Laborers for the Harvest: A Meditation on Matthew 9 for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages,

teaching in their synagogues,

and preaching the gospel of the kingdom,

and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

 But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them,

because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

Then saith he unto his disciples,

The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;

Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,

that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.

 

The Gospel reading for this week begins at the end of Matthew’s 9^th chapter where Jesus shared with His disciples the urgent need of laborers in the Lord’s harvest of souls.  The power and challenge He would give them directly in chapter 10 are in some ways particular to their Apostolic ministry, and in other ways typical of those sent out in ministry after them, though no messenger to succeed the Apostles is their equal.  But the observation of Jesus when He looked upon the world and saw people straying like sheep without a shepherd, and too few of His servants out there working to help guide them to salvation, remains with us in every generation.  There are always so many more souls to care for than there are faithful servants of the Eternal Word, that we can always pray to God that He would send more.  It is, of course, in God’s wisdom and providence that He sends whom He sends in the times appointed for them, but knowing the urgency of the mission and motivated by the love God pours out upon us through His Son, the Church never stops petitioning God for more servants of the Divine Word.  We know that sheep without shepherds are in mortal danger every moment of their lives, and love seeks their salvation in Jesus Christ alone.

 

The compassion which Jesus had upon the people was neither feigned nor exaggerated, nor the imagery inappropriate.  Two metaphors are used:  people as sheep needing shepherds, and a harvest that needs laborers.  What is common to them both is the condition and danger of the people, and the preservation of them through those sent to them by God.  A sheep is a defenseless creature in the wild, and many are the predators who seek to consume them.  A sheep without a shepherd is a meal waiting for suppertime, whose fate is to be torn apart by wolves and lions on a day that the sheep is oblivious to until it happens.  For wheat in a field, if it is ripe and ready for harvest, it will be lost if it is not gathered in.  Just as wheat is incapable of reaping itself and sheep incapable of saving themselves, someone must come to do the saving for them.  Since Jesus is the Good Shepherd who has laid His life down for the sheep, and the One by whom all the wheat shall be gathered, the only hope of salvation in the world is through Him.  No other shepherd is going to lead people to salvation in any other Name, and no laborer is going to rescue the wheat from the decay of time apart from Jesus.  Thus the people the Lord of the Harvest sends into the fields of His world, are sent by the Word of God to bear witness to Christ alone, and in Christ alone do they offer the salvation which He has secured for the world through His Cross.

 

The laborers are always fewer than they seem to be.  In our time there are plenty of people wearing the titles and vestments of pastors, just as there were in 1^st century Judea.  There are plenty of people who want the prestige of being called teachers and scholars, or to wear marks of a divine office as if divinity bows to them.  Many are those who would speak for God, substituting their own opinions, observations, research, or ambitions for what God has actually said.  Some of these people think they are rescuing God from His Word spoken in other times which might offend hearers in our time, adding to it or subtracting from it until it is a watered down reflection of the contemporary world.  Some of these people are pompous, bloviating bags of wind that presume their word is greater than the Eternal Word, or that their experience and education make them greater lights to follow than the Light of the World.  In every generation it is often a minority of those who appear to be shepherds and laborers, that are in fact servants of the Word of God, submitting their own opinions and will to the Spirit of the Living God.  Just as in Jesus’ day the people had plenty of Pharisees and Sadducees who would lead them into perdition, so too does the Church today have plenty of “reverends” who will do the same.

 

Yet the Lord of the Harvest is always aware, always at work, and always raising up for His service those who will bear faithful witness to His Word.  The Church prays for what the Lord has willingly promised to provide, and receives from Him those emissaries who would bring them the light and life of His Law and Gospel.  Certainly there are those congregations and even whole church bodies which prefer the preening self-righteousness of false shepherds and corrupt laborers, but they, too get what they ask for.  It is His Church which Christ established to raise up new under-shepherds and laborers for the Lord’s work of tending to souls by His Word, and His Church to whom the Lord sends His servants in His Name.  This Church, founded upon Him and His Word, has always existed from the beginning of time to this day, and shall continue every day throughout eternity, regardless of the false churches and false servants that pepper the world’s landscape.  And it is this true Church, founded upon Christ alone, baptized in the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, abiding in His Word and Spirit, that is sent into the world to bear witness to where eternal life and salvation may always be found.  The Lord knows the needs of the people, and He has provided everything for their salvation through His Son.  The Word of the Lord endures forever, and it is forever the life and salvation of lost sheep and helpless wheat.

 

Lift up your eyes to see the great work which lays ahead of us, and the souls who so desperately need Jesus.  Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you, raising you up to labor in His fields and to tend to the souls given to your care by the duties of your various vocations.  Trust the Lord of the Harvest to raise up servants of His Word whom He will send into the harvest of the world, working in His power and might by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  Pray to the Lord for what He has promised to provide, and rejoice that His Word will always bring light and life to all who will receive it.  Rise up, O Church of the Living God, to be the servants of the Word He has called you to be.  Soli Deo Gloria—amen.