Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Sermon - Second Sunday after Pentecost - Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-20)


And so we are back to green.  Green paraments, green stoles.  The Season of Pentecost, or what we call the “regular time” of the church.  The Festival half of the church year is concluded, after we followed the life of Christ from Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week and Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday.  Now we enter the long stretch of Sundays after Pentecost – the time of the church.

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Today we have the first of a two-part reading from Matthew’s Gospel.  The over-arching topic is something like, “Jesus Sends Out the Twelve Apostles”.  Now, next week we will hear about the suffering they can expect when they go.  But here, for starters, we have some preliminary matters.

First, Jesus comments about the harvest and the workers.

Second, He gives the Twelve authority.  And Matthew gives us their names.

Third, He sends them out with their message and marching orders.

Let’s consider each of these in turn, as we apply the reading also to our common life in the church today.

“The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.”  Jesus speaks here in a word picture about the kingdom.  He had been going about his business, preaching in various places throughout the cities and villages.  And it became clear that more preachers would be needed for the task.  The ‘harvest’, as it were, being the hearers and recipients of the Gospel of the kingdom – and the ‘laborers’, those who tended to the harvest. 

We should understand this aphoristic saying of Jesus with broad application.  The harvest is, now, as it was then, as it always is – plentiful.  There are always people who need to hear the message of Jesus.  There are always people who will receive the message of Jesus.  Keying in on the grand scriptural metaphor of agriculture – the seed of the Gospel is planted and preached – bringing forth a harvest of faith by God’s grace.  Some plant, some water, some harvest.  God always gives the growth.  We preachers are just blessed to work our own little corner of the field, and pray we do it faithfully.

That the harvest is plentiful is good news for the church, isn’t it?  We may look out and think we see otherwise.  It’s easy to be doom and gloom in today’s world, as churches shrink and orthodox Christianity is marginalized in the public square.  It looks, to us, less like a harvest and more like a blight.  Stubbly fields that have been picked clean by crows and bleached by the heat of the day.  We may think the church is doomed.  We may predict disaster.  We may feel like Elijah, “I’m the only one left, and now they’re trying to kill me too.”

But don’t dismiss these words of Jesus.  The harvest IS plentiful.  Things just aren’t always as they seem.  The spiritual reality isn’t always what we perceive it to be.  Jesus’ words stand true, even when it appears otherwise.

So repent of any discouragement and trust that the God who establishes his church and builds his church will also grow and keep his church as he sees fit, and that according to his promise, the harvest is plentiful.  People need to hear the Gospel, and when it is preached, the word doesn’t return void.  Some falls on good soil, and produces that harvest of a hundred-fold.

And remember, that you are a part of that harvest!  Though you were dead in your sins, the Spirit has made you alive in Christ.  So now where there was no life, now there is a harvest.  As you have come to faith by the word.  As you have been baptized and discipled. 

The problem is not the lack of harvest but the lack of workers, laborers, and preachers.  But even for that problem Jesus has a solution:  pray.  Pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send workers into the fields.  And we know he answers.

If you listen closely to the prayer of the church each week, we do a pretty good job of following this command of Jesus.  We pray for laborers.  We pray that God would provide the church with faithful pastors and church workers.  We also act in accord with this prayer, as we support church workers and seminary students.  Mark Peters, the man we are now supporting at seminary, and his family will be here again this summer – and I know you will be generous with him as you always are.  This won’t benefit us directly, but it is part of our support for the church at large, and our response to Jesus’ teaching here.  In the same way we support missionaries, like Phillip Magness, who teaches Lutheran church music and worship in Africa.  He’ll be here in less than a month.

Second, Jesus gives the twelve authority.  Matthew specifically mentions the authority Jesus gives over unclean spirits, and also to heal.  These were important confimations of the message they would preach, signs that they were sent by the true Messiah, and an outward expression of the breaking of the devil’s kingdom that the Gospel brings.  It amazed the disciples, themselves, that even the demons submitted to them in Jesus’ name!  But Jesus answers with a sort of “you aint seen nothin’ yet”.  Don’t rejoice in this, that is, the outward miracles – but that your names are written in heaven.  Rejoice, rather, in salvation itself.

It’s true that at this point Jesus was sending his disciples only to the lost sheep of Israel.  But soon he would expand that commission and send them to make disciples of all nations.  So does he establish the Church and also the office of the Holy Ministry.  Those apostles would plant churches and appoint pastors far and wide.  The kingdom would expand and grow.  The harvest would grow and the gospel would spread, throughout years, decades, and centuries.

Today, the preachers of the Gospel are not promised the same kind of apostolic power to exorcise demons and miraculously heal.  But we have inherited from the apostles and those that came after them - the message of the Gospel, and the salvation of Christ crucified.  And that is enough.  It is enough to amaze us, and give us cause for rejoicing.  That the Son of God became man for you, fulfilled the law for you, and offered himself on the cross for you – to save you from sin and death and devil.  This is the great good news that Christ has given to the church to hear, and proclaim, and by it, to be saved.

Now, you might say, well, is this all about pastors?  Is this all about preaching?  Where’s my place in the field? What’s my labor toward the harvest?

For all of us, it is first of all to believe.  To receive the message of Jesus preached to us.  To repent of our sins and believe in the Gospel.  To be the harvest, to grow, and bear fruit.

Second, to labor in the harvest is to support the preaching of this gospel.  Not all are to be preachers, just as not all are apostles.  But all have received the message with joy and desire others to receive the same blessing.  And so we pray for preachers, that they would be sent, that they would be faithful, and for the success of the proclamation.  We earnestly ask that the Lord would move sinners to repentance and faith in Christ as he has so done for us.  And we do what we can to bring other sinners to hear this good news, like one beggar telling another where to find the free bread.

Third, we love our neighbor.  We can say all the right things but if we have no love it won’t amount to much.  Jesus says they will know where are his disciples by our love.  And so inasmuch as each Christian loves his neighbor, he gives a powerful witness silent that supports any words of witness he may have occasion to offer.  Why are you being so kind to me?  How is it, that you can you forgive me?  Well, friend, let me tell you…  Well, friend, let me invite you to my church…

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.  The harvest is plentiful.  Thanks be to God.  What a joy to be a part of that harvest, by the blood of Christ.  But the workers are few.  So let us heed Jesus’ words, and pray for more laborers to be sent into that harvest.  And let our actions match our words, let our love and support for the Gospel rise to the occasions he sets before us.  For in Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God is at hand, with blessings as only he can provide.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.


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