Reading: Matthew 9.9-13,35-10.1
So we dressed suitably and grabbed our rain-coats and set off. When we arrived, we saw a whole team of relatives and friends who had gathered to help. Picking bags and large plastic buckets were being issued and the bins already showed evidence that the work was well under way.
The instructions were simple - strip the trees. All undamaged fruit must be picked. But the trees had to be stripped of damaged fruit as well. The reason - because of the wet weather at harvest-time the apricots were beginning to split. In fact quite a number had already opened right up with the seed sticking up straight in the middle - a bit like an arum lily! Usually, fruit can be picked over a period for size and colour. But the unseasonal weather had created an emergency - everything had to be picked now!
The orchardist has many jobs to do. While the fruit-picking season is especially busy, life tends to be hectic all the time. There is plenty to do. But it is always looking towards the harvest. Pruning is a major job. When he does it, the farmer is looking to the harvest. Keeping the weeds down, cultivation and irrigation... chores? looking to the harvest! A regular spray programme against fungus and insect pests essential if there is to be a harvest! Attention to cleaning out the dam, extending the packing shed, installing controlled atmosphere cold storage - hard work, but all geared to the harvest.
Our friends had a young lad living with them. One day he saw the mail being opened and a cheque for $5000 from the agent at the markets. His eyes were wide open until he heard the farmer say, "That will just about pay for our new bins."
For the farmer, the harvest is crucial. There are so many variables and so many uncertainties. Drought is the only one most people know about. In the Granite Belt, there are many other concerns - insufficient frost in winter to send the trees dormant, late frosts in spring when the fruit has set, hailstorms... Often, if the fruit is lost or not marketable, a spray programme still has to be maintained - and paid for! If the crop is good, the prices in the market may not be good. Return for labour may be very slender indeed, sometimes hardly enough to pay for transport costs. The farmer is depending on the harvest!
A very different primary industry - and climate! - but I'm sure we recognise many parallels to the sugar industry in the Burdekin. For us too, whatever we do is directed toward the harvest.
Jesus, the Son of God, had come into this world in connection with a harvest. There were many things he had to do along the way - teaching about the Kingdom of God, healing the sick, casting out demons... But he always remembered the harvest. It isn't that the things he did along the way were incidental or unimportant. They were an integral and important part of preparing for the harvest.
His first followers were called to "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men!" (Mt 4.19) His final instructions were to "go and make disciples of all nations..." (28.19). In tempting him, the devil moved away from the considerations of personal need to gather in people from all nations. The struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane in no sense represented a lack of commitment to the Father's will. Dying on the cross, he prayed forgiveness for those who had engineered his death. A dying thief was assured a place in the Kingdom.
For the Jews Pentecost was a harvest festival. For Christian believers, it was (and is) a celebration of the spiritual harvest time. There is a fact to be known, "God has made this Jesus, who you crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2.36). So the question - "Brothers, what shall we do?" (v. 37). And the call to action - "Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins..." (v. 38). The result - "Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day" (v. 41).
Jesus already had a small band of followers - people who had responded to his call to follow him. They were with him for their own need, but also as part of his strategy for the harvest. His time of active ministry was only about three years. If the harvest was to be gathered in, it would be especially through these chosen men.
They were up north still, probably in part of Capernaum near the Sea of Galilee. Jesus saw Matthew, a tax collector, sitting in his office. Tax collectors were despised. They were regarded as traitors, Jews working for Rome, the foreign power. They did well out of it, often padding their pay with a bit of extortion. They were cut off as part of the scum of society.
Jesus said to him, "Follow me." And Matthew got up and followed him. We are not told what motivated Matthew to respond so promptly. Had he developed a deep dissatisfaction with his life-style? Did people talk much about the events in Capernaum surrounding this new teacher? Did he have to assess and collect the tax on the abnormal catch of fish that had led Peter and his partners finally to leave their nets and follow Jesus? None of these questions is answered for us - just the simple fact, "Matthew got up and followed him" (Mt. 9.9).
But it was more than that too, for we now find Jesus having a meal at Matthew's house and "many tax collectors and 'sinners' came and ate with him and his disciples" (v. 10). Jesus has an eye to the harvest. For all who come there is the need and the possibility of a whole new life. There were some surprises, for those who would not recognise their own need would refuse to accept the possibility of a new life for those who did.
The critics, the Pharisees, are watching. "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" (v. 11) They are inferring that there must be something wrong about Jesus that he associated with such people. But Jesus answers them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick… For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (vv. 12-13). Jesus hasn't come to create a comfortable club for the self-satisfied and self-righteous. For all their law-keeping, their own lack of basic kindness stands out for all to see. For them also there is the need and possibility of change. But no change can take place until they acknowledge their own "sickness".
Do you know your own need of the physician? Then come, follow him!
Jesus had many followers, many of whom would come and go. But his concentrated attention was given to twelve. They are named for us in 10.2-3 - "Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him." Quite a mixed bunch! They are named his "disciples" - trainees or apprentices, if you like.
At the end of chapter 9, they are going with Jesus to the various towns and villages and Jesus is teaching in the synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness. "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (v. 36).
In becoming a human being, Jesus the Son of God had accepted human limitations. His time was limited and he could only be in one place at a time. The need of all these people was so great. Yes, he describes himself in John 10 as the Good Shepherd who is gathering his flock together and who has other sheep to call who are not yet part of this flock. He is willing to die for his sheep. But his time is limited. He can't do it all. The gathering of his flock - the harvest - must be committed to others!
"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field" (Mt 9.37). And in the next verses (over in chapter 10) we hear him calling his disciples together and sending them out.
How do we see the situation today? Do we have the vision of our Lord to say, "The harvest is plentiful"? We may see that human need is massive, but do we have a vision of a large harvest to gather in?
What is 750,000 miles long, reaches around the earth 30 times, and grows 20 miles longer each day? Answer: The line of people who are without Christ. The population of the world increases by 77 million a year. This means 146 a minute, 8,790 an hour, and 210,959 a day.
We look at people and think of Christianity as one option among many. We are an open tolerant society and true faith is a voluntary matter. Yet Jesus made absolute claims such as, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (Jn 14.6). Is it intolerant to believe that all people need Christ?
But do we see a harvest that can and must be gathered in? Do we believe that God is the Lord of the harvest, that it is his harvest? Are we willing to pray to the Lord of the harvest that he will send out workers to gather it in? Are we so committed to the Lord and his harvest that we ourselves are available for the work of the harvest with our time, our abilities and our financial giving?
God knows our hearts! How we need that passionate and compassionate love that Jesus so clearly exhibited! Jesus dared to call a Matthew. And before he had any "training", Matthew instinctively wanted to share his new Friend with his old friends. The harvest had begun! The harvest continues! Pray! Go!
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