The Lord of the Harvest

After that, Jesus traveled to all the cities and villages and taught in their synagogues, sharing publicly the Reign’s triumphant message and healing all kinds of illnesses and infirmities. When he saw all the people, he was deeply moved with compassion for them because they had been wounded and discarded like sheep with no shepherd. Then he said to his students, “The truth is, there’s a large harvest, but there are few workers; therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest sends workers out into the fields that are waiting to be harvested.”

After calling his twelve students together, Jesus gave them power over unclean spirit-breaths, to banish them and to heal all kinds of illnesses and infirmities. These are the names of the Twelve Commissioned Ones: first, Simeon (who was called Peter) and Andrew his brother; Jacob son of Zebedee and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; Jacob son of Alphaeus and Thaddeus; Simeon the Zealous and Judah, “Man of Kerioth,” who handed Jesus over. Jesus commissioned these twelve, and he gave them these instructions: “Don’t leave on a road to the lands of other peoples, and don’t enter a Samaritan town. Instead, go to the lost sheep of the family of Israel. As you’re traveling, announce that the Heavenly Reign is coming. Heal the sick, wake up the dead, cleanse people with leprosy, and banish demons. You received freely; give freely. Don’t take money with you, not gold or silver or copper coin in your belts; don’t take a bag on the road or an extra shirt or sandals or a walking stick. The worker is worth their food. In whichever town or village where you arrive, ask about who would be appropriate, and stay with them until you leave. When you arrive at a house, greet those in it joyfully. If that house is appropriate, extend your peace over it, but if it’s not appropriate, may your peace be returned to you. If no one welcomes you in or listens to what you have to say, shake the dust off your feet as you’re leaving that house or town. Truly, I’m telling you, it will be more bearable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of justice than for that town. “Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves; therefore, become as conscientious as snakes and undivided as doves. Be wary of people because they will hand you over to the authorities who will whip you in their meeting halls, and you’ll be taken in front of leaders and kings to testify for my cause to them and to other peoples. When they hand you over, don’t worry about what you’ll say or how to say it; you won’t be the ones speaking, but rather, your Father’s Life-breath speaking within you. Siblings will hand over siblings to death, parents the same for their children, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all kinds of people because you represent me. But whoever perseveres to the end will be restored. Whenever people drive you away from one town, flee to another. Honestly, you won’t get to all the towns in Israel before the Son of Humanity comes. — Matthew 9.35-10.23 (LIT Bible)

I’ve preached.

I’ve taught Sunday school.

I’ve led worship/music.

I’ve run sound and PowerPoint slides.

I’ve hosted prayer services.

I’ve visioned planned for sermon series.

I’ve developed curriculum.

I’ve led youth groups.

I’ve tried to plant two or three churches out of a mother church.

I have done the work. While I’ve never been an actual pastor, or held a paid position, I still have given blood, sweat, and tears for the churches I’ve been part of. And it’s been more than one church. There were several churches I was all in on. I showed up week after week, spent hours on the road, and devoted time and energy to preparing sermons and lessons.

Yet, no matter how much I gave, how much I worked, how much I committed, I was simply replaceable.

As soon as I was burned out and used up, I was cut loose. When I needed a sabbatical, I got abandonment. Whenever I stepped away from actively doing, leading, and/or giving to a church community, I was simply forgotten. No follow-up phone calls or visits to see how I was doing or where I was. I was just replaced. It was that simple.

I was good enough to serve, but not good enough to care for.

And care is what I needed.

For all the knowledge and ability, I had, I was hurting, lonely, sick with sin, wracked with shame and guilt, and all in all, not very healthy emotionally. I needed someone to care for me, not to push me to serve more, in better ways. But I was stuck. When Church is what you’ve known as an identity marker for your whole life, it becomes not only important but imperative to be more than involved; you need to be elbow-deep in the cogs.

Church was who I was, what I was raised for, what I knew about the world. But church took from me, and took from me, and took from me without giving back. I didn’t receive recognition for my service. I never got a paid position, instead of being passed over for a stranger with a degree. And, most importantly, I didn’t receive rest.

So, I was left in my late twenties with an undiagnosed mood disorder and wounds that rad deep to the core of my identity.

Utterly lost and floating without a sense of identity, I meandered about spiritually, always identifying as someone who belonged in church, but afraid to set foot back into a community just to repeat the cycle.

When Jesus looked out over the fields of the earth and saw a harvest that was ready to be brought in, Jesus saw people like me.

Helpless and harassed, like sheep among packs of wolves with no shepherd to guard, lead, and protect them, we were those who were bleeding out in the fields.

We were the shipwrecks scattered on rocky shores.

So, Jesus looks out and sees people like me and has compassion on us. His guts were moved with emotion. From deep within the source of his life, Jesus felt the suffering with us who are in need of triage in the midst of our lives broken by those who were supposed to care for our souls.

Some of us have been abandoned.

Some of us have been abused.

Some of us have been ignored.

Some of us have had too much demanded of us.

Some of us have been told not to question.

Some of us have been blamed for being too sinful

Whatever the reason is, if you feel those truths of religious trauma, you are one of those Jesus wants to gently harvest, to heal and care for.

Jesus told the apostles to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send workers.

And then Jesus—truly the only lord of this harvest of broken people who try to live honest lives—sends his apostles out to the lost sheep. He sends them out to heal the sick, to exorcize the demons, to wake the dead, and to tell people of the Good News of the kingdom. The good news that Jesus has victored over the churches that oppress, abuse, forget, and demand, over every world system that depends on shame, fear, guilt, and dominance to keep the lost sheep in check.

This news is enough to wake the dead, enough to send demons running, and to cure what ails us. It is news that is truly good because it tells us that the shepherd has come, and that no more will we be left alone, at the mercy of those who harass and abuse us. We will be gathered, come together as a community that needs each other, and in the needing find the shepherd of our souls.

It’s not enough for us to just hear this news, though. We all know other helpless sheep, shipwrecks, and traumatized by religion and church. Even as we are healing, the Lord of the harvest sends us to tell other hurting and harassed people this good news. We are sent to heal the sick, to exorcize demons, to wake the dead. We are sent to do.

It is in this doing that the good news comes to the traumatized and abused.

But isn’t Jesus asking us for free labor just another form of the church’s demand for us to be useful?

That’s the thing: Jesus doesn’t ask us to be useful. He asks us to have compassion for our own people, for those who are around us that are hurting, that are harassed, traumatized, abused… Jesus asks us not to do work, but to love.

Compassion expressed in action is love made manifest, and that is what we are asked to do.

After all, it is what we have received freely, so now it’s time to give freely.

Love like this disrupts.

Love like this will be hated by the institutions that need us to be oppressed for the sake of their power and authority. Love like this will confront the powers and principalities of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy that hold shadow pulpits in so many of our churches.

Love like this will get us into good trouble.

But we don’t have to plot and plan for what to do when trouble comes. The truth of the Spirit come alive in us will make herself known, giving us words and deeds that stand firm against the oppression, domination, abuse, and violence of these systems of the world (even especially when they are in our religious institutions).

Take heart, oh fellow shipwreck: we are no longer left alone. We have each other because the Lord of the harvest, the good shepherd, Jesus has knit us together in compassion and  love that we may build a true church on a rock that is unmovable, that stands against the wolves that seek to harm and harass us all, and that exists as a triage tent, healing and waking all who need it.

All we are, all we have done, all the ways we have been hurt—the fullness of everything we are is loved in this space. We are embraced for what we are, not what role we can fill. The compassion we live out with wild love is the remedy to our days of wandering without a shepherd.

Shake the dust off your feet at the places that will not give you peace. You don’t have to be where you are not wanted, or where you are expected to give and give and give until there is nothing left. Stay with those who embrace you, who extend the table for you, who give you reason to extend your table for others, even as we live amid the wolf packs.

The harvest is compassion; may we work the fields.

If you find yourself in need of hearing that divine call to compassion for yourself...
If you feel helpless and harassed, like a sheep without a shepherd...
If religious trauma keeps nipping at your heels...
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