AP

Matthew 9:37-38  Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”  

The context of these words of Jesus makes them even more amazing than they might at first seem.  At the beginning of the chapter, having forgiven the sins of a paralytic and authenticated his right to do so by healing him, Jesus was faced with resolute opposition from the Jewish religious leaders – the very people he had come to save!

He then befriended and recruited a ‘sinner’, a turncoat tax-collector, which made him even more unpopular with the ‘establishment’, the people who were much too ‘righteous’ to need a saviour!  Next, he likened his mission among the Jews to ‘fresh new wine’ that would be totally inappropriate in ‘old wineskins’.  After a few more healings among the outcasts and strangers he alienated himself even further.

In short, he came to be a saviour, and his healing ministry showed him to be a true saviour, but the most influential people among whom he had come didn’t think they needed a saviour!  In marketing terms it would have appeared that he hadn’t done his research very well – yet he told his disciples to strive for and plan for prolific growth because ‘the harvest is plentiful’!

Yes, only when sinners need a Saviour will they receive the Gospel message, and our society has already removed the whole concept of sin from its vocabulary and it is therefore easy for us to become discouraged and think we only have rock-hard, infertile soil in which to plant the seed of God’s truth.  The people among whom we live don’t even think they are sinful – so why would they need a Saviour?  How can Jesus think the ‘harvest is plentiful’?

In today’s verses, Jesus reminds us that he is ‘Lord of the harvest’; the whole operation belongs to him – seed, soil, plough, fertiliser, harvest – he is in charge of it all.  For what he has planned he needs as many workers as possible.  Psalm 126:5-6 foreshadows the very point he is making here: “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.  He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.” 

Jesus was not discouraged in this seemingly hopeless situation.  Are we faithful and persistent in “ask[ing] the Lord of the harvest … to send out workers into his harvest field”?  I like the account of one of Spurgeon’s students bemoaning that no-one was being converted under his preaching.  Pretending to comfort him, the master preacher said, “You don’t expect someone to be converted every time you preach, do you?”, at which the heartened student said, “No, I suppose not.”  The ‘trap’ was sprung and Spurgeon said, “Well, that’s what your problem is!”

– Bruce Christian