As you probably know I’m a big fan of the NFL. Of course you know I’m a huge Dallas Cowboy fan. Three weeks into the season I’m just glad that they have a winning record so far. But last Monday night on Monday night football the Green Bay Packers came to Soldier Field to play the Chicago Bears. But this wasn’t the historic Soldier Field that has seen so many big victories and had some great Bears teams that played there, including 1985 Super Bowl shuffle addition. This was a brand new state of the art stadium and it was the first game played in it. For those fans who went there to see a Bears victory they left extremely disappointed. But that wasn’t the only problem. Apparently some of the concourses and ramps leading to the cheap seats were made way too narrow. And it almost turned into a mob scene. The Chicago Sun-Times described it this way: “No movement. No way out. People were body to body coming from four different directions into one area. It was fear and near-panic, with one woman crying, dozens of people screaming.” It went on to say, “SportService workers delivering food to the upper-deck concession stands gave up, stood next to a stack of sausages on a dolly and shook their heads.” One security guard said, “I don’t like this. What if there’s a problem? There’s nothing we can do. We could have another E2 nightclub here.” E2 is a club in Chicago where in February crowds mashed together unable to get out the door and 21 people were killed. There were several people in the logjam at the Bears game with that memory in mind chanting E2! E2! E2!
When we have instances like that it’s one reason why some people refuse to go places where there are large crowds. Some people do everything they can to avoid crowds. When I used to work third shift in a grocery store I had faithful customers who would always come in the wee hours of the morning simply because they wanted to avoid crowds. I don’t mind crowds except when it’s like what happened at Soldier’s Field. But when you are in the midst of a crowd what do you see? Do you ever look at the people you are surrounded by and wonder what’s going in their life? Do you find yourself making assumptions by something you hear them say or something they are wearing? During Jesus’ ministry he was often times surrounded by large crowds. What did Jesus see when He was out among the crowds? Today in our scriptures He is among the crowds and the scriptures give us a picture of what He saw among the crowds.
Matthew 9:35-38
What did Jesus see when he was among the crowds? He saw people in need. It tells us that when Jesus saw the crowds he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. There were so many in the crowds that were hurt and in so many ways they were helpless. They were lacking someone in their life to lead them down the right path. I have no doubt today that if Jesus were here physically today that if he went to a place with a crowd, whether it be a mall or a large metropolitan street, that he would see much the same thing that he saw then. There are people in need. By people in need I don’t just mean in a financial sense. There are people who are living their life and they are just lost. They don’t have a clue and they have no real leader in their life. But when we are among those same crowds do we see what Jesus sees or are we too busy with our own lives and our own agendas to see what we really need to see. Jesus was filled with compassion when he saw the needs. But this wasn’t a one time deal here. Jesus wasn’t just having an emotional day and in his emotional state he all of a sudden realized the need and emptiness in the people around them. Having compassion on the people in need spiritually and physically was a routine part of Jesus’ life. Time and time again throughout scriptures we are told that Jesus had compassion on them. In Mark 6:34 the scriptures said, “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” But what makes this one extraordinary is that Jesus’ day with the Apostles and crowds had been intense. So intense that they had not even had a chance to eat. So Jesus says to the disciples, “Come on lets go off by ourselves to somewhere it quiet and get some rest.” So they grabbed their boat got in it and went to find that quiet place to rest. But when they got to the place they were looking for a crowd of people had already gathered. Many of them somehow knew where they were headed and ran on foot and beat them to the place they were going. Now if I was Jesus I would have said, “listen people I’ve given you everything I can right now. I’m tired and I’m hungry. Give us a little down time and I will be back to help you.” But the scriptures said, “When he saw the large crowd he had compassion on them.” Jesus didn’t even let his own weariness stop him from seeing the need among the crowds. He didn’t let his weariness stop him from doing what he could to meet those needs. Yet so many times we let what is going on with us make us blind to the needs in the crowd around us. Sometimes we become so absorbed in our needs and struggles that we don’t even realize that there is a crowd around us. There are times as a pastor when I’ve had a full day whether it’s been preaching or whether it’s been dealing with a difficult situation and I want to go home and just not answer the phone or my door. And I see what Jesus did here and boy, do I feel selfish. But I honestly feel like when you are tired it’s so easy to turn your eyes inward and not see the needs around you. But the problem is, even when we aren’t consumed with being weary and tired from our own lives problems, we often times do not open our spiritual eyes to the needs around us. The church will never be all that it can be until we see the crowds as Jesus did here. Until we can stand among the crowds and feel the hurt and pain in our society, until we can stand among them see them through Jesus’ eyes instead of our own judgmental attitude. To be honest: That’s why a lot of people do not want to have anything to do with church and God because they see and feel the judgmental attitudes that we have as Christians. Christ was able to minister to the prostitutes and people of the streets because he was able to see them for who they were intended to be and not what they had allowed themselves to become. Until we can look at people in the same way we are going to have a hard time breaking through and making a difference. What Jesus saw in the crowd was people in need. But what do you see?
In verse 37 Jesus said to his disciples, “The Harvest is plentiful…” We will complete the rest of what he said in a little bit. Jesus referring to the crowds says the harvest is plentiful. What did Jesus see in the crowd? A Harvest for the Kingdom. I believe that Jesus was trying to open the eyes of his own disciples to the fact that within the crowds that they stood was a great opportunity to harvest souls for his Father’s kingdom. We see it not only here, but over in the gospel of John as well. Jesus had just spent time talking to the Samaritan at the well. She was a woman who many today would have given up on and instead of having a burden for her many of us would have most likely made her a topic of conversation. She had been married five times and was living with someone who she wasn’t married to. When the disciples came on the scene after the lady had left, they offered Jesus food. And Jesus responded, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” In laymen’s terms Jesus was saying quit making excuses. In four months the field will be ready, look now, they are ripe and ready for the harvest now. We look at the crowds of people, we look at those people that we are surrounded by everyday in our jobs and other places and we say they aren’t ready yet. They aren’t ready to hear the gospel. When the truth is we need to stop making excuses and realize that we have a harvest among us that is ready to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to realize that there are people all around waiting to be harvested into the kingdom. We need to stop making excuses and do the work of the Father. But it’s only through looking through the eyes of Christ that we see the people around us as an opportunity for a harvest. Joshua Dunagan is a fourteen year old who went on a missions trip to Singapore. They were visiting a Buddist temple and he said, “It shocked me to see so many “normal looking people” bowing down to such weird looking idols! He went on to say, “As we stood and quietly watched from the back of the temple, I was so thankful that I didn’t have to worship some stupid statue. After a couple of minutes, a temple worker walked into the glass idol case and started dusting off the idols-right in front of everybody! I thought, ’How could these people worship a god that has to be dusted?!” He later said the entire outreach was a great eye-opener for me. From witnessing to taxi-drivers next to massive Asian skyscrapers, to passing out Bibles in a small Malaysian fishing village, I saw for myself that people everywhere really need Jesus!” This young boy had his spiritual eyes opened that there are a lot of normal looking people who need Jesus. There are a lot of normal looking people who are filling their lives with stupid things like idols that have to be dusted. Don’t we have people doing that here? We have people who devote themselves to television regularly and spend more time with that than anything. Yet it has to dusted. But if you took that television out of their life they wouldn’t know what to do. Just because a person may look normal doesn’t mean that they aren’t in need of Jesus Christ in their life. The crowd that Jesus and his disciples looked upon I imagine were a very normal looking crowd for that culture. Yet there was a deep need for a shepherd. They were lost inside. There are a lot of normal looking people in our society here in America that have scars and hurt and pain and they don’t know where to turn and they don’t know what to do with the pains. They are a ripe harvest for the kingdom of God. Even today they need a shepherd.
When Jesus looked into the crowd and saw the needy people and saw the harvest for God’s kingdom, he also saw something else: A need for more workers! Jesus knew that the needs of the people were so great, but to bring the best harvest for God’s kingdom, workers were needed. When Jesus Christ walked the earth he never left the Palestine area and his voice could reach only so many people. There was a world that needed the gospel. The truth is today that there is more people than ever before that need to not only hear the gospel but to make it apart of their life. There are those who have committed themselves to be prayer warriors for God’s kingdom. And that is good, we need prayer warriors. There are some people because of their physical condition and different things they can’t be a worker who goes out into the fields. But there are too many workers that are more than capable of being workers out in the field who are praying but they aren’t putting action behind their prayers. William Barclay tells a story about Martin Luther and a friend. “The friend was also a monk. They came to an agreement. Luther would go down into the dust and heat of the battle for the Reformation in the world; the friend would stay in the monastery and uphold Luther’s hands in prayer. So they began that way. Then, one night, the friend had a dream. He saw a vast field of corn as big as the world; and one solitary man was seeking to reap it--an impossible and heartbreaking task. Then he caught a glimpse of the reaper’s face; and the reaper was Martin Luther; and Luther’s friend saw the truth in a flash. ‘I must leave my prayers,’ he said, ‘and get to work.’ And so he left his pious solitude, and went down to the world to labour in the harvest.” (The Daily Study Bible Series, The Gospel of Matthew Vol. 1, Westminister Press, pp. 357)
There are a lot of capable reapers who aren’t out in the field reaping. Some fund it with their money, and that is great, all ministry needs money to operate in today’s world. Some people like we said support ministries with their prayers. But there is a lot of people out there who are more than capable of doing both. I believe that God wants all of us to be reapers in the harvest that we have around us. You see the problem with having a great harvest and not enough workers to the work the harvest; There are a lot of crops that would go bad if they aren’t reaped in the right time. You have to pick the crop when it’s ready. If you do not you will lose the crop. In the same sense there is a spiritual harvest going on right now. Some people are ready to receive the gospel more now then at any other time in their life. God’s spirit has been working in their heart and they are ripe for the harvest. But if we don’t have enough workers to work that harvest then that perfect time can come and go and that person may very well be lost to the harvest. We have a great treasure in Christ, but we must not allow ourselves to sit on that treasure and get so caught up with our lives that we fail to let others in on the treasure of Christ. It reminds me what happened in II Kings about four lepers that stayed at the city gate in Samaria. Samaria was under siege from Aram. The famine had become severe. The lepers said if we go into the city there is a famine and we will die. If we stay here we will die. Let’s go over to the enemy camp and surrender. If they spare us then we will live, if they don’t then we will die. So they went to the enemy camp and the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army so they fled it fear. So the lepers walk right in to their camp where they had left their tents and abandoned camp and they ate and drank and carried away silver and gold. Then they made another trip back and enjoyed more of the plunder. Then all of a sudden they realized what they were doing. They hadn’t told the good news to anyone else. Everyone in the city was starving and dying from a famine, but the siege was ended and the army had left and they were enjoying the treasure of what was left behind but hadn’t shared with anyone else. So they went and did the right thing. We as God’s children have been blessed with the treasure of Christ. But there are so many people out there who are having a famine in their life. They are starved for the true meaning of life. They are starved for true happiness and fulfillment. You have it in Christ. Now go and do the right thing.
May we never be in a crowd and look at it the same away again. Christ saw the needs of the people. He saw a harvest for the kingdom. And he saw the need for workers. Pray for workers for the Harvest, and do not be afraid to answer that
