Harvest Time—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 3A (Proper 6) (Matthew 9-10)

Matthew 9:35-10:8 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

                        ³⁵ Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. ³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸ therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

                10 Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. ² These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; ³ Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; ⁴ Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

                        ⁵ These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, ⁶ but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷ As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ⁸ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

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                It’s an old gospel song, but it does capture something of what is revealed in the Gospel reading for the third Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6). Evangelist Knowles Shaw (he was a 19^th-century Disciples of Christ evangelist) invites us to sing:

 Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,
Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve;
Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

Refrain:
Bringing in the sheaves, Bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves;
Bringing in the sheaves, Bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

It is harvest time, at least for the moment. With the Trinity Sunday reading of Matthew 28:16-20 in mind, a reading in which Jesus commissions his followers (that would include us) to make disciples of the nations, we hear another word about making disciples. Only in this case, the references are agrarian.

                The previous week’s Gospel reading for Proper 5, also from Matthew 9, lifts up Jesus’ healing ministry. That ministry was an expression of Jesus’ compassion for those he encountered. However, we might understand Jesus’ healing ministry, it is an expression of compassion for those in need. According to our reading for this week, when Jesus saw the crowds coming to him, he saw them as sheep without a shepherd. He had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, much like the sheep that dotted the landscape. It is also an image that has roots in the Hebrew Bible, in scriptures such as Ezekiel and Zechariah.  According to Ezekiel: “As I live, says the Lord God, because my sheep have become a prey and my sheep have become food for all the wild animals, since there was no shepherd” (Ezk. 34:8). As for Zechariah, he proclaims that “the people wander like sheep; they suffer for lack of a shepherd” (Zech. 10:2).

                If the first word had to do with the need for shepherds who will care for God’s sheep, the second agrarian image is harvest related—thus the reference above to the Knowles Shaw hymn. This second image has an evangelistic dimension to it, as according to Jesus the grain is ripe and ready for harvest—perhaps a great harvest. There is just one problem. There is a lack of workers to bring in the harvest. So, he tells his disciples to pray that the Lord of the Harvest would send a team of harvesters who can bring in the harvest.

                Regarding these agrarian images, while modern North American society is not as agrarian as it once was (such as in the nineteenth century when the Knowles Shaw song was popular), I think most readers can understand the imagery present in this passage. You don’t have to be a farmer to know that harvest time requires workers. Most modern North American farmers indeed need few workers to bring in the harvest than in earlier days—those huge combines one sees moving through the fields during harvest time can replace the huge numbers of laborers using nothing but scythes to harvest the grain—but there are other labor-intensive farming efforts (strawberries for example) that remain with us. So, I expect most readers can make the connection. The message is simple. If this harvest of people is ready to embrace the message of Jesus, there will be a need for workers.

                The need is great. There are a lot of hurting people out there who need healing of body and soul. Many of them, unfortunately, who are hurting, are refugees from Christian communities. They are folks who have been traumatized by their encounters with the church, this is especially true of folks in the Queer or LGBTQ communities. One helpful resource when it comes to envisioning an embodied witness to the realm of God can be found in the book Trauma-InformedEvangelism by Charles Kiser and Elaine Heath. They make it clear that the goal here isn’t conversions or even church growth because those goals tend to lead to manipulation, spiritual abuse, and trauma. Rather it is a call to embodied witness, where we give witness to God’s realm through our lives, and then invite those who are traumatized to share in the healing nature of God’s realm, which is embodied in community.

                It should be noted that the harvest imagery here has eschatological dimensions. The vision is of the gathering of the righteous on the last day. For Matthew, harvest time was drawing near. Now, if the need is great, so is the need for harvesters, folks who embody Jesus’ compassion. With that in mind, we move from chapter nine to chapter 10, where Matthew gives us a list of the folks Jesus called to help with this work. Importantly, this is the only time in his Gospel that Mark calls this group of disciples “Apostles” rather than simply disciples or “the twelve.” Now the various lists of disciples/apostles differ from Gospel to Gospel and list to list, but in this chapter, Matthew’s list of harvesters includes: “Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; ³ Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; ⁴ Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him” (Mt. 10:2-5). Again, the number of apostles here, being twelve, also has eschatological dimensions, for they mirror the number of Israel’s tribes. It is with these tribes that this mission is focused.

                When Jesus gives this group their commission he tells them that they will receive “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness” (Mt. 10:1). Note here that nothing is said about preaching. Rather, Jesus sends them out on a ministry of healing. Could this be the kind of embodied witness that Charles Kiser and Elaine Heath talk about in their book?

                We should note here that even as Jesus sends out the twelve on this ministry of healing, as an expression of God’s realm, he tells them to avoid Gentile areas as well as Samaritan communities. They are to stick with Jewish communities. That is, they are to stick with the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The extension of their ministry beyond this community must wait until Jesus' final commission (Matthew 28:16-20). As they go about this harvest ministry, caring for the sheep of Israel who are lost and without shepherds, they are to “cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons.” In other words, they are to embody the ministry of Jesus because this is the kind of work Jesus engaged in. Finally, they are to do this work without expectation of payment. I will leave that one be.

                Getting back to Jesus’ opening comment about lost sheep needing shepherds because they are harassed and helpless, we will be helped in our ministries of an embodied witness if we see this call not as saving sinners but rather in terms of caring for the traumatized in our world. It is a call to provide safety and healing presence to those who have been victimized. For isn’t that what Jesus did in his healing ministry? Isn’t this what Jesus commends the Apostles to engage in? As Anna Case-Winters reminds us, “The pattern Jesus set for the mission of his disciples (then and now) is attentiveness to suffering.” Indeed, as she suggests, inviting us to embrace a broader reading of this passage: “The charge to cure the sick may include all kinds of healing—addressing the full range of things that hurt them or diminish their lives. Raising the dead could include challenging the death-dealing systems and structures and things that crush people and suck the life right out of them.” She adds more possibilities, but the point is well-taken—and to engage in mission today is to do what Jesus did in his own context. [Case-Winters, Matthew: Belief, p. 149].  

Image Attribution: Bruegel, Pieter, approximately 1525-1569. Harvesters, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55749 [retrieved June 6, 2023]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder-_The_Harvesters_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg.