to say at some later point in time, “If only I had!”
There are many forms the work in God’s great field takes. This morning we have someone from Habitat for Humanity to remind us of one important way the message of the Kingdom of God gets spread. As Jesus fed bread and fish to hungry people so we have followers of Jesus who help homeless people have homes. To those with no roof over their heads comes the message “God cares and so do we.” Somehow, it is easier for the Gospel of the Kingdom to register when you have a place to call home.
I am glad that we have helped the ministry of Habitat for Humanity. The undergraduate college from which I received my bachelor’s degree, Sterling College in Kansas, one of our Presbyterian colleges, has developed a partnership with Habitat to help cultivate this wonderful ministry by training Kingdom of God entrepreneurs to help demonstrate God’s care while speaking of the Kingdom of God. I am glad that today we can learn something more of this one means God is using to extend the message of the Kingdom of God in a winsome and believable way.
Let us pray: O Lord, we are grateful that we have learned of your love for the world, of your Kingdom whose embrace is wide. We pray that you will send laborers into your harvest field. We also ask, O Lord, that you may find us useful as laborers in this harvest. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at August 15, 2004 09:30 AM