Pentecost 6

Pentecost 6 (Luke 10:1-11: 16-20)
The harvest is plentiful.

The Son of God came to Earth to bring salvation.

He did many other things in the process. He healed people. He fed them. He comforted the afflicted. He challenged the abuse of religious authority. He taught the Bible. He performed amazing miracles. Preeminently, he came to save souls.

The salvation Jesus brought was not the salvation people were looking for. It was the salvation proclaimed by Moses and the prophets. It was not the salvation the religious and nationalist leaders of the day expected.

They observed that God had delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt at the hand of Moses. God had united the twelve tribes under a single king at the hand of Saul and David. The Kingdom of Israel reached its peak of military and economic power under David’s son, Solomon. Then, the leadership failed and it was all downhill from there.

A closer reading of Moses and the prophets reveals a more complete picture. The picture reveals the pride, self will and fear that define all humanity. The Bible is a record of centuries of observation of the human condition. Despite the many different people who wrote the books of the Bible over the course of a thousand years, their conclusion about the human condition is consistent.

The Biblical writers observe that the great problem facing humanity is separation from God. This is what traditional Christian theology terms: original sin.
The Biblical writers observe that actual sin, called “transgression” is a consequence of original sin.

The Biblical writers assert the hypothesis that human beings are not only incapable of finding God by our own efforts but that we actually do everything we can to hide from God. Religious people hide from God in the laws and rituals of religions. Non- religious people hide from God in the intellectual constructs of philosophy or in the elaborate mythologies of science.

This is why God declares the first commandment to be: I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods but me.

This is why God reveals his name is: I am. God is not and cannot be defined by human created religion, philosophy or science. God is who God is. God is God’s own person.
This is why God visited this planet some two thousand years ago in the person of Jesus Christ.

The Bible observes the human condition is lost, broken, and rebellious. The Bible sets forth the principle that a lost humanity needs a savior who is both Divine, untouched by original sin, and human, fully and completely involved in the human condition with the sole exception of sin.

For centuries God worked with one family, the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God changed Jacob’s name to Israel. The name Jacob means “cheater”. The name Israel can mean “Prince of God,” or, “he who strives with God”.

In those centuries Moses and the prophets worked to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. In the fullness of time the Messiah came. In the course of time the people developed distorted ideas and expectations about the Messiah. That is why they did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

Jesus knew this distorted expectation was also part of the fallen human condition. As people time and time again rejected the God whose name is “I am” and recreated gods and goddesses to suit their needs and desires, so the people who met Jesus chose not to see the fullness of who he was, the fullness of who he is.

Nevertheless, Jesus came into the world to save the world. He did not come to favor one nation or race over all others. He did not come to condemn. He came to trap sin and death in his own body. He came to die. He came to transform sin and death back into love and life. He was only able to do this because he is both man and God.

Jesus fulfilled the Plan of Salvation on the cross in a single moment of time that encompasses all of human history: past, present and future.

Jesus sent out seventy of his students to proclaim the Good News of God’s Kingdom. The Good News is that God himself is reaching out to everyone everywhere. The Good News is that harvest of souls is plentiful. The abundance of the Kingdom of God is the rich diversity of humanity. The Good News is that God just doesn’t have love or show love, God is love.

The harvest is the human species stretching across time and throughout the world. The harvest is rich in diversity. The harvest is plentiful.

What Jesus observes is that while the harvest is plentiful the laborers are few. There have always been a limited number of people willing to share the Good News of God’s love in Jesus Christ. Jesus understands this.

One of the great obstacles for Christians to share the Good News is fear. Some of us fear rejection. Some of us fear failure. Some of fear our own inadequacy. Jesus’ answer to all of these fears is faith.

Faith is assurance and evidence. Faith is not about religion. Faith is about the trust we develop in Jesus as we draw close to him.
There are three urgent commands to Christians in the gospel reading this morning. The commands are to pray, to ask and to send.

Whether or not our faith is sufficient for us to share the Good News of God’s love in Jesus Christ with other people, Jesus still invites us to pray.
There are three basic forms of prayer: intercession, meditation, and contemplation. Intercession is about asking God for something. Jesus instructs us to set the priority for our intercessions on Evangelism.

Everyone can pray. So, Jesus starts to apply the Plan of Salvation to those who believe in him by inviting us to pray. Jesus very specifically instructs us to pray for evangelism. Jesus wants us to value what he values. What he values most is the salvation of souls. So, he asks to us to pray that the Lord of the Harvest, God the Holy Spirit, would infuse the desire for evangelism into many who call themselves Christians.

Jesus asks us to pray that as the Holy Spirit cultivates the desire for evangelism in the souls of believers He would also send those believers into the world to share the Good News of God’s love in Jesus Christ. The pattern of evangelism is always the same. It starts within our families and circle of friends. It expands into our community. It extends to all the world.

Jesus sent the seventy only to towns in Israel. The people in those towns already knew about Moses and the prophets. They all spoke the same language, ate the same foods, wore the same kind of clothes, sang the same songs, and played the same games. They were open to religious discussion and familiar with a religious vocabulary. It was a relatively safe training ground to prepare the disciples for the greater task to come.

Jesus was perfectly honest. Not everyone would receive them or the message. Some people and some entire towns would reject them. Jesus encouraged the seventy by telling them this would happen. He prepared them by giving them advice on how to handle rejection. He told them to move on.

Jesus never authorizes us to argue or fight about the Plan of Salvation. He never even suggests we should debate matters of religion. His command is to share the Good News. If people are open to discussion then continue the discussion. If people are offended then step back. If people reject the message then respect their choice and move on to share the Good News with some one else.

We are laborers. The Holy Spirit is the Lord of the Harvest. Our job is to share the message. It is the Holy Spirit who works in human hearts and minds and wills to produce the result.

How does this make a difference to us? Jesus has set all of us and each of us a goal. We can help him achieve the goal through general prayer, through focused intercession and through action. Which aspect of the Plan of Salvation can you participate in today as Jesus instructs us here at this time and in this place to pray for the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest? The Harvest is plentiful.