Luke 10:1-20 (Pentecost 4C)
St. John, Galveston 7/6/25
Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

    The message this morning is based on the Gospel reading you heard a few moments ago from Luke 10, but especially on these words of Jesus, “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

    Well, I’m retiring. Oh, not today or tomorrow or even next year, but I am retiring. Not only am I retiring, but I suspect that the congregations of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod will be hearing those words from their pastors quite frequently over the next few years, since the baby boomer generation has reached that point in life where they are handing over their duties to others, retiring, as it were, from their vocation as a preacher of God’s word.

    With what Jesus says here in Luke 10 about prayer, it occurs to me that we may well, at times, have our prayers backwards when it comes to the Church and the Kingdom of God. We often pray for God to increase the harvest, for more and more people to hear the Gospel and to come to faith in Jesus. It isn’t, by any means, a wrong thing for us to pray for, but here in Luke 10, Jesus reminds us that the harvest is always plentiful. In other words, there are always plenty of people to hear the Gospel. There are always plenty of people in the world to be reached with the message of salvation by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. What there isn’t always an abundance of, are laborers in the harvest. And so, Jesus says, “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

    Almost immediately, the question arises as to who these laborers are that we are to pray to be sent out into the harvest. Are they pastors, men who devote their entire lives to preaching and teaching God’s word? Or are they all Christians, those who are referred to elsewhere in the Scriptures as the priesthood of all believers? Well, I don’t believe the answer has to be either or, that is, that we are to pray for either Pastors or the priesthood of all believers to be sent into the harvest. However, I do believe there is both a primary and a secondary sense in which we are to pray for laborers to be sent into the harvest.

    In a primary sense, Jesus speaks here of Pastors and teachers to be sent into the harvest field. If you did a word study on the word that is translated as “laborer” in the reading before us, you would find that the word is used in the New Testament primarily to refer to those who are paid for their work. The word Jesus used for worker or laborer here in Luke 10, is the same word that He used in the parable of the workers in the Vineyard, where He called workers at different times of the day but at the end of the day, He paid them all the same wage.

    Certainly we are to pray for God to raise up Pastors who will devote themselves to the preaching of God’s Word and who will tend to the flock whom God has entrusted to their care. This is part of the tender mercy and the care of our God for His people. He doesn’t leave the care of His Church to happenstance, or even to occasional service. Rather, He has established an office in the Church to shower His gifts upon His people. After Jesus rose from the grave, He met with Simon Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and asked him, “Simon, do you love Me more than these?” Three times Peter answered in the affirmative, and three times Jesus said, “Feed My lambs. Tend My lambs. Feed My lambs.”

    You come here week after week, not to serve, but to be served, to receive the body and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. You come here to hear the words of holy absolution, “I, in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, forgive you all of your sins.” You come here to receive what only God can give you, namely, peace and purpose, and hope.

    As it is, we have reached a point in our Church body, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, where every year we have more congregations Calling a pastor from our two seminaries than we have men to fill those Calls. In fact, this past May, between the two seminaries, while there were about 105 Pastors assigned to various congregations, there were about 57 congregations that requested a pastor and didn’t receive one. The Office of Pastor is gracious gift of God given to His people. “Pray earnestly (then) to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” 
                
    Of course, even if you don’t serve the Church full time as one of your vocations, you are nonetheless called by God to be His holy priest in the place where He has put you. This is what we call the priesthood of all believers. In your various vocations in life, whether it be as a grandparent, a mother or father, a spouse, a friend, or even as co-worker, God has called you to be His child at that place, at that time. This is why it isn’t good for us to distinguish too sharply between those things in our lives that are temporal and those things that are spiritual. The fact is, you are God’s man or woman, His child, wherever He has put you. And so, even the things in your life that seem mundane, that seem meaningless, are holy and necessary in the Kingdom of God. What you do in your day to day life is therefore no less holy that what a pastor does in his day to day life. Our vocations are different, but one isn’t greater or less than the other.

    As we pray for the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest field, essentially, we pray that God would give us an awareness of the various vocations we fill in life. And that, He would also give us an awareness of the holiness and of the divine nature of our lives, that we might serve Him by loving and serving our neighbor.

    Several years ago, at a Wednesday service, either in Advent or Lent, a visitor sat in a pew on the right side (point) near the front. She was an older woman. I notice that she listened very attentively to the service. After the service ended, she asked me if she could come by and visit with sometime during the week. I said, “Of course you can. When would be a good time for you?” She made an appointment and came by during the week. When she arrived at my office, actually, before even saying hello, she asked me a question. She said, “If I were to become a member of this congregation, would I be able to read the Scripture readings from the lectern during the Divine Service?” Honestly, I was a bit taken aback by her question. I thought for a moment, and said, “well, no mam, you wouldn’t be able to read the Scriptures during the Divine Service because this congregation has called me as their pastor, and a such, they expect me to fill the various obligations and joys of my vocation.” She didn’t like the answer I gave her and so she got up and left.    

    Some of you may wonder why my response to this woman’s question was so forthright. Well, it’s really quite simple. I insist that I carry out the various duties that God gave me to fulfill as the Pastor of this congregation, not because I believe that those duties are more sacred or more holy than anyone else’s duties, but precisely for the opposite reason. Your vocation in life, again, as a grandfather, or a grandmother, as a mother or father, as a spouse, a friend, or even a co-worker, is holy, it is pleasing and acceptable in the eyes of God. Jesus Christ, having redeemed you from sin and death, by His death and resurrection, has sanctified your life. That is, He has made your life holy.

    The redemption that we all have in Christ Jesus is not for heaven only. Indeed, “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +