Laborers for the Harvest
A few weeks ago, New England was hit with the largest winter storm we’ve seen in years. In some parts of the region, nearly 17–18 inches of heavy, wet snow fell in less than 24 hours. It was the kind of storm that screams “we gotta get the milk and bread!”
Two days later, I left my house and was met with what can only be described as a snowpocalypse war zone. Major roads were reduced to single lanes. Side streets were nearly impassable. There was no parking anywhere. Cars were swerving to avoid each other, while others were trapped in snowbanks. Drivers were frustrated and at their wits end beeping and yelling at each other. It was utter chaos.
As the frustration mounted, people began asking the obvious question “How did this happen!?”
When Providence Mayor Brett Smiley was pressed on why the roads were in such bad shape, with so much notice of the storm, his response was surprisingly simple and honest… “We had the budget. We just didn’t have enough people to plow the streets.”
You see, Providence didn’t lack resources. It lacked workers.
In Matthew 9, Jesus looks out over the growing crowd and names a similar problem.
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”
Right now in New England there is no shortage of needy people. People who need healing in their minds from anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. People who need to be set free from spiritual oppression. People who need spiritual leadership, because they are spending their time and money going to “spiritual gurus” who tell them false consolations and lies. People who need to find healing in family and real community. People who need their lives to be pulled out of the pit. The examples could go on and on. The bottom line is, people are harassed and helpless and they don’t know where to turn.
When met with extreme need, I find that people tend to respond in one of two ways. Either they shut down and ignore it altogether, numbing themselves to the weight of it all. Or they attempt to run headlong into every need in their own human strength, burning themselves out under the illusion that it all depends on them. Neither are options that Jesus affords us. Instead, Jesus turns to his disciples and gives them the assignment to “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
I once heard revival described as involving two movements at the same time: an inward renewal of the church and an outward awakening in the world. Both are necessary. One without the other leaves us either spiritually inflamed but missionally stagnant, or energetically active but spiritually thin and anemic.
And so, as we contend for renewal within the church… for holiness, humility, repentance, and deeper intimacy with God… we must not neglect Jesus’ command to pray with intense conviction that the Lord would send manpower into a world that is perishing.
And perhaps the most confronting truth of all is this… Jesus doesn’t just call us to pray for workers. He intends to answer that prayer through his disciples (that’s you) by giving them his authority and power and sending them out as laborers.
And so, may we be people, who carry the intense and burning conviction to see lost people know Jesus by joining God in interceding for laborers, and having fresh resolve to go first.
Emily Cordon Drainville
Executive Pastor, Sanctuary Church, Providence RI