Pastoral Prayer:

We stand amazed, Lord Jesus, that you have called people like us to do work like yours.  We think that we know our limits!  We know the limits of your work!  And yet, if your work is to be done in this world, it’s up to us to step up to your call.  We need to affirm with confidence that we are your servants, guided by your Spirit.  One thing we pray: give us what we need to do the work that you call us to do. Amen.

Sermon:

Consider the nature of the harvest for God’s Realm.  While one laborer is harvesting, the other is planting.  There is always a harvest yet to come.  Jesus taught and ministered in Jewish Synagogues, but there were also gentiles in the region, yet to be gathered in for the harvest.  In God’s Realm there are multiple cycles of plantings and harvesting… a multiplicity of crops at any given time…  Harvesting and sowing are constant labors.

I grew up in a region of the Pacific Northwest where there are wheat fields where you can stand in the midst of the wheat – and all you can see, for as far as your eye can see, are acres and acres of rolling wheat fields.  In my summers during High School and the first year of college, I worked for three farms that worked together to harvest their wheat.  The cousins had their wheat farms to harvest, but first they would come together to help harvest the wheat of their Grandmother.  And they would harvest her wheat with as much commitment as they would harvest their own wheat.  In her 90’s, she was still in charge of the family farm.  We would start harvesting Grandmother Harvey’s wheat first, and then, later in the summer, we would break off and harvest wheat at her grandchildren’s farms.  By the third week of wheat harvest, it wasn’t beyond our imaginations that there might be such a thing as an endless harvest.  Three weeks of harvest seemed like an eternity, especially at 17 years old.  I discovered that the more combines we had working in the field, the faster the harvest would go.  And soon, there would be stubble for as far as the eye could see.

Luke tells the story of Jesus sending 70 of his followers into the countryside.  Why would Luke insist on this number, 70, as the optimum number?  In Numbers chapter 11 Moses complains to God that the burden of feeding the Israelites in the wilderness is more than what one person can do, so God tells Moses to appoint 70 elders of Israel who are given a portion of God's spirit.  With this spirit of God guiding them they would help Moses lead Israel through the wilderness – gathering what God would provide for them.  These 70 also helped to lift the spirit of the Israelites during their wilderness journey.

The 70 disciples were sent out.  When they arrived at a house, they were instructed to say: “Peace be to this house.”  This greeting was no mere formula.  They were filled with the peace of the spirit themselves which allowed them to spread this spirit of peace to others.  They spread a spirit of peace while at the same time gathering those together who were ripe for the harvest.

Consequently, when they were fully at peace with self, they pronounced the blessing: “Peace be to this house” wherever they went.  If a lover of peace were in that house, God’s peace would rest upon the inhabitants.  God’s Spirit of peace provides for the spreading of peace, the sowing of peace, and the experience of living in peace in all places and at all times.  These 70 followers of Jesus were planting as well as harvesting.  The main point of this illustration of the 70 is to show us how Jesus, like Moses, graciously empowered a body of followers to work with him.  They were in ministry together, and were guided by the Spirit.  Jesus could not do this alone.

When Jesus sent them out they “return with joy” (10:17).  Jesus commissioned them to do the very work that he did.  And they return exhilarated, proclaiming, “It works!  It really works.”

These ordinary 70 were being empowered to do great things.  Not small things.  Too many of us seem too content with doing small things.  And when the opportunity arises, and a close friend or even just an acquaintance, experiences tragedy, we hesitate to respond.  You are the body of Christ.  Jesus won’t abandon you.  Be bold with your love!  Don’t hesitate.  Take the Spirit of Christ with you and reach out in love.  When you greet someone on the street, greet them with the Spirit of Christ’s peace.  Greet one another boldly.

Jesus invites you to this ministry of sharing God’s peace, not simply to maintain the Sunday School programs, or the music program, or the building.  You are called to a great thing!  You are called to this new life.  You are called to nothing less than a revolutionary raising of the dead, the healing of the sick, and the spreading of God’s peace, everywhere.  The amazing thing is all you have to do is bring this peace to one another’s houses, and the Spirit of God will do the rest.