Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few." — Matthew 9:37 ESV
There was a conversation I had this week that completely brought into perspective the entire idea and analogy of harvest. I realized I really had no idea the work farming entailed in the slightest. The more I thought about what was being said, the more I learned about a modern-day, small-scale harvest, and the more I pulled the two together in my mind, I realized that the idea I’ve had going off the harvest Jesus talks of in the Bible was so much more than a couple of days of labor.
What comes before the harvest?
It hadn’t really occurred to me to think about the continual process of sowing and growth that comes before the harvest as part of the path to get to a big and bountiful conclusion. Listening to the current problem of the day as two people tried to figure out how to take a crop up for its seeds at the opportune time, it began to click that there was a “before." Before the crop was ready, it had to be watched; before it had to be watched, it had to be watered; and before it had to be watered it had to be sown. Suddenly, the parables about sowing and harvesting are not separate and distinct, but all one fluid cycle. Through it all, God still provides the growth.
The harvest takes planning.
One of the things that struck me about the problem we were looking at was that even though the seed was ready to be harvested, it still was going to take planning and navigating. The weeds had come up with the crop, and in some places, they were too thick to go in with a machine. Some of the plants had mildewed, and this led to an unfit portion of the seed. The weather had to be taken into account, the lay of the land and the quality of the seed. It was a balance to consider the timing and conditions for optimization of yield, and at times a bit of a risk. In the idea of the harvest Jesus was talking about, we also have to plan and consider the field, yet also have to remember to go before it’s too late.
It can be too late,
The last thing, and what really got me thinking, was the idea that it can be too late. If the rain came early, or if the wind blew too hard, the harvest of seed would be gone. To cultivate the seed, it had to stay intact in its seed pods. As summer moved forward, the seed began to “shatter." This meant the pods were breaking open and the seed would be lost to the ground. With all the technology, planning, growing and watching that had gone into this field, every ounce of work would be lost if the plants were left too long in the field. That is why in can be too late. In working for God, growing and going, it can be too late if we wait around long enough.
It comes full circle, but that is why the harvest is so important. It’s the last step after so much work. I think now I understand more of why people celebrate it so joyfully.
