A Harvest Of Compassion

June 18, 2023

Rev. Mary Erickson

Hope Lutheran Church

Matthew 9:35-10:8

A Harvest of Compassion

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Harvest is a demanding time. Some crops, like fruit or vegetables, have a very narrow window of time when they can be picked. We’re in strawberry season right now. There’s nothing like those field ripened strawberries, yum! The strawberry season doesn’t last very long, but while it’s here, we take full advantage of it. Picking strawberries demands that you get down low. If you want to enjoy those sweet berries, then you have to stoop over or get down on your knees to pick them. It’s very physical.

If you purchase your strawberries from a local stand, you don’t see the all field hands who come in to help with this very special season. When the strawberries are ripe, they need picking right now! Strawberries can’t be picked with a machine. They need to be picked by hand. So many field hands are needed to bring in that harvest.

Jesus uses a lot of agricultural metaphors to describe the reign of God. He lived in a agricultural society, so he spoke in terms the people of his day could relate to. Our gospel reading today includes two different agricultural metaphors, one with livestock and the other with crops. Jesus looks at the masses of people he encounters and they’re like helpless sheep without a shepherd to care for them.

In English class, I was always taught not to mix metaphors. But Matthew must have skipped that class, because he has no trouble at all switching from sheep to crop harvesting.

What ties both images together is NEED. The people, like sheep, need a shepherd. And the need for the harvest is right now. Plenty of hands are needed.

So there’s need. But there’s also compassion. Compassion is what motivates Jesus. As he goes about his ministry, he sees so much suffering. The people he meets are suffering, they’re harassed, they’re helpless.

Compassion, that’s what Jesus feels for them. Our word compassion means literally “to suffer with.” When we see someone languishing in some way, we feel their pain, we suffer with them.

The Greek word for compassion means literally “to have your guts move.” You know what that is. It’s that gut-wrenching feeling you get when you see someone else suffer or struggle. It’s like a gut punch.

That’s what Jesus feels when he sees so much suffering all around him. He feels their pain. There’s a sense of urgency. They need help now. It’s this urgency that launches the ministry of Jesus’ disciples. More hands are needed! So he sends them out to bring in this harvest, this harvest of compassion.

Today we hear the calling of Jesus’ disciples. We hear the names of the 12 disciples. A few of them we’ve met before. Matthew has told us about the four fishermen, Peter and Andrew, James and John. And we’ve met Matthew the tax collector. For the other seven, this is the first we’ve heard of them in Matthew’s gospel.

Where did they come from? How did Jesus meet them? Their call story must be similar to Peter’s and Matthew’s. Jesus encountered them one on one and invited them into fellowship and ministry. And this is important: those whom Jesus called into a ministry of compassion first received his compassion first-hand.

Last Sunday we heard the call of Matthew. Matthew sat in his tax booth, scorned and cut off as an outcast. But Jesus approached him. Jesus embraced and accepted Matthew with compassion.

In the same way, Jesus earlier had approached Peter and the other fishermen. They personally experienced his loving presence. Peter additionally witnessed Jesus’ tremendous compassion when he healed Peter’s ailing mother-in-law.

Those whom Jesus sends out in ministry are first the recipients of his compassion. Every one of these twelve disciples have experienced Jesus’ love and compassion. And that makes all the difference. They’ve personally been touched by Jesus’ love. Jesus’ compassion has affected and transformed them. They’ve experienced his compassion first hand. So when they go out in mission, that seed of Jesus’ compassion has already been planted within them.

The love of Jesus has filled them and now it extends through them. Jesus sends them out in his compassion.

Jesus sends us as his present-day disciples into his harvest. And nothing has changed since he commissioned his first disciples. He sends us as workers in his harvest of compassion in the world. And he sends us as individuals whom he has first touched with his compassion and love.