Last Sunday's Thought: the harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few

In our own time all references to the harvest must carry two principal layers of meaning. The first is to the here and now in the world, appealing to the sentiments of all Christians who care about their neighbour. While our harvest is plentiful, the harvest of others is not. In eastern Africa, the harvest has failed in successive years through drought and the displaced population is dependent on aid, for food, water, shelter and medical assistance. In the province of Sindh in Pakistan, the harvest has been destroyed for a second successive year by flooding. The displaced population has the same needs as their brothers and sisters in eastern Africa. ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ is a petition we make to God every time we say the Lord’s Prayer. It is a request that is still not being answered for all the peoples of the world at large. Yet there is plenty of food in the world: it is just in the wrong places where it is not needed. Our capacity to transform structures that do not work seems woefully deficient.

The second layer of meaning for the harvest concerns our Christian mission in a world which seems largely to live and operate without reference to God. Both Matthew and Luke record Jesus saying to his disciples: ‘the harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest’ (Matt. 9: 37-38; Luke 10: 2-3). This expression has become literally true: the harvest has not yet yielded its crop, but the potential for harvesting is there. There is, now, a shortage of labourers. Ordained priests and ministers of the various denominations are fewer than perhaps they have ever been and are certain to become fewer still. If the work of yielding the fruit of the harvest of believers is to become a reality in this and succeeding generations, it is clear that the fewer ministerial figures will have to encourage much greater participation by their congregations in the task of mission than ever before. The only successful model of church will be the collaborative one, where the varied gifts of each member of the congregation are put together to provide a balanced team which can help reap the harvest. Collaborative ministry means that others must come forward to lend their talents and skills to different aspects of work in the church. In reality the ordained priest in charge will be more like the conductor of a symphony orchestra than a lone musician: and on the harmonious sound that emerges from that symphony orchestra the success of the future mission of the church depends.