The Harvest Is Plentiful

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All right. God, would you open our hearts, minds, spirits, Lord, to your good news, please. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s read that Scripture one more time.

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest.”

I want to declare over you today that

Jesus still sees. He’s still seeing and hurts with the harassed and the helpless, and he’s still sending us on his mission of hope, healing, and liberating love.

I recently—I was gone for a couple of weeks—and I recently had this opportunity to go to Houston for the first time and to listen to one of my theological heroes, N. T. Wright. And there were about 700 people as he went through Romans 12 through 16.

I don’t know if you know N. T. Wright. You may have seen him and not known you’ve seen him, or heard him and not known you’ve heard him. But he’s this older British gentleman who has contributed—he’s one of the leading theologians of the 20th and 21st century, and he has impacted me very much.

The reason our church is called New Creation Albuquerque is based on what he’s shown me about Scripture and about the gospel: that it’s not just the transformation of a human heart, but all of creation is being renewed and restored.

New heavens, new earth, new creation. If anyone is in Christ, there’s new creation.

And so it was a privilege to get to see him. And I was invited there by a man who basically said, “Hey, if you can get there, I’ll pay for everything else,” which is awesome. And this guy knew the organizer of the event.

And so we got a call a day into that conference that, “Hey, would you like to have breakfast with Tom?”

His friends call him Tom. N. T. Wright. And you’re friends? Welcome. That’s me. Really? That’s awesome.

So this wasn’t like a breakfast, you know, with 50 of his closest friends sitting around a table where he was over here. It was like me, my friend, another guy, and Tom—N. T. Wright. Dr. Tom.

And so we got to have breakfast. I had eggs, and he ordered marmalade, right? He got marmalade, and I got to sit with him. And it was this awesome experience.

Now, I tell you this because, for me, it’s really good news. Like, it’s something that really impacted me and is really exciting, and I’ve been working it into every conversation, pretty much. You probably already heard the story, naturally and unnaturally.

I think it’s so cool that I got to meet N. T. Wright and have breakfast and have scrambled eggs with him. And so this is a natural thing to do as a human being, because when we’re excited about something and we have good news that we’re excited about, we can’t help but share it.

And so I want to ask us a question this morning: When is the last time you shared the good news of God’s kingdom with somebody?

And I want to ask you another question: What comes up for you when I ask that question? What stirs in you?

Maybe nothing does. Maybe you do it often and easily. But for a lot of us, something does come up.

Maybe it’s shame. Shame at the way the gospel has been weaponized, right, in our culture and in history, at the cringeworthy ways it has been shoved down people’s throats.

And we don’t want a part of that, so we shrink back.

Maybe it’s confusion or a sense of unworthiness. “I don’t have the words. I don’t know what to say. What if they come back with a question and I can’t answer it?”

We feel ill-equipped, or we don’t feel worthy, that we don’t have anything to offer.

Maybe it’s fear. Fear of the resistance or the rejection or the awkwardness. We might get sidelined, lose kind of status or respect. We might be categorized as a fanatic or one of those kinds of Christians that isn’t really spreading good news in the world.

And so I want to be honest with you: I have the same struggle. I have not shared about Jesus as naturally and unnaturally as I have my breakfast with N. T. Wright, okay? And there’s a lot of reasons for that.

So whatever you’re feeling right now, you’re not alone in it, I don’t believe.

But here’s what Jesus is saying in Matthew 9 and 10: The good news of a good God, whose kingdom is healing and liberating people, has come.

The kingdom of God has come. It’s here. And it’s worth sharing.

Jesus is saying, “This is worth sharing. This is good news. This is revolutionary stuff.”

It’s worth sharing with our mouths, with our lives. Jesus himself gave his life for this message, driven by a compassion felt deep in his guts. At risk to himself, he proclaimed boldly, “God is good. The kingdom of a good God is here. It’s at hand.”

And he looks at his disciples—ordinary, not-yet-ready, figuring-it-out people—and he says, “Look at these people. Look at your own life. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”

But Jesus seems to say that the problem isn’t that people are sharing badly, but that nobody is sharing.

Jesus still sees and hurts with the harassed and hurting. He’s still sending us on mission, a mission of hope, healing, and liberating love.

I want to unpack this text. And I will acknowledge, last week we talked about several verses ahead of this, and as I was praying and thinking through the week, I was like, “We need to hit pause. We need to hit rewind.”

This whole text, chapter 10, is Jesus sending and equipping and training his disciples to proclaim a really good message. And so we need to go back. So we’re going back.

And our text today is a preamble of a speech that Jesus gives, a teaching, a training that he gives his 12 disciples before he sends them out to do what he did and to say what he said—a message. He gives them the message he proclaimed.

And Jesus is driving home one thing: The kingdom of God has arrived. It is here. It has shown up. And that’s really, really good news. It’s worth sharing.

So verse 35. Jesus—this is what he’s doing. He’s going through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, right, the Jewish places of worship, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.

We’ll unpack that a little bit more later, but notice Jesus’ message has words. It’s a verbal declaration, and we have to use our tongues, right? We have to use our words. We have to use speech to declare the good news.

But it’s not only words. He also demonstrates the kingdom.

Words explain and proclaim. Works demonstrate and realize. They give people an actual experience of this good news, the kingdom of God.

So the gospel is good news for the whole person, all of creation. It’s not just a detached—it’s not an unembodied news. It’s an embodied news. It’s good for the whole person and needs to be talked about and shared. It needs to be lived out and demonstrated.

All right. Verse 36: “When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Jesus is always revealing a God who sees. Not just observes, right? Not just observes. But this is a God who sees.

He sees you. He sees us right now. And he saw the people then, the crowds, and he sees pain. He sees confusion. He sees external forces pressing down on people and crushing them economically and physically. He sees the sin. He sees the backbreaking pain. He sees the hunger.

He sees the crowds. He sees them harassed and helpless, sheep without a shepherd. Sheep without direction. We’re going somewhere but nowhere all at once. They don’t know. They’re undirected. They’re headed towards destruction. They’re limping around.

And when he sees like this, the word used, translated “compassion,” is here.

I cannot pronounce that. That’s the Greek.

This is not a polite, detached sympathy, all right? This is not observing from a distance and having pity on somebody. This is a visceral, physical, gut-wrenching response to suffering.

This word means that you are moved in your bowels, right? You’re upset. It’s gut-wrenching. God—Jesus has a physical response to the harassed and helpless crowds that he sees, these lost sheep without a shepherd.

And this word appears in the Gospels 12 times, and it’s always in reference to Jesus seeing. And in all 11 other times, Jesus is moved with compassion and he meets a need. He touches and heals. He creates. He feeds the 5,000. He meets a need in response to this empathy and this compassion.

This is the first time. This is the only time in all of those instances where he responds with this: When he sees, he responds with sending, not acting on his own.

Now, he just saw—he’s healing, he’s healing. He’s going from villages and towns. But in this instance, he sees these crowds and he sees the multitude of the need, and it’s almost like he stands at the edge of all history, right? He can see everywhere, all at once, the crowds, humanity lost and helpless and harassed.

And he says, “You guys got to go. I’m sending you. Let’s go. Let’s go.”

He sends. He sees the suffering. He hurts with the hurting. And he says, “We need to go. Let’s go.”

So verse 37 and 38—and I want you to hear this with, I believe, Jesus said this with passion. This isn’t, like, straight-faced.

Remember, he’s physically moved. He says, “The harvest is plentiful. Look at the need. But the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into the harvest field.”

I think Jesus still sees, right? He still sees every person. This message is the same today as it was 2,000 years ago.

Jesus is still seeing. He sees every person in every corner, every brothel, every war zone, every home abandoned by parents, every child going to bed hungry, every spouse hurt by betrayal.

He sees it all.

He sees people who have made all the money and have retired early and still feel directionless, purposeless, and unsatisfied.

He sees it.

He sees people with all the beauty and all the physical talents and all the career success and all the status, still empty, still grasping for meaning.

They’re helpless. They’re harassed. They’re confused. They’re like sheep without a shepherd. They’re desperately in need of the good news of a good God whose kingdom has arrived.

A kingdom that brings hope and healing and liberation and significance and purpose and belonging.

A kingdom and a good news that brings people back into relationship with their Creator, with one another, with their families, with their children, with their grandchildren.

I heard a story on NPR this week, driving in my car. It’s about kids in Gaza, survivors of this continuous war. And it was about soccer. We’re in the World Cup, and it was about the power of soccer in these kids’ lives to give them a sense of purpose, a sense of healing, belonging.

It gives these children who are traumatized by war—they’re alone, they’re grieving—and they interview this one boy who is 13 years old.

And he began to share. And it starts, he says, “I saw three of my friends killed by a bomb.”

And that night, me and my friends, we didn’t talk. We just went to the soccer field and we played for hours, and we cried as we kicked the ball and we ran and we sweat.

They grieved.

And the boy said this. He said, “Soccer is everything. Soccer is life. Without soccer, I have no meaning.”

I think what this child needs to know is that soccer is not life.

Soccer is not his hope or his healing. Rather, soccer is a really good gift given by a really good God that sees him.

This boy needs to know that he’s seen.

This God knows the hairs on this little boy’s head and his friends’ heads, and he knows every tear he’s cried.

He needs to know that this kingdom of God says, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek. They will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and justice. They will be satisfied.”

He needs to know this.

He needs to know that blessed are the merciful, not the vengeful, for they will receive mercy.

He needs to know.

He needs the good news of the kingdom. He needs to know that he’s seen and loved, and that this God can heal him and give him purpose and give him meaning.

And not only him, his friends and his nation and the whole cosmos.

He needs to know the kingdom of God. The good news.

And I wonder, how will he know if no one tells him?

Romans 10:13 says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

That’s good news.

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?”

As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?”

This boy, your children, your neighbors, your coworkers, your mothers, your fathers, your grandparents, your friends—they need your beautiful feet.

They need people who bring good news, who will answer God’s call and go and speak and share and demonstrate, words and deeds, words and works, the kingdom of God.

So we’re going to jump into this the next couple of weeks.

I do want to say, people have done this really poorly.

There have been abuses. There have been overreaches of power. Christians now and throughout history have used this message of the kingdom to advance their own kingdoms, to dominate, to conquer, to hold on to power and privilege.

And seeing that, many of us have shrunk back.

We don’t want any part of that. At least I hope you don’t. I don’t.

But the world desperately needs Jesus. The world desperately needs this message. The world needs the kingdom of God.

So the problem is not the proclamation. I think the problem is the posture in which we proclaim. The problem is the how. But the problem is not the message.

The message is good news.

The message people are desperate for.

Several years ago, when we first moved into our neighborhood, I was at B’s restaurant at Wyoming and Zuni, right up the street from our church building. And I was with several other pastors from the neighborhood.

It was one of the first times we’d all gotten together, and we were at this breakfast table, and everyone’s getting to know each other, kind of feeling each other out.

And our server comes up, and she’s kind. She starts to take our order.

But then something super awkward started to happen.

I don’t have my reason—I have my guesses—but why this happened? But they all kind of started competing with each other to share the gospel with her, and they were, like, tripping over each other, trying to share the gospel and to convert her.

They’re interrupting each other. They’re trying to ask her if she knew Jesus. “If you die tonight, do you know where you would go?”

And she’s—they’re not listening. And I just see her, like, she’s trying to say, “Yes, yes, I know Jesus,” but they’re not listening. They wouldn’t accept it. They wouldn’t hear her.

And I was mortified.

I was embarrassed. I was—I still struggle with it. I don’t meet with them still, so, yeah.

Anyways, it’s things like this that have made me shrink back, all right? Because my behavior towards people, I have realized, is sometimes dictated by wanting to be so unlike those pastors that I’ve missed opportunities to speak hope and healing authentically and naturally and specifically and boldly.

But I want to see. I want to see.

I don’t want to shrink back. I want to be moved with compassion. I want people to know the good news. I want to show it.

Jesus still sees and hurts with the harassed and hurting, and he’s still sending a people. He still looks out and sees the harvest, and he says, “The workers are so few. Let’s go. Let’s go with this mission, this mission of hope and healing, liberating love.”

And so I’m excited to learn from Jesus and to be challenged and be re-invited into this.

So we’re going to do that in the coming weeks.

But this is what I would like to harvest land and to start with: I’d like you to answer, who is one person in your life—a neighbor, a coworker, a family member—that Jesus sees and hurts for?

What would it look like to simply be present with them this week and let his compassion move through you toward them?

I’m not asking you to have words yet, okay? But I’m asking you to once again be opened up.

I want you to see, and I want you to feel. And I want you to ask Jesus to give you the compassion, the gut-wrenching compassion, to see that person that’s harassed and in need of good news.

Can we stand and say this prayer together in response to this good news?

This is a prayer prayed by the church for a few hundred years. It gives us good words to proclaim the good news that Jesus is on the move.

Let me read it for us so that you know what you’re praying, and then we’ll pray it together.

So:

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near. Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you. Bring the nations into your fold. Pour out your Spirit upon all flesh, and hasten the coming of your kingdom through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

Can you pray that?

Let’s pray together.

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near. Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you. Bring the nations into your fold. Pour out your Spirit upon all flesh, and hasten the coming of your kingdom through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen. Amen.