Surveying the Harvest

Congregational Council Meeting meditation
by Carrie Eikler
Luke 10:1-3

One of the side effects of pregnancy that isn't as universally known as pickles and ice cream cravings, or hormonal mood swings, is the side effect of sleeplessness. Now this hasn't been too big of a problem for me at night, but it has affected one of my most coveted and highly protected times of my day. Sebastian's naptime.

The equation is simple. Sebastian sleeps, I can sleep. Ask Torin. If I have to miss my naptime with Sebastian, ergo missing my naptime all together…ooo, you better watch out.

My sleeplessness has been hitting me at these important times. Lying in bed after lunch I might snooze five minutes but then I'm awake, staring at the ceiling. This isn't all bad, because it means I've caught up on some reading I've been meaning to do. As I lay in bed, refusing to get up and do something "productive," I force myself to continue resting and read. My most recent book is one that I've been meaning to read since it came out last year. Do you ever read one of those books that when you are done, so much of your life is filtered through what you've just read?

Well, that book for me has been Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction book about the author's attempt with her family to eat only produce and meats that were grown within a 100 mile radius of her Virginia farm. Most of this food came from their own garden, and the rest supplemented by farmer's markets and other local economies. It was an experiment in becoming "locavores."

Now you may not have heard of a locavore, and where they rank with the more common carnivore, and omnivore, and herbivore. A locavore is a new word that has recently been coined, and actually was voted 2007 Oxford Dictionary word of the year. Locavores are people who try to eat as locally as possible. Kingsolver's attempt to be as “locavorious” as possible brings to her reader's attention the impacts of our current industrial food model on our environment, our relationships, and our health. She also uplifts the joys and challenges of reconnecting a disconnected people with the earth, and the satisfaction of enjoying one's own food.

As I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in tandem with preparing for a meditation for today's worship, I came across the perfect scripture. Actually, I came across the perfect scripture that was misquoted by Kingsolver. She reflected on the bountiful harvest season of mid-summer: "By mid-month, we were getting a dozen tomatoes a day, that many cucumbers, our first eggplants, and squash in unmentionable quantities. A friend arrived one morning as I was tag-teaming with myself to lug two, full bushel-baskets of produce into the house. He pronounced a biblical benediction: 'The harvest is bountiful and the labors few.’ I agreed, of course, but the truth is, I still had to go back to the garden that morning to pull about 200 onions — our year's supply…The harvest was bountiful and the labors were blooming endless."

Knowingly or not, Kingsolver's friend, while perhaps aptly surveying the situation, said that "the harvest is bountiful and the labors few." Well, as we have heard this Lukan scripture read today, as Kingsolver's exasperation indicates, and as all of us who have done the work of the church, or the work of the garden, or the work of any good cause can attest to…the harvest is certainly bountiful, but it is the laborers, that are few, not the labors. The labors are many. The labors are overwhelming. The labors are…laborious.

When I told both Cindy Lewellen and Torin what our scripture was going to be today, they both laughed. I'll admit, it is sort of funny to bring to the business meeting of a small congregation the scripture of Jesus sending out seventy newly appointed disciples into the world, like lambs into the midst of wolves. But I don’t mean for it to be funny. I don't mean to just say that there is much work to be done and not enough of us to do it. I don’t mean to just say that even though there are few laborers, God sends us out into the harvest anyway. I don’t mean to just say those trite little interpretations.

I mean to say all of that… and. I mean to say that the complexity of a ministry in a world in which there is so much that needs to be done, so much that can be done, so many more places to reach out to than our energy, and numbers, and money can support…all of that, it is not unique to us.

When Jesus sent out the seventy, two by two, he admitted this was the way. If you want to do my work, it won't be easy. Jesus sent each pair out to the towns that he himself would go. They were meant to pave the way, to prepare the people, to give a glimpse of what was to come.

It can seem like the way would be easier if we were a bigger church with more members, more money, more recognition. But I bet that even the biggest churches, with thousands of people, and huge popularity, aren't content that they are doing all they could do. I bet that each individual here, wonders what more they could do, and also wonders where they will get the energy and time to do it.

The harvest is bountiful, and the laborers few. I don't think it's meant to be a fatalistic prediction-that somehow we can keep trying and trying and the work will never be done. But it does call us to know ourselves, to know our harvest, to know our laborers. And it does call us to ask the Lord of the harvest to send us out into the fields.

Our laborers are not the same as another church's. The harvest is plentiful, but perhaps the field is different. What works for the industrial organic growers of California who will send their produce 1500 plus miles across the country will not work for the small gardens of the West Virginia hillside that supply the farmer's market.

The harvest is bountiful, and the laborers few. It is not a prediction, but an understanding. God understands who we are, and what we have to work with. And God says that doesn't matter. What matters, is how we are going to give a glimpse of Good News. It's not a matter of numbers, either membership or monetary. It's a matter of doing the work we are each called to do, with the vision and abilities and means we each have.

It’s about letting the little ones dig up the potatoes, and the tall ones stretch up to get the highest pole beans. It’s about surveying our harvest, surveying ourselves, and asking how can we do this the best we can. Some onions may be left to rot in the ground and some tomatoes may never be canned. But we keep going back out into the harvest, learning more about who we are, and how we can be the most faithful laborers for the work of God that we can be…being faithful stewards of God’s harvest.

The harvest is bountiful, and the laborers few. It’s not a resignation. It is an invitation. It is now time for us to respond to the invitation as we ask ourselves “what is our field?” “who are our laborers?” “what can we give?” The answer doesn’t need to be spectacular or far reaching. It only needs to be honest, and faithful.