Pray and Go

Go and pray

Scripture Reading: Luke 10:1-12

              In 2019 Hannah Trefgarne, manager of a fruit farm in Herefordshire, UK, spoke to ITV News to express her distress at the shortage of farm labor. She reported that 50% of their crop that year was going to rot on the vines and go to waste because they lacked laborers for the harvest.

              Jesus recruited 72 evangelists and sent them out two-by-two into the towns and villages of Judea. As he was sending them he said, “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. Go your way, behold I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.”

              There are truths in what Jesus said that need to be held together. Although we do, we shouldn’t be separating them from each other. Jesus didn’t say you can be a person who prays for laborers OR you can be a laborer. But that’s how we generally read it. I don’t know why because that is not what he said. It is the exact opposite of what he said. It is both being a laborer and praying for laborers that Jesus had in mind. Can you see it? “Therefore pray…Go your way…” Do both. Pray and work. The idea is, as these men go out to labor, what they will find is that there is more harvest than they can do on their own. They need help. So, go and pray.

              Although I can’t prove it, I believe the people most effective at praying this prayer for laborers are those who are laboring. Why? Because they see the need. People who never go into the field tend to be pessimistic about the potential of the harvest. “Nobody wants to hear the gospel. People are too hard. It won’t work. Etc.” People who are in the fields working know that isn’t true. They also know the blessing of working in the fields. And they want others to enter into their joy.

              I’m not saying everyone needs to be in full-time vocational ministry as an evangelist, pastor, or missionary. That’s not the point. The point is that everyone is called to see the fields where they are and go to work in them. It is not, “go or pray.” It is, “pray and go.”

              Another vital point to make is that Jesus is not glossing over the risk factor. He sends them out as lambs among wolves. And he tells them so. He doesn’t deny the potential danger. And he is the one who sends these lambs into the wolf pack. He is mixing metaphors here, isn’t he. Harvest fields and wolf packs. It is both. I take it that Jesus is hinting at the primary reason there are so few laborers in the harvest field. People mostly see only wolves and not wheat. Therefore, fear of persecution or rejection keeps them paralyzed and out of the fields. They aren’t being silly. There is potential danger out there. But security and safety can’t be our first concern. That’s not to suggest we don’t use some wisdom or common sense. It is to suggest that wisdom and common sense can become convenient excuses to neglect the harvest.

              This is why prayer is indispensable. The weapons of our warfare are spiritual. Laborers won’t be won by guilting them into it, by rah-rah speeches, or by false assurances of success and safety. Those tricks may work temporarily, but when reality meets fantasy, reality wins. What we need is spiritual courage, motivating love, and strong faith in God. Those are good gifts that come down from heaven. So, we must pray.

              Nothing has changed. The fields are still white. The laborers are still few. So, pray and go. Go and pray.