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Sunday, March 29, 2020

“The Harvest Is Plentiful, but…”

A sermon based upon Matthew 9: 35-10: 25
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership,
Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 29th 2020

Carl A. Boyle, a sales representative, was driving home when he saw a group of young children selling Kool-Aid on a corner in his neighborhood. They had posted the typical hand-scrawled sign over their stand: “Kool-Aid, 25 cents.”

Carl was intrigued. He pulled over to the curb. A young man approached and asked if he would like strawberry or grape Kool-Aid.

Carl placed his order and handed the boy a dollar. After much deliberation, the children determined he had some change coming and rifled through the cigar box until they finally came up with the correct amount. The boy returned with the change, then stood by the side of the car. He asked if Carl was finished drinking.

“Just about,” said Carl. “Why?”

“That’s the only cup we have,” answered the boy, “and we need it to stay in business.”

It’s difficult to a business if you only have one cup.  That’s a good picture of what is happening in this text, “Jesus does not let the gathering opposition stop his mission in the world.   He goes through the cities and villages, teaching in the synagogues, proclaiming the good news, and curing every disease.  He is surrounded by the crowds, and he has compassion for them because they are like sheep without a shepherd.

In a wonderful moment, confronted with such great need, Jesus needs ‘more cups’ to do God’s business and asks the disciples to pray that God will send helpers to do God’s work.  The mission of the church has begun.  The disciples’ prayer is answered.  Surprisingly, the answer turns out to be them.”  (Stanley Hawerwas, Matthew, Brazos Press).

Still today, the answer to Jesus’ prayers; the answer to the disciple’s prayers and hopefully the answer to your own praying for this needy world  is also ‘YOU’.
YOU.  You who are the disciples of Jesus today.
You, who are the Church of Jesus Christ.
YOU still hold the keys to the kingdom.
You are God’s answer to His dream for redeeming this world.
You, the body of Christ, alive in flesh, blood, and filled with his Spirit—the Holy Spirit, You reflect and reveal God’s desire for the renewal of humanity and for the redemption of all life.

But how are we, as his disciples today, to carry out and fulfill God’s mission?   This mission is certainly still needed now, as much as, it ever was.   But how is the mission calling of God still heard and heeded by us?   Each and every generation has to answer God’s call and receive Christ’s commissioning for their time.

But be certain of this.  It isn’t OUR MISSION. It’s GOD’S MISSION and we the Church, are God’s MISSIONARIES.   Each and every one of us have been commissioned and called by his love; a love which was revealed in Jesus’ sacrifice and Jesus’ obedience to God’s call.   For just as Jesus fulfilled God’s mission of mercy by his own obedience on the cross of shame and death, we are called to continue God’s mission of mercy through Christ’s glory by our own obedience to God’s call.   “Go, learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice’ (9: 13).  What God desires from of us,  is not an obedience of death but an obedience for life lived in answer to God’s love (Heb. 5:9, 1 Jn 2.5).

And how are we sent on God’s mission?   Even in a world of constant change, the more everything around us changes, the more God’s mission remains very much the same.   The needs of people remain very much the same too.   People are still people.  The world is still the world.  And God’s church is to be on God’s mission of mercy, healing and hope.  The major difference for us, is that our mission field is no longer ‘the uttermost parts of the earth’, as it was for the early church, but it’s right here, like it was for those disciples, in our own backyard.

So, what are the mission rules of engagement for Christ’s disciples today?  This final message focuses on finding, training and sending workers to gather in God’s potentially plentiful, harvest.      


THE MESSAGE OF THE MISSION
First, this sending starts with the message’  as ‘ proclaiming of the good news of the kingdom (Matt. 9:35 NRS) that has come ‘near’ in Jesus Christ (10:7).  This was the theme of Jesus’ preaching, and it’s the message Jesus charged his disciples to take into the villages and cities.  They are to seek the ‘lost sheep’ of their own land first.  The sharing of the gospel begins, not out their in the world, but close at home.  Could this be a starting point for us?  Could the sharing start be our homes, our family, our neighbors, and our friends?

The message was that the time is ripe and short.  As the prophet Isaiah once said, ‘Seek the Lord, while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
(55:6-8).

You didn’t see that coming in Isaiah, did you?  Did you also hear this strange saying coming from Jesus, when he instructs his disciple to go ‘nowhere among the Gentiles’ nor among the ‘Samaritans’?  Jesus will go there, but God’s saving work starts at home among our own.  Gods sending to the ‘lost’ at home, is God’s way to begin to share the message of goodness?

And having a God who seeks to save rather than to condemn is central to the message of God’s kingdom.  Jesus is a seeking savior sending his disciples on God’s mission with A hopeful message of pardoning, forgiving love.

THE MOTIVE OF GOD’S MISSION
The motive of Jesus mission comes straight from God’s heartbeat of compassion.  When Jesus saw the crowds following, we are told he ‘had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.’  This means they were leaderless and clueless on how to proceed with their lives.
 When Jesus saw their predicament, he understood and felt their pain.   The lost who have become numb in life and love, need to be lead to find hope and healing.

Later, writing to the Corinthians for a second time, remembering Jesus missionary motive Paul says,”For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.  And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them (2 Corinthians 5:14–15 (NRSV).  Here, Paul’s own missionary motive is urged on by Christ love.  He no longer lives just ‘for himself’ but he lives in a love from Him (Christ) that has now become a love for them.

C. H. Spurgeon said that this line about Christ’s great compassion weighed on his heart more than any other text in the Bible!  It haunted him continually (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 19:466).

Earlier in the 18th century, another British Baptist, William Carey, is often referred to as the “Father of Modern Missions.”  He began the modern missions movement with a sermon  calling British Baptists to forsake the wrongly interpreted Calvinistic view that if God was going to convert the heathen he would do it without himself.  When Cary preached his Heartfelt sermon, he called upon Christians to use whatever means necessary for spreading the gospel among the lost in the world.  He called upon his hearers to expect great things from God and attempt great things for God.  Carey’s call was simply an echo of the original call of Jesus to take the gospel to the world.

It is the same kind of compassionate feeling that caused Oskar Schindler to make lists of Jews he dared to save at the risk of his own life.  Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist and a member of the Nazi Party.  But he was credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories.  Schindler was initially motivated by profit, but was moved in his heart showing extraordinary dedication to save the lives of his Jewish employees.

But Oskar Schindler wasn’t the only man who saved the lives of many Jews.  Raoul Wallenberg was a man with even more genuine love.  During World War II the Nazis were sending Hungarian Jews to concentration camps, and no one could stop them.  Hitler wanted all Jews exterminated.  Wallenberg was determined to save as many Jews as possible. Wallenberg succeeded in convincing the Swedish embassy to negotiate with the Germans that anyone who had protective passes would be treated like Swedish citizens. They would be exempt from wearing the yellow star of David.

He used unconventional methods to accomplish his purpose, including bribes and extortion threats.  The Swedish diplomats were initially hesitant because they did not approve of his tactics, but in the end they gave their support.  Wallenberg was initially given only 1,500 passes. When that wasn't enough, he negotiated for more and more, even stooping to promises and empty threats.

In the end, the Hungarian foreign ministry ended up granting him 4,500 protective passes. Then he had a new idea. He built 30 safe houses under the protection of the Swedish embassy.   These became safe havens for the Jews.

Eventually, the Nazis started the brutal death marches, forcing more and more Jews to leave Hungary by foot. When they started to transport the Jews by trains, Wallenberg came to the rescue.  He courageously climbed into the train boxcars. He walked along the boxcar roofs, and he even stood on the tracks in front of the trains.  He was willing to do anything to stop the deportations.  The officers gave orders to shoot him.  However, the soldiers admired his courage and they purposely aimed their fire above his head.

When the Russians arrived in Budapest, they found 120,000 Jews who survived, most of them thanks to Wallenberg.  Eventually Wallenberg was seen being forced into a Russian car.  No one ever saw him again after that.

Hitler is dead but Satan roars and roams like a lion still seeking someone he may devour.  How much compassion do we have for those who are in his sights?  Can we see who Jesus saw, and do we feel what Jesus felt?  We will if his heart is in us.  And if it is, we will also do what Jesus did and go on the mission Help gather the harvest he has commissioned us to bring in for him.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.". This is true still today.  Where art those who have the heart of Christ which is a heart for others who are lost and leaderless?  Did Jesus not also have an undying compassion for us?  How much compassion do we have to labor and help in God’s mission for the lost?  This is the question this text places before us?



THE METHOD OF GOD’S MISSION
We have Christ’s marching orders, but don’t think there is a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all method for God’s mission.  Still, the method for God’s mission does have certain unchanging realities: it must be wholistic, it must be incarnational, and it must be strategic.

In regard to being wholistic, Jesus ministered to the whole person, and he sent his disciples out not just to preach and teach, but to help and heal.  There was a spiritual side to the gospel and there was also a social side.  You will have only half of a gospel, if you only reach out to the soul without touching upon the needs of the body.  In the same way, all the curing, healing and helping, pointed to the ultimate hope and healing in the human soul.

It naturally follows, then that the method of Jesus’ was also incarnational.  This is a big, Christian word, but it’s also an indispensable one.  As Scripture says,  ‘The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and was full of grace and truth.’  That’s what incarnational means. God’s word and Spirit only touches lives when it found in flesh and blood.

For this reason Jesus needs laborers to bring in the harvest.  And he didn’t choose the  professional, elite, and most gifted to do the job, but he called ordinary, unspecialized, fishermen, even one who would betray him, another who would deny him, and the rest who were no different than any of us.  Why did Jesus’ method choose common, ordinary, earthy people like you and me?  The apostle Paul said it best when he said, ‘We have this treasure in body’s of clay, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.  (2 Corinthians 4:7 (NRSV).

The final important unchanging method of Christ’s mission is that requires a strategic approach.  This is something the hasn’t thought about much before, since most our growth and outreach has been biological.  Our major method has been reaching our own children, but that day is over.  The church today’s, if it is to remain viable, needs a community approach that goes beyond ourselves and our own families.  We may start with our children and family, but we can’t stop there.  We have take the ministry and witness of the church to those who live beyond church doors.

That’s exactly what happens in this text.  Jesus instructs those first missionaries to take both the message and the ministry to the masses.  The were to show compassion and goodness to outsiders and to expect nothing in return, only to wish peace on them and to seize the opportunity wherever it presented itself among whoever was open to God’s goodness of renewing and redeeming grace.            

THE MANDATE TO GOD’S MISSION
Finally we come to Christ’s mission mandate that can be rewarding, but’s also demanding, and at least in certain times in human history, has been dangerous too.  That’s why disciples then, and now, are mandated to be ‘sent out as sheep among wolves’ and are told to be smart in how we carry out God’s mission, and are also warned of possible persecutions, being reminded that ‘a disciple is not above his master’.

Still, in spite of the presence and possibilities of obstacles, the church is given a mission mandate from the master and for the master of compassion and hope.  Why are we to accept such a mandate that still carries great discomfort and risk?

There is a beautiful scene in the movie Dr. Zhivago. The Comrade General is talking with Tanya, who, unbeknownst to her, is Zhivago’s daughter. He is asking her about one of the traumatic experiences in her childhood, a time when she became separated from her adoptive father, a lawyer named Komarov. He asks her, “How did you come to be lost?”

She replies, “Well, I was just lost.”

He asks again, “No, how did you come to be lost?”

Tanya doesn’t want to say. She says simply, “I was just lost. My father and I were running through the city and it was on fire. The revolution had come and we were trying to escape and I was lost.”

The Comrade General asked more emphatically, “How did you come to be lost?”

She still didn’t want to say. Finally, though, she did say. “We were running through the city and my father let go of my hand and I was lost.” Then she added plaintively, “He let go.” This is what she didn’t want to say.

The Comrade General said, “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you, Tanya. Komarov was not your real father. Zhivago is your real father and I can promise you, Tanya, that if this man had been there, your real father, he would never have let go of your hand.” (2)

That is the difference between a real father and a false father, is it not? A real father would never let go of his daughter’s hand. That is also the difference between a real god and a false one.

The late great Roberto Clemente was killed in a plane crash New Year's Eve, 1972. He was a long time player for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was on a relief effort to deliver supplies to earth quake victims in Nicaragua. His devotion to help others cost him his life. His teammates described him as a compassionate man and his work bore that out.

His own words tell his story. "Any time you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this earth."

Jesus had compassion on the crowds. He “had compassion for them,” Matthew tells us, “because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  Jesus would not let go of their hand.  Jesus did not waste his time with tribal pursuits.  Matthew then tells us that Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Will we let go of the hand of the harassed and helpless?  Will we waste our time with trivial pursuits, or will we share in God’s mission of compassion today?  Amen

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