The Urgency of the Harvest: Send Me!

Readings: Matthew 9:35-10:8, Secrets of Heaven 3941 (see below)
See also on Youtube

Jesus employs another interesting metaphor in our text today, to give shape and meaning to the practice of spiritual life: the harvest. Agricultural metaphors abound in the bible. Jesus, and the people who wrote the bible, used images that the people reading or listening to it knew and could instinctively relate to.
So, what does the metaphor of “harvest” communicate to us then? Harvest is the culmination of a season of growing. It it the end result of ongoing labor. It is usually one event in time, recurring yes, but something that is only done at a specific time, when the crop is ready. Therefore, a lot of work is necessary in a short amount of time in order to take advantage of the readiness of the crop, to cash in on all the work that has gone into the season. For people who rely on the work of their own hands for their sustenance and livelihood, harvest is a time of urgency.
We can hear the urgency in Jesus’ use of the image. He has just experienced a deep sense of compassion for the people surrounding him. Looking more deeply at the Greek here provides nuance. First, the word used for compassion indicates a something felt deep in the gut. It is visceral, it is collapses distance, it is empathy felt deep in our insides. We might recognize this same word from the famous parable of the Good Samaritan. Second, the two Greek words used to describe the people that Jesus saw are often translated as harassed and helpless, which is a little passive. The actual meaning of the words imply both violent harassment and a state of being actively thrown aside. Jesus was noticing not only their emotional state but their political and social one. These people were not helpless and harassed because of their own personal issues, they were oppressed systemically by an oppressive regime. The further description of them being sheep without a shepherd is not just pretty pastoral language. It is directly referencing the Jewish prophetic tradition, specifically Exekiel, which calls the bad leaders who take advantage of the poor “bad shepherds.”
It is into this reality, this reality of people being harmed by systems, by ignorance, by malice, that Jesus speaks with the urgency of the harvest metaphor.
So, how are we to hold this urgency? For we must be careful; like all things urgency can be used for good and for harm. The are many harmful uses of urgency, many that have to do with manipulation and control. Traditional Christianity is not exempt; it has often stoked an urgent fear in people that they are destined for hell. How convenient then, that they also can offer the remedy: belief in Jesus. We see the harmful use of urgency in politics, where misinformation is used to stoke fear, outrage and division. I know I can personally relate to the fact that under the influence of anxiety it is harder to think rationally. It is a sad reality that power-hungry people know this and will actively use it to control others. 
But there are also positive aspects to urgency. Sometimes urgency can help us clarify what is important to us. In situations such as an illness, all the dross can fall away and we appreciate the beauty of small ordinary things. Urgency can help us get things done; sometimes just the right amount of urgency can focus us differently than at other times. Urgency can inspire us to be brave, giving us the gumption to do things we might otherwise not be inclined to do. Urgency can inspire people to work together; we see this any time there is a natural disaster of some kind, and people pull together to do what needs to be done. 
It is in this positive sense that Jesus is employing the urgency of the harvest metaphor. He was responding to the state of his people under political and economic hardship and the true emotional overwhelm and exhaustion that occurs when having to live that way long-term. He was responding to the reality that they had been abandoned and dismissed by the powers-that-be and the deep existential disorientation that occurs when this happens. His response: to send his disciples to minister to them with an urgent seriousness and focus. This is how we should read his command to, for that moment, ignore the Gentiles and the Samaritans. We know from many other stories that Jesus had compassion for them too. In this moment though, Jesus had a specific and urgent mission for the people right in front of him.
He sends his disciples to preach hope and to let the people know that God cared about them. But their work was not just about words. It was about making a concrete difference in people’s lives. In the words of Jesus’ time, he said to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” In some sense, this was hyperbole, but it also wasn’t; he was directing them to bring people back into health, back into relationship, back into community - basic things that were being destroyed by the constant oppression they were experiencing. Jesus wanted his disciples to do some good, some real good for real people.
This is another way to read the harvest metaphor, for it communicates urgency but also culmination. Swedenborg interpreted the harvest in the context of spiritual journey. As we heard in our reading, “the field” represents the church, or more generally, our whole spiritual life. The seeds that are planted in the field represent good intentions and true ideas that we have chosen to cultivate. These grow within us, with new seeds being planted whenever we learn something new or expand our experience of compassion. The culmination, the end goal, of these good intentions and true ideas is each of us being able to do some good for our neighbor, in large ways and in small. To quote Swedenborg:
In that sense the seeds which are sown in the field are truths of faith which are planted in good. Harvest means their growing ripe when forms of good develop from them (1)
The harvest is what we are trying to get to: forms of good that make a difference in others’ lives. Our good intentions and true ideas are important, but they are not growing fully ripe by simply staying in our hearts and minds and never being acted upon. The seeds that we have planted within ourselves are ultimately to serve the harvest, they are to serve taking care of each other, to serve the hapless and harassed around us, however that might be showing up in our context. All things lead to loving our neighbor, and if Jesus never said anything else other than this, it would be enough.
The reality is though, we cannot exist in a state of urgency all the time. It is too exhausting for our nervous system. We are not machines, we cannot work at urgent high levels indefinitely. God knows this, and this is why we have the Sabbath written into our earliest myths about how we were created. God invites us into the urgency of the call to minister to our neighbors, into the urgency of keeping our eyes open to the reality of suffering, into the urgency of knowing that we are God’s hands in the world. This urgency is a gift, for we know the harvest is the culmination of the seeds that are being planted in us all the time. And, we are invited to balance that urgency with the Sabbath, for all good soil needs to rest and be fed with the nutrients it needs for the next growing season. 
Jesus said: therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Our Lord of the harvest feels the urgency of the suffering of all God’s children. Our Lord of the harvest equally knows that the harvest is where we have always been heading, if we wish to conform ourselves to the mutual love of heaven. So, in asking for the Lord to send out laborers, we can only humbly say, Lord, send me. Amen.

1. Emmanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven 9295

​
Readings:

Matthew 9:35-10:8

35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.
36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”


1 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans.
6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.
7 As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’
8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.


Secrets of Heaven 3941
The reason why 'wheat harvest' means a developing state of love and charity is that 'the field' means the Church and so the things that constitute the Church, while the seeds sown in it mean the germs of good and truth. And what springs up from those seeds, such as wheat, barley, and many other crops, are the fruits of love and charity, and also of faith.