The Harvest Truly is Great
Luke 10:1-7
The Feast of St. Luke
The number “70” is significant in the Bible. According to the traditional understanding of Genesis 10, seventy was the number of nations in the world after Noah’s flood. Later, Moses had 70 Spirit-filled elders who helped him lead Israel (Numbers 11:16 ff.). Seventy figured large in the Feast of Tabernacles. The priests sacrificed seventy bullocks during the first seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles. That feast was also called the Feast of Ingathering, and looked forward to the ingathering of the Gentile nations. The seventy bullocks slaughtered represented the seventy nations of the world. Atonement was made for them in a symbolic fashion, picturing the day when every nation of the earth would be brought into covenant relationship with the one true God. Sadly, Israel did a poor job of converting the nations as they were supposed to do.
That brings us to our Gospel passage for this Feast of St. Luke. By sending out seventy disciples, Jesus is letting people know that He is restoring the Old Testament mission of spreading the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Luke 10:1 tells us that Jesus sent out 70 disciples in pairs. According to tradition, Luke was one of the 70. That is why the Church appointed this passage for the Feast of St. Luke’s. We want to examine that passage now and focus in on what it says about missions and missionary activity. Let us read Luke 10:1-4. [Read them.]
Jesus gives the 70 a tough mission. They are to travel barefoot, broke and without a suitcase. The discomfort of such conditions is hard to imagine. Beth and I flew to the east coast last week on United Airlines. They lost the luggage of half the people on our flight. It was delivered to our hotel the next day. Going without our suitcases for one night felt like suffering. Jesus sent out the 70 bereft of possessions. They must travel light, for the whole time.
Moreover, they should not stop to salute anyone on the road. Was Jesus promoting bad etiquette? No. Apparently, the custom of antiquity while traveling was to stop and chat for a long time with people you met on the road. Jesus would want the 70 to be polite and greet the people they met with a friendly “good morning” and that type of thing, but they were not to make a long stop to gab. The mission was urgent. What was the mission? To prepare the cities where Jesus was about to go. They were to visit a number of towns, stay with people that were hospitable, heal the sick, announce that the Kingdom of God was near, and inform the cities’ populations that Jesus was coming. Theirs was a pre-visit, a preparation for the Lord’s official visit that would shortly follow. That was their mission. They must lay the groundwork in the villages that Jesus was planning to visit.
This strategy of Jesus brings out the reality that evangelization is a process. In fact, it is a long process. Conversion is rarely a lighting bolt experience. Those people who receive a lightening bolt experience have been nurtured over the years with God’s Word. Think of the Apostle Paul. He was steeped in the Old Testament Scriptures. John Wesley was raised with Christian instruction. After a lifetime of teaching, they had their dramatic conversions. It takes generations to baptize a nation in the name of the Trinity, that is, baptize the majority of the population so that they are committed to the life of Christ in the Church; and disciple them, that is, teach them everything from God’s Word so that they acquire a worldview that they instinctively apply to every department of life; this is a process that takes centuries.
You and I are part of that process when we study the Bible and teach it to our children, when we speak about Jesus to the un-churched, or do acts of kindness in His name. Sometimes the Holy Spirit brings about conversion in the heart of a person at the end of twenty positive contacts with Christians, and at the end of ten conversations. Consequently, you may not be able to lead a person to Christ, but perhaps your act of love was the fifteenth contact that that unbeliever noticed, and five more will do it. Maybe your conversation was the fourth that moved a non-believer that much closer to Christian commitment. Your sacrifice or conversation may not have been the one that turned a lost person from self-worship to Christ-worship, but you were an integral part of the process that the Holy Spirit used. So you must learn to see eternal consequences in every sacrificial action you perform, and in every courageous conversation you have with an un-churched person.
Jesus sent out the seventy to do this kind of preparation, and He sends out you and me to do the same. He compared this work of evangelization to a harvest. On another occasion He proclaimed: “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!” (John 4:35).
What about the qualifications of the 70? Sometimes people are intimidated by missionary work. They feel inferior; they feel unqualified. We know that Luke was qualified to do good things. He was a physician, an adventurer, and a writer. The apostle Paul and those involved in extending the outreach of the Early Church called Luke “the physician.” Luke also wrote the books of Luke and Acts, so we know that he was an educated man. Furthermore, he was a voyager and traveler with Paul at a time when traveling was arduous and sailing perilous. He must have been in good physical shape. So, if Luke was one of the seventy sent by Jesus, they had a good man. Some of the finest missionaries are like Luke. But Luke was unique.
We can guess that the other sixty-nine disciples had no special education, capability, or talents. They simply went in obedience. Jesus had given them a vision, a vision of the harvest, a vision of lost people who needed to be rescued. So they went. They stayed in people’s houses. They told about Jesus. They tried to do simple things, and Jesus gave them grace to heal the sick.
Here in our parish, we have discovered in short-term mission trips that everyone has an opportunity to use their gifts and talents, no matter how minor or meager those gifts seem to be. Let me give an example. Last summer, a young lady named Nicole took a camera and a small film developer. On one of our days in Mision Chaquena she took pictures of the children. Word got out that kids could get their picture taken, and soon the church was jammed. She shot three children in each picture frame, then cut the developed picture into thirds with scissors, and handed each child his one third of the photo. We were surprised at the pure joy expressed by the Wichi children when they received their photo. Maybe this was the first and only copy they owned. Anyway, you don’t need amazing talents to serve the Lord on the mission field. Getting along with people, adapting to a different culture, a willingness to spend time with people, and help them, and above all, a love for the Lord. Those are the main qualifications.
When you go on a mission trip or move to a foreign culture as a missionary, your ministry is to minister to needs, to reveal the love of God, and point people to Jesus. Many are cowed to share the Gospel because they feel they do not know what to say. Jesus sends the seventy and tells them simply to give of themselves, to be present with people, and point them to Jesus Christ. Sometimes we make evangelism more difficult than it needs to be.
Jesus declares, “the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few.” The laborers were few at the time of Christ, and they are few today. John Bothwell has told us about this shortage of workers with reference to Northern Argentina. The Anglican Church has been able to plant 150 little churches in the vast swath of land around the Bermejo and Pilcomayo Rivers. That sounds impressive, and it is. Barbrooke Grubb, one of the greatest missionaries of all time was a catalyst in that effort. He labored in Argentina from about 1910 to 1920. Other Anglican missionaries followed in his footsteps, expanding the work. But today many of those churches remain tiny dirt-poor shacks. By in large the people live a hand to mouth existence. The mothers cook outside on the ground with blackened pots. The family members sleep in cluttered huts made of adobe amidst swarms of mosquitoes. They build no bathrooms, not even outhouses. The children own few toys. The boys play with slingshots, and make cars out of mud. The men hunt, fish, and craft artifacts that bring in little money.
The environment is one of frightening physical need. It can break your heart. The spiritual needs are big too. The pastors are aging. The older ministers received their Bible training from English missionaries. But these Anglican missionary professors were forced to depart the country in 1983 when the Falkland Islands War broke out between Argentina and Great Britain. A new generation of pastors must step in to disciple the laity. The problem is this: they have no Bible institute or seminary to attend. The trip this next summer may be able to remedy some of that need. However, a Bible institute is only the tip of the iceberg. Furthermore, few books are available to them. Many of the Wichi and Toba young people have yet to be evangelized. It is probable that a good portion of the older Indians never were evangelized. A vacuum has been created by the expulsion of the missionaries. That is where things stand right now. If the Church won’t lend a hand, Mormons will fill that vacuum, or secular anthropologists, or even a revival of witchcraft. The timing is crucial. “The harvest truly is great but the laborers are few.” The Wichi and Toba indigenous believers are begging for missionaries, but the laborers are few. Jesus tells us, “pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
So now we come to another missionary truth. We are to pray for workers. That is what Jesus tells us. Pray. “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” We must pray for more helpers. Pray-ers become doers. The same seventy disciples whom Jesus commanded to pray for workers for the harvest were the ones who were sent to reap the harvest. In the past, in church history, every surge of missionary activity has grown out of prayer. So, pray alone. Pray with others. Pray at Church. Pray for the work of Archbishop Venables. Pray for a Bible Institute to be built in Embarcacion for the Wichi and Toba, and pray for missionaries to go and teach there. Pray for our trips to Mexico and Argentina. Organizing these short-term mission trips for next summer and recruiting for them is a big job. Pray for John and me. If you yourself can’t go, support those who do go, and pray for us.
Northern Argentina is an impoverished region and is a difficult place to live. The summer heat is brutal, the insects are ubiquitous, and the diseases pernicious. This did not stop missionaries of the past. Why are so few people going? Why are so few Americans willing to pour out their lives for the cause of Christ’s Kingdom? It seems that we are bogged down by too much comfort, we are paralyzed by insufficient love for the lost, and we are taking too lightly the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ. Missionaries are crucial! By their presence, help, and knowledge missionaries can afford incalculable benefit to Christ’s kingdom.
Even believers in the bigger cities of South America are crying out for missionaries. My Baptist pastor friend Jose Lezcano lives in Asuncion, Paraguay. He has a big church there. He is annoyed because the Southern Baptists pulled their missionaries out of South America, to put them in Muslim countries. “Why would they do that?” He asks. “The mission field here is wide open for the gospel! There it is closed!”
Africa is similar. Beth and I were invited to a dinner a few months ago and I was seated next to an Anglican Bishop from Uganda. He told me that the Muslims from Saudi Arabia and other countries are using their oil money to build mosques and a hospital in his diocese. The liberal tilt of ECUSA has rightyly caused outrage in the Anglican Communion of Africa. They no longer accept ECUSA funding. Without that funding it is very difficult to maintain the Anglican hospitals, schools, and soup kitchens. Poverty is their plague too. The Bishop believes that short-term mission teams and full-time missionaries are extremely important to assist them in their desperate condition. Any let-down now will allow the Muslims to advance. We could list the needs of one hundred other countries.
The bottom line is this: the earth needs more workers for the harvest. Jesus says, “go!” He sends us. He sends you. He asks you to go. Will you? People are lost without Christ; they are suffering. God wants you and me to help. In a world of several billion people, even several million Christians are not enough to reach everyone. “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (v. 2).
Let us pray.
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