A Laboring Laborer

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost
June 14, 2020 Yr A
St. Michael's Episcopal Church
The Reverend Canon Michael J. Horvath
Gospel: Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)

One summer, I took a job as a landscaper. I harbored dreams of working up flower beds, planting beautiful combinations of plants and shrubs, helping clients think through what they want their garden to look like through the summer and fall. However, when I showed up at my first job site, I was confronted with a large cement slab. Where was my rich soil? Where were the perennials that I was going to spend the afternoon planting? Instead, the foreman handed me a pickaxe and said “Well, that patio isn’t going to remove itself.” I almost quite the job on the spot, but I, along with two others, started breaking down cement. The area was too small to get any piece of machinery in, so pickaxe it had to be. It was hard, back-breaking work and it took us two days to break it down and have the cement hauled away and I almost quit the job on day two, but the garden we put in afterwards was so beautiful! And it started with me and a pickaxe, followed by blistered hands and a sore back, but it was well worth it in the end.

Our Gospel reading starts with Jesus looking over the following crowds and feeling sorry for them because they were distressed and scattered like sheep without a shepherd. In his compassion, Jesus sends out his twelve disciples to proclaim the coming of the kingdom of heaven to them.

Then Jesus indulges in a bit of reflection, saying that “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few”. The connection between Pentecost and the theme of harvest goes back to the Old Testament. In the pre-Christian era, Pentecost is known as the Festival of Weeks. It was the first of the two harvest festivals in the Jewish calendar, marking the ingathering of the first fruits of the land.

This harvest presages another harvest that would begin at this time of the year, when on Pentecost God poured the Holy Spirit upon the Church to empower it to take the message of the Good News of the coming of the kingdom of heaven to the ends of the earth.

That still lay in the future when Jesus sent the Twelve to lost sheep of the house of Israel. What connects the mission of the Twelve with the mission of the Church is their connection to the mission of Jesus. Jesus gave to twelve the authority to take his message to their surroundings. Jesus gave to the Church the same authority to proclaim the coming of the kingdom and to forgive sins in his name far beyond the borders of Israel, to this place and to the ends of the earth.

Because Jesus knew that his time on earth was limited, he empowers his followers to be his hands and his feet in this world after he departs. To go to cities and villages throughout the land and proclaim the coming of the kingdom of heaven. But Jesus did not simply select twelve men and send them out. Jesus’ lengthy is intended to prepare the disciples for their task.

Jesus’ preparation of the disciples includes a somber warning about what being his disciples will mean for them, and it isn’t at all what his followers were expecting. Being a disciple of Jesus is not about prophesying or even performing miracles in his name. Rather, the true disciple is the one who is known by Jesus and who does the will of God in this world to bring about God’s kingdom.

For those of us who choose to follow him, being a disciple of Jesus is not an easy and comfortable way of living. It asks us to put Jesus ahead of home and even family, and all the many material things we believe to be important in this life.

And Jesus spells out exactly what we can expect to encounter as his laborers: poverty, rejection, persecution, even losing of their own lives, just as Jesus himself would be persecuted and die. In the name of righteousness, of justice, and even love, we may find ourselves subject to being dragged before governors and kings. Delivered over to death by their own brothers and fathers and children. Hated by all for Jesus’ sake.

But we also are called to face these challenges squarely, with a faith that acts as both bridge and shield, because Jesus sends us with his own authority. Jesus doesn’t judge our capabilities as a laborer based on our wealth, status, beauty or education. He judges us by our faith in him and the Good News that he brings.

The central task Jesus gave his disciples authority to perform is the proclamation that the “kingdom of heaven is at hand”. We’re called to perform this task as Jesus’s laborers because the hearts of people who are lonely, afraid, marginalized, oppressed, or discarded by this world are yearning to be harvested. We do this work as shepherds in the example of Jesus because people yearn to hear the voice of good news, of emancipation, and love.

If we call ourselves Christians, then we are already claimed as Christ’s laborers and shepherds. But here, as in many things, we’re asked to look at the quality of our efforts as an expression of how deep our faith is.

Do we labor so that others may be lifted up and nurtured? Or do we do things to individually profit or bolster our own egos? Do we actively share the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ with others, or do we simply say we go to St. Michael’s Church because that’s just what we’ve done for years? I’m reminded of the question “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” If I’m not proclaiming the Good News by words and deeds, am I really a Christian? These aren’t flippant questions meant to elicit a chuckle. These are the questions Jesus asked of his disciples over 2000 years ago, and the very same questions he asks of us today.

This is more than altruism - more than the selfless concern for the well-being of others. As Christians, we’re supposed to do this work because we have heard God’s calling and our sole purpose is to help make real and present the Kingdom of God in this world. Every good and ethical action we undertake has to be imbued with the love of Christ as its catalyst. It’s a very specific lens that we look through as Christians.

Peering through that lens, when I see a person moved by the many recent racial equality marches to seek justice and equality for all sentient beings, I’m watching a Christian. When I see volunteers delivering free meals to food insecure residents in the East Bay, I’m seeing Christ in action. When I watch our Welcome & Newcomers Ministry figure out ways to greet and integrate newcomers into St. Michael’s, I see the radical hospitality of Jesus being offered to others, no questions asked.

A field ready to be harvested will only ever remain a field ready to be harvested if the laborers do nothing but stand at the edge of it. The laborers Jesus looks for are the ones who don’t only identify as laborers, but those who are willing to dive in and do the grueling and backbreaking, but ultimately satisfying, work of getting their hands dirty and gathering in the wheat as an offering to God.

Our world needs laborers who are willing to do the work. St. Michael’s needs laborers who are willing to do the work. Our East Bay community needs laborers willing to do the work. Victims of poverty, sex-trafficking, racism, etc., need laborers willing to do the work.

Listen for the voice of Jesus, who calls you towards him in the middle of that field. I beg you, don’t be a laborer who stands on the edge of the field, because the harvest is plentiful, but the works begins with you. The field isn’t going to harvest itself.

Amen.