Devotional Messages

Matthew 9:35-38 – Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”  (NRSV)

There are a lot of things that go into making church happen.  Our Nominating Committee has been working since February on filling our lay leadership roles for the coming ministry year.  Our annual Stewardship Campaign begins this Sunday.  And it was just about a year ago that we reached out to Helix High School to see if there were students there who could augment our volunteer team for Welcome Saturday.  It turns out there were!  Lots of them!  We’re now having to cap the number of volunteers each day and schedule them a month or two ahead.

As Jesus seems to imply to the disciples in this passage from Matthew, if service is what you’re interested in, you’ll never lack for work!  When a congregation has been around for 75 years, we tend to build up our ministries in ways that depend on having a certain level of resources to accomplish the various things involved.  And sometimes that means that when it comes to things like the nominating process or the stewardship campaign, we can get a little anxious that we might come up short.

But today I was reminded that there’s another important lesson in this passage, right there at the end.  “Ask the Lord of the harvest.”  We don’t just try to make all this happen on our own.  We pray about it.  As our stewardship campaign theme will remind us on Sunday, when we pray to God, God hears us.

Sometimes we pray about something and then forget about it.  But then later, we realize that the prayer has since been answered.  This time it took six months for me.  God’s time doesn’t always match our attention span.  But if we’re looking for leaders or donors or volunteers, without bothering to check with God about it, we’re missing out.  When we partner with God instead, new possibilities emerge and ministry expands!

Collect for the Week:  Creator God, whose harvest is plentiful, bless us with the laborers and sowers of seed that we need for our ministry to flourish and grow.  Through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit, Amen.