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A Harvest Of Souls

In modern American society, most of us no longer work in agriculture. The vast majority of us are not farmers or ranchers. Yet our Lord calls all of us to be farmers, spiritual farmers that is. We are called to plant the seeds of the Gospel: seeds that will produce a harvest of souls. As we read the Gospel let us ask the Lord to open our eyes to all the spiritual fields surrounding us that are in need of toil: waiting for us to plant and harvest them.

The Harvest Is Great, The Laborers Few

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity. These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And preach as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without pay, give without pay. Matthew 9:35 – 10:1, 5A, 6-8

Scriptural Analysis

Matthew opens this section of his Gospel by recording how Jesus was moved with compassion (or pity) at the sight of the crowds. The people lacked leaders to guide them and could rightfully be compared to sheep without a shepherd. This imagery of the shepherd harkens back to Ezekiel. In chapter 34, Ezekiel uses the image of sheep without a shepherd to describe the suffering of God’s people caused by the corruption of the leaders of the day, “Shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep.” (Ezekiel 34:2)

Later Ezekiel foretells how God himself will come to shepherd his sheep, “Myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when some of his sheep have been scattered abroad, so will I seek out my sheep; and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.” (Ezekiel 11-12) Matthew’s usage of this imagery is not at all accidental. He intended to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of Ezekial’s prophecy.

Jesus then says that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. He encourages his disciples to pray for new leaders to be raised up, so that laborers can be sent out into the harvest. In response to this problem, Jesus appoints twelve Apostles. This number twelve is intentional, designed to recall the twelve tribes of Israel. Matthew highlights how these twelve apostles were given authority from Jesus. Note that Matthew has already established Jesus’s authority in chapters five through nine of his Gospel. That authority is now being extended to the apostles.

Jesus sends them out with instructions to focus their efforts on the Jewish population. He tells them not to go into pagan or Samaritan territory. This priority demonstrates how God is faithful to his people. The people of the covenant are the first to hear the Gospel. The exhortation to go to the lost sheep of Israel recalls Jesus’s thoughts on the crowd he had seen.

These twelve will now serve as shepherds. They are to do what the leaders of Israel should have been doing. They are instructed to proclaim the same message spoken by both John the Baptist as well as Jesus. They are to proclaim that the Kingdom of God is at hand. They are also to bring down the power of the kingdom to tend to the needs of the sick, the lepers, and those afflicted by demons.

Daily Application

In the story in Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew lays before us a stark comparison between the religious leader of the time and Jesus. s[pecifically with regards as to how they see the people. The religious leaders saw the people as the chaff to be destroyed and burned up. Jesus saw the people as ones to be saved: a crop ready to be harvested. The Pharisees, in their arrogance, looked for the destruction of the sinner. Jesus, in his love, looked for the salvation of the sinner.

However, in order for Jesus to save the people, to harvest the crop so to speak, he needs laborers. Jesus needs people to assist him in his mission of salvation. Aside from his family’s flight to Egypt, Jesus never left Palestine. Yet there is an entire world in need of salvation, in need of the Gospel. Jesus needs us to spread his message to the ends of the earth.

Spreading the Gospel is not an optional activity that we can choose to participate in if we have time or if we feel like it. Pope Saint John Paul II tells us that:

The Church’s fundamental function in every age and particularly in ours is to direct man’s gaze, to point the awareness and experience of the whole of humanity towards the mystery of God, to help all men to be familiar with the profundity of the Redemption taking place in Christ Jesus. Redemptor Hominis 12

In this passage, when John Paul II talks about Church, he is not referring merely to the institutional Church. Rather, he means the body of Christ which is made up of all of its members. We are all called to be laborers and spread the Gospel message.

Now, That does not mean we are all called to be missionaries that travel to some distant land and share the Good News. It is quite possible and indeed very much desirable for many of us to remain just where we are and evangelize the surrounding community. Once again, the temptation we have is to think of the community as people we don’t know. While it is certainly good to reach out to those people, evangelization starts with the people we do know.

Start within your own family making sure any children God has blessed you with have received the Gospel. Our friends should also be those that we share the Gospel with. Again, if we have children, their friends’ families are also another possible field for us to tend to. Of course, there is also the field of our jobs for us to tend to.

Finally, don’t fall into the trap of assuming evangelization has to be grand. We are not all called to be like John the Baptist loudly proclaiming in the streets. Our planting may be as simple as praying in silence before we eat when we are out to lunch. It could be making the sign of the cross in the car as the ambulance goes by. The seeds we plant, our Lord tells us, can be as tiny as the mustard seed. We just need to be prepared for that seed to grow, for those people to turn to us when they are ready to dive deeper into the faith and help bring in the harvest.

Jesus calls us to farm: to plant the seeds of the Gospel and reap a bountiful harvest. If that is truly going to happen then each and every one of us must be engaged. There is someone that each and every one of us knows, that needs to hear the Gospel. As we continue to prepare for the coming of Jesus this advent, let us ask him to show us that person and give us the courage to share Christ with them.

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