Who’s harvest?

Matthew 9:35–38 ESV

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

When we were in West Texas we lived in the middle of a peanut patch, in fact, I can still smell the mixture of dirt and peanuts in my nose. Its where I learned a lot about agriculture, planting, and harvest. I was thinking about that as I read this passage. It seemed like planting season came and went without much fanfare, but at harvest time it was all hands on deck, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a solid month. I thought about this and why it seemed so much more chaotic and busy at the harvest than it did in the planting time, but first let’s talk about planting.

Who plants?

Matthew 9:35 ESV

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.

Jesus plants in this passage. It says that he is going in and out of all these towns doing amazing things, but you can imagine that the disciples are going with him, and if we were going to continue on into Ch. 10 you would see that Jesus sends them out. So it is not just Jesus. It is not just an act of God that plants, it can be but it doesn’t have to be. We as disciples. We as followers of Christ need to plant.

What are we planting?

Matthew 9:35–36 ESV

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

The Gospel, the Good News. Hope in Jesus Christ. Forgiveness from sin. Death that turns to life. Helping people. Having compassion on people. That is what we are planting.

I know I may have made it seem like the planting was easy and it was the harvest that was hard when I talked about my time in the West Texas cotton and peanut fields but planting season is time consuming as well.

The ground has to be prepared. In modern farming soil samples are taken and specific nutrients are added to the ground to make it the best base for growing that it can be before a single seed every gets sown. The machines are prepared. The hands are hired and then the planting begins. It is specific. It isn’t by chance that seed is scatered here of there. There is intentionality in how every seed is planted.

When we are planting Gospel seeds it can sometimes seem like we have no plan. We just go about life sometimes hoping not to have to have those awkward conversations about God, and taking our moments to spread the Gospel only when they are right in our face and unavoidable. I’m in a class on Evangelism, it is required not for my degree but for ordination in the Methodist Church. We have only been in class for 2 weeks but the thing that has already stuck out to me is we have to be intentional with our interactions with others. One of our assignments last week was to meet 3 new people. To have a short conversation with them. Get their first and last name, a couple of identifying or interesting details about them, and to pray for them that night and the next morning. It may be the line of work I’m in but I didn’t read the assignment until Wednesday night and I had already met 4 new people, by Friday I had met 7. Strangley enough for me it wasn’t the meeting people I had a problem with. It was the 2nd part, remembering to pray for them. This is what it takes to get to the harvest.

Matthew 9:37–38 ESV

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

When planting season is over with it isn’t time to kick up your feet and relax. The crops need to monitored, watered and fertilized, protected from bugs, protected from animals. That’s a lot like these relationships that we start through planting seeds. We can’t just let people go on their own way, they won’t last in this world. We have to intentionally take time to check on the seeds we have planted. This means prayer as well, and maybe just maybe when the time is right there will be a harvest.

What does the harvest look like?

There isn’t one way to harvest everything. You don’t harvest peanuts the way you harvest cotton. I can’t treat every person that has the seeds of the Gospel in their heart and is ready to take the next step in the same way.

When you harvest cotton it is picked and bailed all at the same time. This doesn’t take long. Its a short simple process.

When you harvest peanuts it takes a little longer. Its a 2 stage process. There is a machine that cuts and flips the peanut plant and then there is a machine that comes after it to pick the peanuts up.

Then there was a third harvest we had in West Texas the pepper harvest. This was the longest of them all and the most difficult. The peppers had to be harvested by hand. This took time, care, and lots of hard work.

I said the harvest was a chaotic time. It was because it didn’t stop there. From the fields, the cotton, peanuts, and peppers went to be processed, packed and shipped. See the harvest doesn’t stop when you get it out of the ground or off the stalk. It keeps going until its final destination.

We often fall short in our harvest because we forget this.

We also forget that we aren’t in this by ourselves.

Whether it is plants or people God is the God of the harvest, not us. We can’t make plants grow any more than we can make people see their need for God and the love God has for them. God does the heavy lifting along the way we just need to be available to help where we can.

Its also important to note that its not always the same person that prepares, plants, cultivates, harvests, or processes. It can be the same person but it doesn’t have to be.

Not everyone in every village that Jesus visited received the Gospel that day. For some, it may have been years later after Jesus has ascended back into heaven. In Ch. 10 Jesus sends out the disciples to villages to plant seeds and make harvests but they didn’t get 100% either and Jesus prepared them for that.

Don’t get discouraged if the seeds you are planting aren’t ready for harvest.

Friends in the 2 years we have been together we have seen many seeds planted.