Harvest Time

Last week we began a journey.  The lectionary readings, which are the schedule of our scriptures for this season, follow the gospel of Luke.  Last week’s text from Luke chapter 9 was the beginning of the Lukan travel narrative, Jesus’ winding, wandering journey from Galilee to Jerusalem.  Last week we saw how resolute, how determined Jesus was when he set his face to go up to Jerusalem, and we saw how we, like Jesus, are called to have extravagant hope in the kingdom of God. 

Today we continue the journey in Luke chapter 10.  As Mary read this morning, Jesus has appointed seventy people to go ahead of him in pairs to all the towns that he will travel to in the coming weeks and months.  His commission is simple: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”  The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.

My dad is a farmer in south central Kansas.  Every year he plants about 700 acres of wheat, which is a beautiful grain that looks like lush green grass in the early spring and then develops heads full of small kernels as it turns to greenish gold.  By harvest time, which is in mid-June in Kansas and a bit later out here in eastern Washington, wheat is pure golden and rustles as the wind blows through.  Now it’s been several years since I’ve been home during wheat harvest, but I do remember at least one thing.  When you live on a farm and the crop gets ripe, all attention turns toward the fields.  My dad gets up early in the morning to make sure the combine and grain truck are running properly.  Then as soon as the dew has burned off the golden fields, he goes out in his John Deere combine and begins to cut.  He takes a lunch so that he can work right through noon time and he doesn’t stop until well after dark.  These are long, long days, but the harvest is urgent; it doesn’t wait.  A ripe crop doesn’t have long before it spoils.

Jesus and those who followed him would have understood this metaphor.  The image is infused with urgency.  Imagine what it would be like to have fields full of grain but not enough people to harvest.  Think what a waste it would be to watch the crop rot in the field and how many people might go hungry that winter because there weren’t enough people to work the land.  “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.”  The balance is off, and this is where we begin today.

Now imagine you are one of the seventy.  Close your eyes if you want to.  Instead of sitting in a padded pew in Richmond Beach you are sitting on the side of a dusty road with your new companions, some of whom you have never even seen before.  Between you, you pass around several loaves of bread and fish for nourishment.  You are one of the few people who have chosen to journey with Jesus, knowing that the journey will not be easy and knowing that it will include suffering even as you proclaim the kingdom of God.  You have been waiting for this your whole life; you have been waiting to find the labor that brings music to your soul, that sees into the heart of life and touches hearts along the way, and Jesus says, back to verse 2, “Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the Lord’s harvest.”  You sit by Jesus and on the inside you are saying, “Pick me; pick me.”  I want to labor for the Lord.  But then Jesus opens his mouth again: verse 3 “I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.”  Your enthusiasm begins to dwindle.  He goes on saying, “And here are your instructions: ‘Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.’”  Your level of commitment plunges.  You knew it would include suffering, but not this much.  You knew it would be hard, but not this hard. 

Your thoughts turn back to your old home and the old, comfortable way of life.  Not only did you carry a purse but your purse was full of money, and one of those new iphones to boot, before you gave it away to follow Jesus.  Not only did you have sandals but they were the most expensive kind, and you had a pair of the latest hiking boots, and they were waterproof.  Do you know how hard it is to find good waterproof hiking boots?  What am I doing here again? you ask yourself.

Now as you understand the text today, don’t start with purses, bags, and sandals.  If you really want to understand what Jesus is talking about, you don’t think about dusty satchels and calloused feet.  In our context today, replace the word “purse” with “savings,” “bags” with “power” and “sandals” with “security.”  Take with you no savings, no power, and no security.  Hmm…  Or another way to understand our provisions for the journey is to hear Jesus saying, “Live simply, be vulnerable, depend on relationships with others.”  Live simply.  Be vulnerable.  Depend on relationships with others.  In our wealth chasing culture of competition and individualism, these instructions are every bit as challenging as Jesus’ ancient words. 

But there’s freedom here.  These words are every bit as liberating too, for this is the work of bringing peace.  Verse 5: “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’” Verse 6: “And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person.”  When you come to a town, say, “The Kingdom of God has come near.” 

This is what we bring as laborers in the harvest.  We are not laboring to get people to think like us or believe like us.  We are not laboring so that we will gain power and control.  When we live simply, we do less harm to one another and to the environment around us.  When we open ourselves to vulnerability, our compassion for the poor and vulnerable increases.  When we depend on others, we see that we need each other and we belong to each other, all genders, sexualities, races, ethnicities, and nations.  This is the work of peace.  We are laboring with Jesus to share the Good News of God’s peace, come into the world to free the captives and bring healing to the nations. 

My dad finished cutting his wheat about a week and a half ago back in Kansas.  He’s a hard-working farmer and often a man of few words, so when I asked him how harvest was this year, he said, “Oh, it was fair.”  That was about it.  “Oh, it was fair.”  The real details are that the yield was down from last year, meaning there were fewer bushels of wheat per acre than last year and that he made less money on the crop, if he made much money at all.  Some years are like that.  Farmers are at the mercy of the weather, the variety of seed they buy, and other factors that have nothing to do with the amount or quality of work that they put in. 

So it is when we labor.  Verse 10 tells us that sometimes when we come to a new town, when we proclaim peace to the world, we will be rejected.  This has nothing to do with how hard we work or how faithful we are to our calling to follow Jesus.  Our success doesn’t always mean we get the results we hope for.  In fact, sometimes we are rejected. 

Sometimes people don’t realize the truth of our message of peace because it doesn’t make sense in a world that honors violence in everything from video games to international relations.  Sometimes the yield isn’t very good on the harvest, but take courage, because the harvest is plentiful, and there is still work to do. 

The harvest is plentiful today.  Today the harvest is plentiful.  The harvest is urgent; it will not wait for us to get ready.  The world calls to us now, cries out in need of healing and hope; look around you and see how many people need peace spoken into their lives, into families that are dealing with abuse and loss; into work environments full of backstabbing and power struggles; into social circles where people compete to be better than one another; and into nations at war; the world cries to us for peace.  The need is urgent. 

So what will we do?  How will we live Jesus’ call to Peace in action?  How will we follow the call to labor and to bring peace to these houses? 

We already bring peace in some ways.  We are open and affirming. We bring food to families who are grieving.  We give money and time to organizations working for justice.  We support youth whose mission experience will bring peace to the world perhaps this summer but surely in the way their trip will impact how they live their lives into the future.  Don’t underestimate the importance of your prayers and your giving. 

But there’s more to do.  There’s more money and time that can be given to this church and to these youth.  There are places where you can share your faith and in doing so bring hope to those around you.  There are times when you need to do more to challenge the violence of white privilege or the oppression of heterosexism.  Pay attention and you’ll notice other places where the peace of God’s kingdom needs to be proclaimed in your world.  Start looking with the eyes of a laborer, and you’ll find people who need your attention and your love.  But more than anything you can give them, they need you to proclaim the peace of the kingdom of God.   

I told you at the beginning of this message that my dad would work long, long hours during harvest time.  The work was hard and required commitment.  But the other part, the part that I haven’t shared yet, is the sheer joy of harvest time.  There’s a sense of accomplishment to see the wheat trucks role into the grain elevator to dump their wheat to be taken to the mill to be ground into flour to feed the world.  The harvest is a time of joy. 

Dad would take his lunch out to the field to work through the noon hour, but for supper, he’d stop.  Every evening we would bring a picnic – barbeque beef sandwiches and watermelon or fried chicken and potato salad.  Dad would hop out of the combine and sit with us for just a bit before going back to work.  We’d spit watermelon seeds into the field and climb up into the grain truck to swim in the millions of wheat kernels.  Our cousins from town would come out to experience the farm life, and we’d take turns riding in the combine.  My mom even wrote a little song about it: “Harvest time, harvest time, it’s my favorite time of year.  Harvest time, harvest time, makes me want to laugh and cheer.” 

The end of our scripture reading for this morning gives the account of the return of the seventy laborers.  Verse 17 says that they returned with joy.  They come back from their labor energized and ecstatic.  They didn’t even miss their purse or sandals.  The work was enough.  It is enough to live simply, be vulnerable, and depend on relationships with others.  May it be so for all of us, as the harvest is plentiful and in need of laborers.  Go labor to bring God’s peace to the world.  Amen.

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