Matthew 9:36-38 – 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
There is a certain satisfaction that you only see at the end of a difficult or tedious task. Personally, I like to try and outsmart monotonous jobs by finding ways to make them easier, more efficient, or maybe even fun. Unfortunately, for some tasks, there’s nothing to it but to do it. I’m sure this is how farmers feel after a long harvest. They planted the seed, nurtured the plant, watched it grow to maturity, and carefully collected the fruits (and vegetables) of their labor. Watching that final product pile up must bring such joy.
When it comes to farming around here, unless you filled your backyard with greenhouses and vertical growers, you mostly just go to the store. Most of us like to skip all the hard parts and just have the pile of food. This also takes away our concept of timing the harvest. For most fruits and vegetables, there is a window in which they can be harvested so that the farmer gets the best product. If you miss the window, the food, you worked so hard to produce, dies on the vine.
And this is what Jesus is talking about here. The best way to ensure that you are getting all that you can is to have enough people to harvest the field in time. There are people in your life who would love to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. There just need to be Christians willing to do the hard work and tell them. We need to encourage one another to be bold in our faith—remembering that bold does not mean judgmental or cruel. We can be the ones who point others to the hope that we have.
Jesus sees the people of this world as sheep without a shepherd. However, he doesn’t judge them or call them dumb. Jesus has compassion, the same compassion that we should be showing. There are people whose hearts are opened to hearing the gospel, they just need to meet someone who is willing to tell them.
The harvest is plentiful, get your hands dirty.