The Lord of the Harvest—Matthew 9:35-10:15

In this passage, Jesus sends his disciples on a mission. Christians, we are also on a mission. It isn't exactly the same as the mission of the twelve disciples in this passage, but we can learn a lot from studying their mission. If you were an officer in the army, you would want to learn from the battles fought before you. For instance, Americans who fought in North Africa in World War II learned that with more advanced weapons, soldiers in WWII were firing far more rounds per day than soldiers in World War I. This meant that in later campaigns in Italy and in Western Europe, they would stockpile more ammunition. An officer at D-Day would be foolish to ignore lessons learned in Tunisia, and we Christians today would be foolish to ignore what we can learn from this mission of the twelve disciples.

But as much as we want to learn from the mission of the twelve, we can learn even more from the mission of their master. So the main point I want to make is a point about Jesus, and here it is: The Lord of the harvest gave his life to gather harassed and helpless people to himself.

Let's think about the harvest, the workers, the work, and the Lord of the harvest.

The Harvest

The remarkable thing about the harvest in this passage is that at first glance it does not look like a harvest at all. What Jesus calls the harvest is the crowds around him, many of whom have diseases and other afflictions like those we have heard about in earlier passages: blindness, deafness, demon possession. They are "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." Many of us, confronted a large group of harassed and helpless people, would want to run away and avoid the problem. Some of us might stay and help, but would still view the situation as a disaster. But Jesus looks at these people like a farmer looks at a ripe field. He looks at them, yes, with compassion, but at the same time he looks at them with a kind of satisfaction: "The harvest is plentiful! All I need is some workers to go out and reap it." The problem, in Jesus eyes, is not with the crowds: it is with the lack of missionaries. Don't misunderstand: the crowds themselves do have all sorts of problems, including the deepest problem of sin. But this is exactly what Jesus came for. Sinners were not an obstacle to Jesus' mission: they were his mission. So the solution lies not in getting rid of the crowds, but in finding laborers to go out among them.

And the same is true today. Jesus has many more than twelve harvesters at work today, but the task he has set before us is also much bigger. Jesus told the twelve to go only to Israel, but he has told his church today to go to the ends of the earth. And this earth is home to many more people now than it was in Jesus' day.

So when you look around at the big cities, at a million and half people in Philadelphia, or even at some 60,000 people in the Norristown area, what do you see? Do you see a problem you wish would go away? Do you see a threat that needs to be stopped? Do you see something irrelevant: people that have nothing to do with you or your Christian life? Or do you see a harvest, that just needs workers to go in and reap?

Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Pray for me and the elders of Good News, that we may labor well. Pray for our church, that we may each do our part together. And believe that Jesus make a beautiful harvest of harassed and helpless people. After all, we were harassed and helpless too, before he gathered us.

The Workers

So let's talk about the workers he sends. The first thing to note is that these workers are sheep who need a shepherd too. We'll learn more about Peter, who so often said exactly the wrong thing. James and John could be merciless despite the mercy Jesus showed them. Thomas got himself the nickname "doubting Thomas." Matthew, we know already, worked a scandalous profession, collecting taxes for the Romans. Simon the Zealot was some kind of insurrectionist. And Judas, despite his role in reaping the harvest, was no true part of that harvest himself, but a traitor to the Lord.

That ought to teach us, if anything can, that we ourselves don't have to be perfect to be useful to Jesus in his harvest. The real power and authority come from him. We see that in 10:1, where Jesus gives the twelve "authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction."

Now, Jesus hasn't given that authority to me. The twelve disciples, also called apostles here, had a special role. Jesus chose twelve of them because there were twelve tribes of Israel: they became the founding members of a new Israel. Later, Jesus would tell them, "Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." So these twelve disciples were special, and Jesus gave them special authority.

But you know, Jesus has reaped much more of his harvest through those who came after the twelve, and lacked their unique authority, than he did through the twelve and their miracles. Many more souls are being saved today than in the first century. And although you and I are not apostles, we offer our prayers directly to the one who gave authority to the apostles. He still heals diseases drives away the powers of darkness, and he still gathers the wandering sheep.

The Work

So what exactly were these apostles to do, besides heal the sick? Let's talk about the work of harvesting.

First, Jesus tells the twelve not to go to the Gentiles, but only "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." This stands in sharp contrast to the mission he gives at the end of this Gospel, when he tells them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." Something about Jesus' death and resurrection opens the door to a new mission to the whole earth, which is still our mission. This first mission was limited to Israel, as was Jesus' own mission at first.

They are to go with a message: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." This was Jesus own message as well. And they are to confirm this message with the signs of the power of the kingdom of heaven: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons." It is interesting that after Jesus resurrection, when he sends them on a new mission, he tells them instead, "Make disciples." I'm not sure why this is, unless it is that in the first mission, they were going to Jews, many of whom already new the true God, far as they may have strayed from him. But in the new mission, our mission, some of the people we go to have heard little or nothing about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They have a lot to learn, and so we have a lot to teach them, and our job is not simply to announce that the kingdom is hear, but to teach them from the ground up.

Then Jesus instructs them in how to provide for themselves. They are not to charge money for their preaching. They are also not to take much money or supplies with them. They are to be dependant on the free gifts of "worthy" people whom they will find. The assumption is that they will find some worthy Jews who will quickly recognize them as true messengers of the Lord.

This is somewhat different from Paul's practice in his missions to Gentiles. Paul did not charge for his services either, but he could not always depend on the free gifts of the people he preached to, either. Sometimes he would provide for himself or accept gifts from churches he has served before, like the church in Philippi. And this fits with the requirements of a mission to people who have no knowledge of the true God: it may take a long time before they will be ready -- spiritually ready -- to provide for those who bring them God's word. And so the church today is called to provide for the missionaries we send.

Even at the time of that first mission, however, not everyone would receive the arrival of the kingdom gladly. Some would not listen to the twelve or receive their words. Jesus has hard words for those who reject his messengers: "Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town." His apostles are like the angels who visited Sodom and Gomorrah. When they left, fire rained from heaven and destroyed those towns.

The Lord of the Harvest

So much for the mission of the twelve. But the Lord of the harvest had his own mission, one that he could not delegate, that he alone could carry out. To transform harassed and helpless people like us into a beautiful harvest, it was not enough to announce that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, important as that was. It was not enough to heal their diseases, merciful and wonderful as that was. No, they needed their deepest need met, their spiritual illness treated. They needed someone to save them from their sins.

And so Jesus, the Lord of the harvest, came at last to Jerusalem, where he should have been welcomed as king. And when instead he was rejected and put on trial, he submitted to the injustice and cruelty of his crucifixion, so that he, the shepherd, might lay down his life in the place of the sheep. He gave his life for us, because when he saw us, sinful and weak though we were, he was determined to make us what God would have us be.

God, his Father, rewarded him by making him the first fruits of the very harvest he came to gather: the firstfruits from the dead. And he rose with new authority for a new mission: not to the ends of Israel, but to the ends of the earth.

You and I and all God's church are on that mission. Again, the details of our mission are different from the details of this first mission of the twelve that we've been reading about. But the goal is the same: Know that God has ordained to bring a beautiful harvest out of sinful and needy people. Go to them, and tell them the good news. Rely not on your own power, but on the authority of God.

And the Lord of the harvest is the same Lord. But the message we bring from his has new power -- because, while the twelve, on that first mission, could say that the kingdom of heaven had come, because God's Son had come to earth to be king, we can add that God's Son has given his life for sinners, and he is risen from the dead.

Pastor Nate Jeffries