Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Laborers at the Harvest"
Date: October 7, 2007
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Matthew 9:35-38

Sermon request:  “Doing God's work for others.  Providing service and commitment of resources to that that want and don't want it."

Whenever someone new comes to Bay Shore Church in the fall season, I wonder what they think about all they see and hear.  There’s the collection of backpacks for Lincoln Elementary School, today’s Third World Handarts Sale, special offering for Neighbors in Need, the stewardship drive for our 2008 budget, Alternative Christmas Market, Project Love, Thanksgiving food drive, Christmas Family Project, and finally, the Christmas offering appeal.  Sixty percent of our mission projects and two special offerings take place in the four months from September to December.

So these new people come to the church.  Are they impressed by all our mission outreach projects, or are they overwhelmed by the seemingly never-ending appeal for yet one more thing?

And the answer to that question is that it’s their choice.  They—or you long-time worshippers—can choose to participate in nearly all of them, or you may select those that are of special interest to you or that you think you are capable of funding.

I love to read USA Today when I am traveling.  So last Tuesday (10/2/07), sitting in the Harrisburg airport in the middle of Pennsylvania, I came across this survey on Keeping the Faith, by the reputable Pew Research Center.  It tallied, by denomination, the percentage of people who say religion is very important to their lives.  Black Protestant, 85%; White evangelical Protestant, those who attend Calvary Chapel or Cottonwood, 79%; Muslim, 72%; Catholic, 46%; and White mainline Protestant, that’s us in the United Church of Christ, Presbyterians, United Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, 36%.  In other words, just over one-third of ordinary, everyday, mainline Protestants think religion is very important to their lives.

The survey does not detail attendance.  Do all 36% attend worship?  Or are 100% of us gathered here the 36% who believe religion is very important to their lives?

Compare that to today’s Gospel story from Matthew.  “Jesus went among all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.” (9:35)  He’s out doing the very work our sermon requester today inquired about:  “providing service and commitment of resources to those who want it.”

The Gospels are full of stories of Jesus’ healing ministry.  But to be truthful, those whom he healed are mixed:  some sought him out, begged for his healing touch.  Others he passed by and acted on his own, or at the request of some friend or family member.  Is it possible that some of those who are helped did not want it?

I know you confront the same situation.  You have a family member or friend who desperately needs some type of help.  Maybe it’s a health issue, housing, employment, a damaging or abusive relationship, an addiction.  They need help.  You know it.  Yet, in spite of your best efforts, they do not respond.  Your efforts, your encouragement, your cajoling are all for naught.  They will not change.

The same goes for some persons whom you see sitting against the buildings downtown, or at an intersection, asking for contributions or holding a “will work for food” sign.  At Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco in August, I saw a man holding a paper collection cup with a sign:  “Let’s be honest.  I want beer.”  Another sign on a cup in Union Square said, “Only need 75 more cents.”  Would any of these people change, or will they simply be out the next day asking for the same?

The answer is the same I gave earlier in newcomers’ response to all our mission projects each fall here at Bay Shore Church.  They can respond, take part, participate, or change, if they wish.  And if they do not, that is their business.  Some persons who resist help simply know only the situation they are in.  They cannot envision changing it, their reasoning perhaps clouded by drugs, alcohol, depression or mental illness.

So Jesus has compassion on all those he encounters, and the same may well be asked of us.  We can respond to those whose needs are made known to us, and we have to be satisfied that we did what we could, even if the results may be short-lived.

Then Jesus turns to his disciples and says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest.” (9:37-38)  This is the same passage found on a plaque in the Concert Hall, honoring those who have given extraordinary leadership to our mission projects.

And if “the laborers are few,” I wonder if Jesus had the same trouble with only 36% of his followers willing to do the necessary work?!  We are Jesus’ hands in the 21st Century.  His work, his outreach, his caring, his compassion, his ministry is only accomplished as we do it.

And what difference does it make?  Last week, we received 27 hand-written letters from among the 180 fifth graders at Lincoln Elementary School who received new backpacks filled with supplies, and donated by people of this church.  I want to read four of those letters now, exactly as they were written.

If that doesn’t convince you of the benefits of our generous outreach—two students used the word “charitable”—I don’t know what will.  Adrienne from Christian Outreach in Action who spoke here in July, told us her appearance was good for both sides:  she got to see the people who helped her, and we got to see someone we helped.  I heard from the COA director on Friday that Adrienne got a job in a local hospice. 

For the twenty Christmases I’ve been here at this church, the Concert Hall has been filled time and time again with gifts, clothing, food, furniture, toys for the dozen families we choose to assist each Christmas.  We don’t have a pattern of repeating families.  Sometimes they are just down on their luck one particular year, and our assistance to them, given out of Christian compassion, is all they need to make a difference in their lives.  Some of us here know a young man whose family we helped once many years ago; today he a nursing student at college.

We will not always see the overjoyed faces of families to whom we deliver Christmas gifts, or hear such enthusiastic letters of thanks for backpacks, although I know those responses fill you with as much joy as the recipients.  Sometimes we have to realize we buy some craft made by a third-world artisan, we purchase a Christmas gift for a Native American child on an Arizona reservation, we write a check for Neighbors in Need or buy canned food for Woman to Woman, and we will never see, know, or talk to the recipient.  A word of thanks is nice; we all like that.  But deep within our hearts, we don’t give to get the thanks.  In the frequently used Thanksgiving story of the ten lepers, even Jesus realized only one of the ten returned to give him thanks.  But who knows?  Maybe all the rest were out enthusiastically telling how blessed they were by someone who attempted to do God’s work for others without even knowing who they were.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few,” Jesus said.  There are many who need help.  Let us be the faithful few who respond, whenever and however we are able.  And if, just by chance, we are the ones helped, let us be truly grateful for the efforts of the laborers.