Help wanted
Commentary
Object:
In an election year there are certain themes that are bound to enjoy national prominence, including economic issues like unemployment. The monthly and quarterly figures may be spun as good news or bad news. But here is undeniable good news: there is no unemployment in the kingdom of God!
When I say the kingdom of God, of course, I don’t mean heaven -- I’m not thinking of our destination after this life in this world is over. Rather, I’m thinking of our participation in God’s kingdom in the midst of this world and our participation in God’s work during this life. I can’t speak to the work there may be to do on the other side, but here there is plenty to be done. Indeed, it seems that there is more work than there are workers to do it! And so heaven has put up the “Help Wanted” sign.
That heaven should want our help, of course, is a certain sort of remarkable. Does the resumé of the human race since Eden really recommend us? Are finite and fallen creatures the best employees when it comes to the holy and eternal work of God?
One would think that, with important work to be done, the Lord would rely on angels instead of you and me. Or, for that matter, you’d think he would do it himself. Seriously. After all, in what task does Almighty God really require assistance?
Yet this has been his gracious and sovereign choice from the beginning. From the day the Lord made human beings in his image and gave them dominion, from the day he entrusted them with tending the garden and naming the animals, God has employed us in his work. And though we might have disqualified ourselves by sin, his will did not change. He continues to engage us in the work of justice, redemption, healing, reconciliation, evangelism, and on and on.
This week’s three scripture lessons invite us to think about God’s work and ours. We will be reminded of what work we need to do. And, at another level, we’ll be reminded of what work we don’t.
2 Kings 5:1-14
We may be accustomed to seeing biblical characters portrayed in stained glass. Perhaps we would do better from time to time if we saw them portrayed in cartoons -- for human beings are a funny bunch, and the humanness of several characters in this story is amusing and telling.
The basic context of the story is not at all funny, of course. The circumstance is a man of some importance in Syria who suffers from leprosy. He longs to be healed, and those around him work together to try to get him the healing he needs. Those human instincts and efforts, then, are where the story becomes amusing.
First, there is the natural instinct of the Aramean king. He lives in the world of political and military power. He is a local sovereign. And so he has a notion about how things get done. “Go then,” he told Naaman, “and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.” That’s how things get done in the world of kings -- a letter from one potentate to the other. Yet the king of Israel recognizes immediately that this problem is quite beyond the scope of his sovereignty: “Am I God, to give death or life,” he complains, “that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?”
We also see in Naaman the assumptions of materialism. It isn’t clear whether the abundant compensation (“ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments”) was for the king of Israel or the man of God to whom the leper would be referred. In either case, however, the paradigm is that money opens doors and gets things done. Naaman was no doubt surprised, therefore, when the prophet Elisha (just beyond the reach of our passage) declined his generous honorarium.
Naaman also functions out of a worldly understanding of importance. He arrives at Elisha’s house with fanfare and an entourage. He probably expects a formal greeting befitting his rank, as well as some ritual fanfare that he has envisioned: “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!” Instead, he is insulted to be greeted by a servant, and insulted too by the instructions the servant brings. Again, with a worldly way of measuring importance, he laments the poorness of the Jordan, preferring instead the finer rivers of Damascus.
And then, at the moment of truth, we see one more standard, human misunderstanding when dealing with the things of God. Naaman himself doesn’t see it, but his servant recognizes what’s happening. “If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult,” the servant reasoned, “would you not have done it?” Of course he would have. What would he not have done in order to be healed of leprosy? The commander of the Aramean army was a man of accomplishment. He had no doubt earned his rank by feats and achievement. And so, naturally, he expected to earn his healing as well.
So it is that we human beings are funny creatures when we come up against the grace of God. We have our ways of doing things in this world, and we carry those assumptions in our relationship with God. But there will be no need for payment, no occasion for ego-stroking, and no room for human merit. It is all grace. He simply invites us to lay aside our finery, along with our pride, and “Wash, and be clean.” Are we willing to do it?
Galatians 6:(1-6) 7-16
We come to the end of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. And, as is the case with most of his letters, the ending offers a potpourri of counsel and instructions. While the apostle takes his time in developing at length certain themes at the beginning and in the middle of his epistles, the final verses often seem to be a collection of briefer matters that he wants to squeeze in before he closes.
One quick word of counsel and encouragement involves the matter of weariness in doing good. This is a marvelously relevant message. Every individual in your pews and mine will have a point of resonance with this pastoral word from Paul. For we all know what it is to grow weary. And for most of us, that weariness comes in the midst of doing good.
It’s not that doing good is wearying. Not at all. It comes naturally to human creatures to grow weary in whatever we’re doing. And if a person grows weary in doing evil, so be it. So the problem is not in doing good, but in the natural experience of growing weary. And specifically, the problem is that when we grow weary we want to quit.
This is not mere tiredness, mind you. We grow tired every day, and we rightly set down all that we were doing in order to get into bed and get some needed rest. That’s not the same as quitting, for we’ll be back at it in the morning.
Weariness, on the other hand, is not automatically solved by rest. It’s not uncommon to wake up feeling weary. For the underlying issue with weariness is not so much that we are tired as that we are discouraged. We have come to wonder whether there is any point or purpose to what we are doing, and that saps us of our energy for doing it.
I don’t know what the particulars were among the Galatian Christians, but Paul knew. He saw the risk of people who were perhaps becoming dispirited. Maybe he sensed that they were ready to quit, to give up. And so he offered them not rest but encouragement: “for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.”
The image of harvest is a potent one, of course, because it naturally carries so meaningful truths within it. Without the need for any elaboration, Paul has conveyed the truth of hard work that shows no immediate results, of ongoing effort with delayed reward, of invisible progress, and of a bountiful return. And perhaps most important of all, his image suggests that the only way to fail is to quit. With dedicated labor, however, the harvest is guaranteed. And that’s good news for weary people!
The image of a good harvest, meanwhile, was preceded by another use of agricultural language. Paul cautions the Galatians that “you reap whatever you sow.” What is true in the natural world is also true in the spiritual world. So we may choose to cultivate either the stuff of our sinful nature or the stuff of the Spirit within us. And Paul reminds his congregations that the resulting harvests are not equally desirable.
There is a great irony in this, of course. For the farmer who is seeing things clearly, the stuff of the flesh is exactly what he wants to weed out. It is the unwelcome presence in the field of his life. Yet we do not always see clearly, and so we nurture and cultivate exactly what is intruding into the good produce of the Spirit. And so the very thing we should want to weed out becomes instead the prevailing crop and the ultimate harvest.
Finally, Paul returns to matters of the flesh at the end of our selected passage. The infiltration of Judaizers into Galatia has caused some consternation among the uncircumcised believers. Paul reframes the discussion for them, however. He reminds them of the limited value of the fleshly ritual, the dubious motivation of his opponents, and the ultimate will of God for them in Christ.
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Luke knows some things we do not. When we think of the followers of Jesus, we naturally -- and perhaps exclusively -- think of the twelve disciples. Yet Luke knows about a larger crowd. Here in this episode, there are “seventy others” whom the Lord can send on his mission. Early in Acts, there is some collection of “men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us” (Acts 1:21-22). And Luke reports that the group of believers Peter was addressing on that occasion numbered 120. And so, while there were 12 that Jesus called, there were evidently many more that followed.
The fact that Jesus sent them out “in pairs” is a lovely prospect. In the beginning, the Lord declared that it is not good for man to be alone, and Ecclesiastes bears witness to the truth that “two are better than one.” He does not intend for us to serve him in isolation, without the sort of human support that we naturally need. And so, while we don’t have any detailed stories of the experiences of any of these pairs, we can well imagine the shared experiences of both frustration and elation as they undertook the Lord’s work together.
I wonder how often we fail because we labor in loneliness. “Burnout” is a favorite self-diagnosis in our day. Yet I suspect our experience of burnout can often be traced to our misguided independence: we try to do alone what we were meant to do together. “For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up” (Ecclesiastes 4:10 NASB).
Jesus places one meaning-filled image after another. He paints word pictures. And he borrows the pictures from nature.
First, it is the image of a field that is brimming and ripe, eager to be harvested. By itself, that seems like good news. Yet the harvest is only a potential goodness: its goodness cannot be realized apart from the workers needed to bring in the harvest. And that, according to Jesus, is where we are lacking.
Next comes another, very different image from nature: sheep and wolves. Interestingly, Jesus turns on its head the picture that would have been more familiar to his audience. The common problem, you see, would have been wolves among the sheep. But Jesus says a startling thing: that his followers will be sheep among wolves, and that he is sending them out as such.
Jesus gives these vulnerable missionaries instructions for how they are to conduct themselves. Remarkably, the instructions are not the sort of thing we might spend a great deal of time explaining: how to communicate their message, how to grow their enterprise, and such. Instead, the instructions are more principle than strategy. This is how you are to conduct yourselves out there as sheep among wolves, he tells them. And he draws a profile of simple trust, humility, gratitude, and faithfulness. He recognizes that they will encounter both welcome and rejection, and he tells them how to respond to each.
We don’t read any details of the disciples’ experiences, but we can infer that it was exhilarating. They come back, like a young child eager to tell mom or dad about the day, bubbling over with reports for Jesus. Of particular importance to them, it seemed, was their authority over demons. Jesus redirects their enthusiasm, however, with a word of profound perspective: Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but that your names are written in heaven. The issue in our joy, you see, is not about hell but heaven.
Application
“If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult,” the servant reasoned with Naaman, “would you not have done it?” Of course he would have. What feat would you not endeavor to perform, what task would you leave undone, if the goal was to be healed of leprosy? The irony for Naaman, however, is that he would sooner have done some great work in order to gain that healing than to do the simple, humble thing assigned by the prophet.
This brings us to the work that you and I do not have to do. We do not have to work in order to receive what is the free gift of God. Works righteousness appeals to the ego, to be sure, but it is inadequate in the eyes of God. We cannot earn what is beyond our reach, and there is no need to work for that which is freely given.
Ah, but there is work to be done. It is not the work of saving ourselves, but the work of saving others. It is all the good work that God has graciously assigned to us -- for both what is free and what is assigned, you see, are functions of God’s grace.
Both Jesus and Paul portrayed that work in agricultural terms. “The harvest is plentiful,” Jesus declared. And likewise the apostle promises, “We will reap at harvest time.” For those of us who do not live and work close to the land, the beauty and power of the image may be lost on us. But drive out into the country at the season of the year when the fields are ready to be harvested, and let that setting of abundance and reward inform the work you do for Christ.
A great deal of work is required in order to get to the harvest, of course. This was what Paul had in mind. And so his promise was actually a conditional one: “Let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.” It is a good reminder of the promise that is inherent in the work of the kingdom, as well as what is required in order for the promise to be fulfilled.
Meanwhile, not only is a good deal of work required, a great many workers are required too. This is where the real need lies. We sometimes wring our hands about the people who aren’t in church, but of course the harvest is precisely where it ought to be: out in the field. It is the workers who will go out into the field that are missing.
And so we are presented with great, good news, yet with a caveat. The fabulous assurance is that the harvest is both guaranteed and great. The caveat, however, is that it requires workers who will not grow weary.
There is no unemployment in the kingdom of God -- plenty of work to do! The question is whether we are willing to do it.
Alternative Application
2 Kings 5:1-14. “Unknown Heroes” The story recorded in our Old Testament lection for the week features three layers of earthly fame and importance. Heavenly fame, of course, is a different matter. And as we shall see, so is eternal importance.
By earthly standards, the most significant characters are the two kings involved -- the king of Aram and the king of Israel. The central issue in the story, however, is a medical need, which turns these human sovereigns into bit players. The best either can do is to refer to someone else, and so the men on the thrones -- whom the narrator does not even bother to name -- are relegated to minor roles.
One level down on the totem pole of earthly importance come two men whose names we do know. They appear as the central characters in the story. And they are themselves a study of relative importance. The one is a military man, Naaman, and the other is the man of God, Elisha.
Naaman is a man whose rank has been earned. Unlike the kings, whose rank was likely inherited, Naaman probably reached the status of commander through years of hard-won battles. He had been tested again and again, and had successfully survived or beaten each enemy. Now, however, he is engaged with an opponent -- leprosy -- against which he is powerless. His sword and skill will do him no good in this battle.
Elisha, meanwhile, is the man of God. He is the other named character, and for our purposes he is the most important human being in the story. Indeed, Naaman and the others only appear as supporting cast in just one episode from the larger series of stories that are focused on Elisha. Yet in the contemporary moment, Elisha must have been regarded as comparatively insignificant: Naaman, I imagine, initially reckoned him as some two-bit Israelite witch doctor.
Naaman is the man with the need. Elisha is the man who can meet that need. But the real story hinges on two other characters, both anonymous: girl and a man who occupied the lowest rung on the world’s ladder.
The girl was a servant of Naaman’s wife. She was a spoil of war, taken from her homeland during some military raid. And as the take was divvied among the officers and soldiers, this young girl was placed in Naaman’s household as an attendant to his wife. Providentially for Naaman, she was the one who knew about Elisha. As an Israelite girl, she was the one who knew to make the referral that led to Naaman’s healing. Apart from the unknown, unimportant servant girl, Naaman would have spun his wheels in despair in Syria, dying a slow and gruesome death.
Meanwhile, merely going to Elisha was not the same as being healed. Naaman had to follow prophet’s orders, and his ego was unwilling to do it. He turned on his heel and was about to go back to Damascus, with its pretty but impotent rivers. Then a servant of Naaman’s intervened. He reasoned with his master, and his insight turned the tide. He too was unknown and unimportant, but Naaman would not have stayed to be healed without him.
So it is that the world’s caste system is turned upside-down. The kings on their thrones are almost useless in the story. But it is two servants -- people mistaken for property -- whose influence gets the work of God done.
When I say the kingdom of God, of course, I don’t mean heaven -- I’m not thinking of our destination after this life in this world is over. Rather, I’m thinking of our participation in God’s kingdom in the midst of this world and our participation in God’s work during this life. I can’t speak to the work there may be to do on the other side, but here there is plenty to be done. Indeed, it seems that there is more work than there are workers to do it! And so heaven has put up the “Help Wanted” sign.
That heaven should want our help, of course, is a certain sort of remarkable. Does the resumé of the human race since Eden really recommend us? Are finite and fallen creatures the best employees when it comes to the holy and eternal work of God?
One would think that, with important work to be done, the Lord would rely on angels instead of you and me. Or, for that matter, you’d think he would do it himself. Seriously. After all, in what task does Almighty God really require assistance?
Yet this has been his gracious and sovereign choice from the beginning. From the day the Lord made human beings in his image and gave them dominion, from the day he entrusted them with tending the garden and naming the animals, God has employed us in his work. And though we might have disqualified ourselves by sin, his will did not change. He continues to engage us in the work of justice, redemption, healing, reconciliation, evangelism, and on and on.
This week’s three scripture lessons invite us to think about God’s work and ours. We will be reminded of what work we need to do. And, at another level, we’ll be reminded of what work we don’t.
2 Kings 5:1-14
We may be accustomed to seeing biblical characters portrayed in stained glass. Perhaps we would do better from time to time if we saw them portrayed in cartoons -- for human beings are a funny bunch, and the humanness of several characters in this story is amusing and telling.
The basic context of the story is not at all funny, of course. The circumstance is a man of some importance in Syria who suffers from leprosy. He longs to be healed, and those around him work together to try to get him the healing he needs. Those human instincts and efforts, then, are where the story becomes amusing.
First, there is the natural instinct of the Aramean king. He lives in the world of political and military power. He is a local sovereign. And so he has a notion about how things get done. “Go then,” he told Naaman, “and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.” That’s how things get done in the world of kings -- a letter from one potentate to the other. Yet the king of Israel recognizes immediately that this problem is quite beyond the scope of his sovereignty: “Am I God, to give death or life,” he complains, “that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?”
We also see in Naaman the assumptions of materialism. It isn’t clear whether the abundant compensation (“ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments”) was for the king of Israel or the man of God to whom the leper would be referred. In either case, however, the paradigm is that money opens doors and gets things done. Naaman was no doubt surprised, therefore, when the prophet Elisha (just beyond the reach of our passage) declined his generous honorarium.
Naaman also functions out of a worldly understanding of importance. He arrives at Elisha’s house with fanfare and an entourage. He probably expects a formal greeting befitting his rank, as well as some ritual fanfare that he has envisioned: “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!” Instead, he is insulted to be greeted by a servant, and insulted too by the instructions the servant brings. Again, with a worldly way of measuring importance, he laments the poorness of the Jordan, preferring instead the finer rivers of Damascus.
And then, at the moment of truth, we see one more standard, human misunderstanding when dealing with the things of God. Naaman himself doesn’t see it, but his servant recognizes what’s happening. “If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult,” the servant reasoned, “would you not have done it?” Of course he would have. What would he not have done in order to be healed of leprosy? The commander of the Aramean army was a man of accomplishment. He had no doubt earned his rank by feats and achievement. And so, naturally, he expected to earn his healing as well.
So it is that we human beings are funny creatures when we come up against the grace of God. We have our ways of doing things in this world, and we carry those assumptions in our relationship with God. But there will be no need for payment, no occasion for ego-stroking, and no room for human merit. It is all grace. He simply invites us to lay aside our finery, along with our pride, and “Wash, and be clean.” Are we willing to do it?
Galatians 6:(1-6) 7-16
We come to the end of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. And, as is the case with most of his letters, the ending offers a potpourri of counsel and instructions. While the apostle takes his time in developing at length certain themes at the beginning and in the middle of his epistles, the final verses often seem to be a collection of briefer matters that he wants to squeeze in before he closes.
One quick word of counsel and encouragement involves the matter of weariness in doing good. This is a marvelously relevant message. Every individual in your pews and mine will have a point of resonance with this pastoral word from Paul. For we all know what it is to grow weary. And for most of us, that weariness comes in the midst of doing good.
It’s not that doing good is wearying. Not at all. It comes naturally to human creatures to grow weary in whatever we’re doing. And if a person grows weary in doing evil, so be it. So the problem is not in doing good, but in the natural experience of growing weary. And specifically, the problem is that when we grow weary we want to quit.
This is not mere tiredness, mind you. We grow tired every day, and we rightly set down all that we were doing in order to get into bed and get some needed rest. That’s not the same as quitting, for we’ll be back at it in the morning.
Weariness, on the other hand, is not automatically solved by rest. It’s not uncommon to wake up feeling weary. For the underlying issue with weariness is not so much that we are tired as that we are discouraged. We have come to wonder whether there is any point or purpose to what we are doing, and that saps us of our energy for doing it.
I don’t know what the particulars were among the Galatian Christians, but Paul knew. He saw the risk of people who were perhaps becoming dispirited. Maybe he sensed that they were ready to quit, to give up. And so he offered them not rest but encouragement: “for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.”
The image of harvest is a potent one, of course, because it naturally carries so meaningful truths within it. Without the need for any elaboration, Paul has conveyed the truth of hard work that shows no immediate results, of ongoing effort with delayed reward, of invisible progress, and of a bountiful return. And perhaps most important of all, his image suggests that the only way to fail is to quit. With dedicated labor, however, the harvest is guaranteed. And that’s good news for weary people!
The image of a good harvest, meanwhile, was preceded by another use of agricultural language. Paul cautions the Galatians that “you reap whatever you sow.” What is true in the natural world is also true in the spiritual world. So we may choose to cultivate either the stuff of our sinful nature or the stuff of the Spirit within us. And Paul reminds his congregations that the resulting harvests are not equally desirable.
There is a great irony in this, of course. For the farmer who is seeing things clearly, the stuff of the flesh is exactly what he wants to weed out. It is the unwelcome presence in the field of his life. Yet we do not always see clearly, and so we nurture and cultivate exactly what is intruding into the good produce of the Spirit. And so the very thing we should want to weed out becomes instead the prevailing crop and the ultimate harvest.
Finally, Paul returns to matters of the flesh at the end of our selected passage. The infiltration of Judaizers into Galatia has caused some consternation among the uncircumcised believers. Paul reframes the discussion for them, however. He reminds them of the limited value of the fleshly ritual, the dubious motivation of his opponents, and the ultimate will of God for them in Christ.
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Luke knows some things we do not. When we think of the followers of Jesus, we naturally -- and perhaps exclusively -- think of the twelve disciples. Yet Luke knows about a larger crowd. Here in this episode, there are “seventy others” whom the Lord can send on his mission. Early in Acts, there is some collection of “men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us” (Acts 1:21-22). And Luke reports that the group of believers Peter was addressing on that occasion numbered 120. And so, while there were 12 that Jesus called, there were evidently many more that followed.
The fact that Jesus sent them out “in pairs” is a lovely prospect. In the beginning, the Lord declared that it is not good for man to be alone, and Ecclesiastes bears witness to the truth that “two are better than one.” He does not intend for us to serve him in isolation, without the sort of human support that we naturally need. And so, while we don’t have any detailed stories of the experiences of any of these pairs, we can well imagine the shared experiences of both frustration and elation as they undertook the Lord’s work together.
I wonder how often we fail because we labor in loneliness. “Burnout” is a favorite self-diagnosis in our day. Yet I suspect our experience of burnout can often be traced to our misguided independence: we try to do alone what we were meant to do together. “For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up” (Ecclesiastes 4:10 NASB).
Jesus places one meaning-filled image after another. He paints word pictures. And he borrows the pictures from nature.
First, it is the image of a field that is brimming and ripe, eager to be harvested. By itself, that seems like good news. Yet the harvest is only a potential goodness: its goodness cannot be realized apart from the workers needed to bring in the harvest. And that, according to Jesus, is where we are lacking.
Next comes another, very different image from nature: sheep and wolves. Interestingly, Jesus turns on its head the picture that would have been more familiar to his audience. The common problem, you see, would have been wolves among the sheep. But Jesus says a startling thing: that his followers will be sheep among wolves, and that he is sending them out as such.
Jesus gives these vulnerable missionaries instructions for how they are to conduct themselves. Remarkably, the instructions are not the sort of thing we might spend a great deal of time explaining: how to communicate their message, how to grow their enterprise, and such. Instead, the instructions are more principle than strategy. This is how you are to conduct yourselves out there as sheep among wolves, he tells them. And he draws a profile of simple trust, humility, gratitude, and faithfulness. He recognizes that they will encounter both welcome and rejection, and he tells them how to respond to each.
We don’t read any details of the disciples’ experiences, but we can infer that it was exhilarating. They come back, like a young child eager to tell mom or dad about the day, bubbling over with reports for Jesus. Of particular importance to them, it seemed, was their authority over demons. Jesus redirects their enthusiasm, however, with a word of profound perspective: Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but that your names are written in heaven. The issue in our joy, you see, is not about hell but heaven.
Application
“If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult,” the servant reasoned with Naaman, “would you not have done it?” Of course he would have. What feat would you not endeavor to perform, what task would you leave undone, if the goal was to be healed of leprosy? The irony for Naaman, however, is that he would sooner have done some great work in order to gain that healing than to do the simple, humble thing assigned by the prophet.
This brings us to the work that you and I do not have to do. We do not have to work in order to receive what is the free gift of God. Works righteousness appeals to the ego, to be sure, but it is inadequate in the eyes of God. We cannot earn what is beyond our reach, and there is no need to work for that which is freely given.
Ah, but there is work to be done. It is not the work of saving ourselves, but the work of saving others. It is all the good work that God has graciously assigned to us -- for both what is free and what is assigned, you see, are functions of God’s grace.
Both Jesus and Paul portrayed that work in agricultural terms. “The harvest is plentiful,” Jesus declared. And likewise the apostle promises, “We will reap at harvest time.” For those of us who do not live and work close to the land, the beauty and power of the image may be lost on us. But drive out into the country at the season of the year when the fields are ready to be harvested, and let that setting of abundance and reward inform the work you do for Christ.
A great deal of work is required in order to get to the harvest, of course. This was what Paul had in mind. And so his promise was actually a conditional one: “Let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.” It is a good reminder of the promise that is inherent in the work of the kingdom, as well as what is required in order for the promise to be fulfilled.
Meanwhile, not only is a good deal of work required, a great many workers are required too. This is where the real need lies. We sometimes wring our hands about the people who aren’t in church, but of course the harvest is precisely where it ought to be: out in the field. It is the workers who will go out into the field that are missing.
And so we are presented with great, good news, yet with a caveat. The fabulous assurance is that the harvest is both guaranteed and great. The caveat, however, is that it requires workers who will not grow weary.
There is no unemployment in the kingdom of God -- plenty of work to do! The question is whether we are willing to do it.
Alternative Application
2 Kings 5:1-14. “Unknown Heroes” The story recorded in our Old Testament lection for the week features three layers of earthly fame and importance. Heavenly fame, of course, is a different matter. And as we shall see, so is eternal importance.
By earthly standards, the most significant characters are the two kings involved -- the king of Aram and the king of Israel. The central issue in the story, however, is a medical need, which turns these human sovereigns into bit players. The best either can do is to refer to someone else, and so the men on the thrones -- whom the narrator does not even bother to name -- are relegated to minor roles.
One level down on the totem pole of earthly importance come two men whose names we do know. They appear as the central characters in the story. And they are themselves a study of relative importance. The one is a military man, Naaman, and the other is the man of God, Elisha.
Naaman is a man whose rank has been earned. Unlike the kings, whose rank was likely inherited, Naaman probably reached the status of commander through years of hard-won battles. He had been tested again and again, and had successfully survived or beaten each enemy. Now, however, he is engaged with an opponent -- leprosy -- against which he is powerless. His sword and skill will do him no good in this battle.
Elisha, meanwhile, is the man of God. He is the other named character, and for our purposes he is the most important human being in the story. Indeed, Naaman and the others only appear as supporting cast in just one episode from the larger series of stories that are focused on Elisha. Yet in the contemporary moment, Elisha must have been regarded as comparatively insignificant: Naaman, I imagine, initially reckoned him as some two-bit Israelite witch doctor.
Naaman is the man with the need. Elisha is the man who can meet that need. But the real story hinges on two other characters, both anonymous: girl and a man who occupied the lowest rung on the world’s ladder.
The girl was a servant of Naaman’s wife. She was a spoil of war, taken from her homeland during some military raid. And as the take was divvied among the officers and soldiers, this young girl was placed in Naaman’s household as an attendant to his wife. Providentially for Naaman, she was the one who knew about Elisha. As an Israelite girl, she was the one who knew to make the referral that led to Naaman’s healing. Apart from the unknown, unimportant servant girl, Naaman would have spun his wheels in despair in Syria, dying a slow and gruesome death.
Meanwhile, merely going to Elisha was not the same as being healed. Naaman had to follow prophet’s orders, and his ego was unwilling to do it. He turned on his heel and was about to go back to Damascus, with its pretty but impotent rivers. Then a servant of Naaman’s intervened. He reasoned with his master, and his insight turned the tide. He too was unknown and unimportant, but Naaman would not have stayed to be healed without him.
So it is that the world’s caste system is turned upside-down. The kings on their thrones are almost useless in the story. But it is two servants -- people mistaken for property -- whose influence gets the work of God done.
