The sermon text is below the sermon video.
Click here: https://zionepiscopal.com/Sermon%20Videos/seventeenth-sunday-after-pentecost-10-2-2022.html
Sermon preached at Zion Episcopal Church; Sunday October 2nd
The Reverend Alan Neale; “Harvest Time”
Matthew 9:37-38 “Jesus said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
First, a memory and a disclaimer.
I started to attend church at the age of 12, a church planted firmly in inner London and yet, every Harvest Festival, the church was filled with the fruits of the earth. I can almost still remember the smell and the sight upon entering church on Sunday.
I am thoroughly, completely, utterly an inner city child. Born in London, in the sound of Bow Bells, I am a Cockney – born and bred. My rare experience of the earth producing fruit was to mistake weeds for flowers and offer them to my mother. I could as much describe how bread, eggs and bacon got to my table as I could walk on the moon.
But, when I started to attend church I heard references to farmers and land and vineyards and olive trees and harvest. Jesus loved to talk about the land and those who worked it… the sower and the seed, the farmer and his fields, the landowner and his storehouses of grain… and much, much more.
Jesus felt a common bond with those who worked the land; Jesus used their stories of earth to communicate his stories of heaven… their patience, their perseverance, their tenacity… all these attributes define Jesus as he looks, even today, to reap a rich harvest in our lives.
“The harvest is plentiful… the laborers are few; pray for more laborers.”
Four points about our text: possession, power, partnership and purview!
The Harvest: its possession. These past horrific days of seeing hurricanes at their worst, remind us that ultimately we are not in total control – and we rightly find that scary. We labor as best we can but we must not be deceived into believing that we are the masters/lords of our destinies. The spiritual harvest of our souls is God’s work and God’s possession. For decades now I have been wary of speaking of my church, my people – the church, the people are the Lord’s. With this in mind, we do not bear the burden of total and final responsibility. The harvest we seek of reconciliation is the Lord’s not ours; the harvest we seek of spiritual growth is the Lord’s not ours. And this should grant us an enormous sigh of relief.
Over the years, especially at wedding rehearsals, I have been told to make sure the weather is good for the wedding… my standard response is, “Sorry, I’m in sales, not management”. The Harvest is the Lord’s.
The Harvest: its power. Driving alongside fields of North Carolina cotton, corn, tobacco, soy and more… I wonder what gives farmers such tenacity and steadfastness, I am truly amazed. But Scripture tells us the power that energized, motivated, animated Jesus as he labors in his harvest… Matthew 9:36 “As he looked on, he had compassion, for they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” As Jesus looks on the harvest, as he looks on each of us, he looks with eyes that identify with our pain as well as our hopes; as Jesus looks on the harvest, he is deeply moved, the word suggests the very “seat of his affections”. This is no momentary glance; this is no transitory concern. It is the burning love for each of us that gives power to the Lord’s harvest.
The Harvest: its participants. It is truly part of the miracle of creation (on land and in the spirit) that the Lord Almighty looks for participants, He looks for us to cooperate in his great divine economy. A visitor to a churchyard commented on the grounds tidiness and beauty, “How wonderful what God does in His garden?”. “Yes,” replied the gardener, “but He didn’t do too well on his own”. (Remember Churchyard Work Day Saturday October 8th!)
The Lord is looking for us to be willing and constant volunteers, no skill needed except a readiness to work and to labor. And as He calls us to work so (Matthew 9:38) he calls us to pray, to beseech, to present our pressing needs before the Lord… pray!
And finally, The Harvest: its purview. (Forgive my addiction to alliteration.) Matthew 9:35 “The Lord went about…” – he wandered everywhere and saw no territory as foreign; in the style of royalty and aborigines… the Lord goes “walk-about”, looking to include all people in the harvest. He visits village and walled city, hamlets and towns; he teaches in synagogues to believers, and proclaims the Kingdom to all people; he touches and heals those are sick and diseased in every manner. John 3:16 reminds us that God’s harvest includes all people, “God so loved the world”. The harvest of the Lord knows no bounds, recognizes no limits – it is gloriously and wondrously inclusive of all people.
Friends, each of you, and each of the worlds you inhabit at home, at work, in city and nation – are all precious to the Lord. In you, and me, He sees a rich harvest where we may have surrendered hope; in you, and me, He sees essential participants where we may have succumbed to feelings of inadequacy, of being of little value.
Let us pray that our worship today will enable the Spirit’s fruit to be rich in our lives: a fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Matthew 9:37-38 “Jesus said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
AMEN