"LABORERS FOR THE HARVEST" - Text: Luke 10:2 (ESV)

"LABORERS FOR THE HARVEST" Saint Titus, Pastor and Confessor January 26, 2020 Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church Glenshaw, Pennsylvania   TEXT: [Jesus] said to [the workers He sent out], "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest"   Luke 10:2 (ESV)            

   When I graduated from the seminary back in 1981, each of our synod's two seminaries were graduating about a hundred candidates a year.  That means that the seminaries provided our church-body with about two hundred new pastors every year.  This past spring both of our seminaries combined graduated a total of seventy-eight candidates.  Now I may not be a genius when it comes to math, but I'm pretty sure that these statistics tell us that today our seminaries are providing our synod with only about thirty-nine percent of the pastors that they provided thirty-eight years ago.  That certainly has an impact on the church at large.  Here in the Pittsburgh region alone there are currently at least five pastoral vacancies that I am aware of, with another three or four looming on the horizon.  Perhaps that's why Pastor Hahn keeps telling me that he won't let me retire!              

"The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few."  These words of Jesus, spoken as He sent out seventy-two workers (in addition to His twelve disciples) to prepare the surrounding towns and villages for His coming, are as true today as they were twenty centuries ago.  Jesus is coming--this time not simply to preach and to accomplish His Gospel of grace, but to reap the harvest of souls that He lived and died to save.  He desires to prepare not only the towns and villages that surround us, but the whole world for His coming again as Judge and King.  Just as was the case in today's Gospel reading, His called and ordained servants are not enough to do the work.  He needs others.  In the Gospel it was seventy-two; today it is many, many more.  But all of this work and all of these "laborers" are an extension of the pastoral office.  As today we remember Saint Titus, Pastor and Confessor, we will pay particular attention to what the Savior has to tell us about the work that needs to be done and how we (at least one of us a pastor and all of us confessors) can be a part of that work.              

Jesus says:  "The harvest is plentiful,"  As Lutherans, we believe that Jesus accomplished the salvation not only of the elect, but of all sinners who ever lived or ever will live.    When Jesus proclaimed from the cross:  "It is finished" (John 19:31), He was saying that everything that needed to be done to make atonement for human sin was in fact done.  There is not a person alive whose sin is not atoned for--not a person alive who is not a candidate for heaven.  That is why the Savior says that "the harvest is plentiful."  It is truly an abundant harvest.  The problem is not that unbelievers are not saved; the problem is that they don't know that they're saved, and so they continue to desperately try in vain to save themselves, rejecting the completed salvation that is offered to them freely.  This is the "harvest" that Jesus seeks to reap through His called "laborers."               And who are these "laborers"?  We so often think of these "laborers" for the Lord's harvest in terms that are far too narrow.  We think, first of all, of the full-time missionaries serving in foreign lands.  Since our own country has become increasingly unchurched and anti-Christian, we might also think of domestic missionaries--those who serve in particular missions right here--people like Pastor McCants and his wife, serving the children of Homewood or Pastor Andrae, serving students from all over the world who have come to Pittsburgh for their education.  We might think a little more broadly and include all professional church workers: pastors, teachers, deaconesses, directors of Christian education.  But the "laborers" are much more than any of this.  The "laborers" are all of us--everyone who is baptized into Christ and bears the name "Christian."             

  How are we to do this?  Are we to quit our jobs and pack up our belongings to head off to a mission field somewhere?  Not necessarily.  One of Martin Luther's often overlooked contributions to Christian theology is the doctrine of vocation.  Luther taught (and we believe) that serving God is not just "religious" people doing "religious" things.  Whatever your calling in life may be, you are serving God by serving your neighbor in that calling.  The doctor, the lawyer, the engineer, the wife and mother who manages a household and raises children, the waitress in the restaurant, the sanitation worker who takes away your garbage--all are performing a service to God by serving his or her neighbor every bit as much (and in many cases even more) than the monk or nun who lives a cloistered life of self-sacrifice and devotion.  If you want to be a "laborer" for the Lord, simply be who you are and do what you are called to do, but do it to God's glory in the service of your neighbor--and do it well.              

One thing that everyone can do is what Jesus encourages us to do in the text:  "Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."  Prayer is always a big part of God's plan for accomplishing what He wants done.  We read in the Psalms:  "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.  Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain" (Psalm 127:1).  Service in the kingdom of Christ must not only be directed toward God; it must also be directed by God.  Committing the work of evangelism to the Lord is a way of acknowledging that it is ultimately "His harvest" and His work, not our own.  He blesses us by giving us the privilege of being a part of it.  And no matter what your vocation in life may be, you can support the work of missions with prayer, encouragement, and financial aid, as the hymn writer puts it:                                     "If you cannot be a watchman, standing high on Zion's wall,                                     Pointing out the path to heaven, off'ring life and peace to all,                                     With your prayers and with your bounties you can do what God commands;                                     You can be like faithful Aaron, holding up the prophet's hands" (Lutheran Service Book #826, stanza 3).        

       The harvest is the Lord's, not ours.  He made it ready by redeeming the lost from sin and death with His perfect life of obedience and His sacrificial suffering and death.  He also planted the seed of the Gospel by the power of His Holy Spirit and caused that seed to grow through His appointed means of grace.  The redemption He accomplished alone, but He gives us the privilege of being His instruments in bringing the harvest to fruition and reaping the fruit of redeemed souls into the kingdom of heaven.  No, we can't convert anyone; he does it.  But He does it through us, as we share the Word of grace in our various vocations and as we pray for those who He has called to be His public ministers.  By His grace and power, the harvest will be gathered when He returns in glory and ushers in the glorious life that He has accomplished for all and offers to all.   Amen.   May the God who caused light to shine out of darkness cause you to increase and abound toward one another and toward all people, as His love abounds for us; and may the glory of His Son be manifested to you and in you, that you may be witnesses to all nations now and until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.  Amen.   ~