Lord of the Harvest

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, June 14, 2026
Matthew 9:35-10:8

    When we lived in rural Nebraska, before kids, Rich and I planted a huge garden.  We had the space, and we had the time!  We had never really gardened before, and we really enjoyed it.  One thing we learned that first year, though, is if you plant just one cucumber seed, you will have 100 cucumbers. And they all will be ready to harvest at the same time.  Now, what can two people possibly do with 100 garden-fresh cucumbers that can keep maybe at most 2 weeks?  You make pickles, that’s what you do!  
    We were blessed to have Cheryl, our neighbor and expert veteran gardener to help us with the abundance of cucumbers.  She taught me how to make quick refrigerator pickles and the serious kind where you sterilize the jars.  We hauled cucumbers to the local food pantry and put them out during coffee hour at church for people to take home.  Cucumber salads showed up at the women’s Bible study circle and church picnic potluck.  I’ll admit, we probably had to throw away a cucumber or two, but most of them, thankfully, were consumed. That was the only year we planted cucumbers.  I was certainly grateful to not be working to process those cucumbers by myself.
    In our gospel for this morning, Jesus says that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.  An abundant harvest is a good thing!  This means there is more than enough – an opportunity for a feast, for sharing, for plenty of good work to be done!  Any farmer or gardener would hear this verse as good news – there are plenty of reasons there could not be a good harvest at all – flood, drought, hail, bugs, fungus all can threaten a healthy crop.  Having an abundant harvest is a good problem; all you have to figure out to do is find enough workers to gather in and distribute the produce or make pickles so to speak!
    The abundant harvest that Jesus points us to this morning, however, is people work, healing work.  He calls and equips his disciples to “Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons.”  What does this people healing work look like for us today?  I don’t come into contact often with skin diseases, and I certainly don’t see myself able to raise the dead.  In a non-agrarian society where we primarily get our food from supermarkets and leave the healing ministry to medical professionals, what does discipleship as Jesus describes it here look like now?  What is the harvest Jesus calls us to work with today?
    I know I’m not the only one who has doubts about my ability to do the healing work that Jesus calls us to do here in our gospel for today.  One of my first years as pastor, I asked the former mayor of the town to serve as church council president.  I thought she would confidently and quickly say yes. I was surprised when her first reaction was, “I couldn’t possibly fill that position of responsibility!”  She managed an entire town and council of 2000 people!  We were talking about a congregation with an average worship attendance of 70 people and an annual budget of around $100,000 at the time!  Yet, the holiness of church work for her was intimidating.  She did not see herself as a leader in the church.  It took some arm-twisting, but she did say yes, and of course, she was a great, faithful council president.    She COULD do healing, holy work – she just had to have some nudges of encouragement.
We may be reluctant to say yes to Jesus’ call to join him in the harvest work, also, for a whole host of reasons.  When we think of the weight of human need in our world today, it can be overwhelming, just as it was in Jesus’ time.  There are people working full-time, maybe two jobs, who are struggling to put nutritious food on the table and keep a roof over their family’s heads.  We are living in an anxious time of war overseas which too often bleeds into acts of senseless mass shootings and violence here in our communities.  We have many people who are relating more to screens than face to face, who are lonely, isolated, and losing the skills to build healthy communities.  The harvest is plentiful.  People are ripe, so to speak, to receive good news from God about our bad human situation.  People are in need in particular for the healing a faith community can offer.  We can’t fix it all, but we do have gifts to serve and blessings to share.  What cucumbers do we have that we can share or maybe even learn to make pickles out of?     We may not see people raised from the dead literally, but metaphorically, through faith formation and community outreach, we bring people to receive the gift of baptism.  We die to our old selves and are raised to a new life in Christ in baptism.  Every Sunday, we come forward to receive the life-giving body and blood of Christ – we confess our sins and daily come to receive life in his name, Christ himself lives through us.  This is the life-giving, healing work that Christ still calls us to today, living as Jesus’ modern-day disciples.  The harvest is plentiful, and Jesus calls us to do this work as his fellow laborers. Still today, Jesus does not want to work alone or in isolation.  He appoints the twelve, and he appoints us – not to do the work alone and not that we can complete the work, but to work alongside our Lord of the harvest.
    This morning, we celebrate 50 years of faithful ordained ministry with Pastor Jim Anderson, and we can reflect on not just the work that he has done in various congregations across Long Island, but the way he has consistently pointed us back to the work that Christ does through us, and sometimes in spite of us!  I am sure Pastor Anderson that there were times you were unsure of your call or wondered about the size of the harvest in comparison to your ability to do the work.  But you did not do this work alone.  You have had a faithful partner in this ministry, your wife Joyce.  Many of you have been co-laborers with him in this ministry, AND one of your best strengths has been to point us back again and again to Jesus as Lord of the harvest.
    The weight of the world’s problems and our human need sometimes indeed can be overwhelming.  Sometimes we may not see abundant harvest as good news – who will do all of this work?  Who will save us?  The good news our gospel answers for us today, is that Jesus is Lord of the harvest – not us.  Jesus calls and equips us, welcomes us to work alongside him and gives us partners in ministry, but the work is ultimately not ours to do alone.  Our second reading from Romans assures us that we are justified by faith, not by works, so we might have peace in our work, and our hope in Christ will not disappoint us.  I am grateful for Pastor Anderson’s consistent witness and reminder of the core of this gospel good news – saved by grace through faith, apart from works. We respond to this gift by joining in God’s abundant harvest work.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.