In the Gospel for today, Jesus says to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” If we pause on this saying and ponder it, we can uncover several layers of meaning in what Jesus is asking of us.
The first response we can make to Jesus’ saying is to pray for God to send out more “laborers” for the Kingdom of God. This is the most obvious meaning of what Jesus has asked us to do. And indeed, it is always good and necessary to pray that God inspire many to give themselves in service to their brothers and sisters, especially as priests, religious, and consecrated laypeople working to build up his Kingdom.
As we continue to ponder Jesus’ words, we begin to see that God is not merely asking us to pray that others be inspired to labor in his “vineyard.” No, as the Theme for this week instructs us, Jesus “has given all of us a share in his redeeming work.” Our prayer is also that God give us the grace to be fruitful workers for him. As we pray for God to send out workers, we are to include ourselves in that prayer, asking him to send us out, asking that we be among those sent.
God means to send us out into the “vineyard” of the world to proclaim, as the Gospel Acclamation declares, that “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” What this means is explained to us in St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Jesus Christ has come and given his life out of love for us, to reconcile the world with God and save us from a hopeless condition of sin and death. This is the complete fulfillment of what was foreshadowed in the Book of Exodus, when God saved his people from their enemies and bore them up “on eagle wings” into a new homeland.
We are called, then, to go out into the world and proclaim the saving love of God shown to us in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And now we come to a third level of what the readings today are showing us about Jesus’ saying. We read from the Psalm: “Know that the LORD is God; he made us, his we are; his people, the flock he tends.” Here is where our going out into the world must spring from – our own knowing the love of God for us. The Psalm does not simply proclaim: We are God’s people; he made us. It instructs us to know that.
Knowing, in the Bible, is not merely a matter of having some information in the head. It is being deeply convinced of the truth of something and acting upon it. God tells his people in the first reading that if they keep his covenant, “you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people.” Do we know that about ourselves, that we are God’s special possession, infinitely dear to him? God says in the reading, “You have seen for yourselves” how I have freed you and protected you. Paul tells us: “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” And we see in the Gospel that “Jesus’ heart was moved with pity” for the people.
We have seen for ourselves in so many ways how great is God’s love and mercy for us, what lengths he has gone to in order to free us and bring us to himself. Today we are urged, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” We are to believe ourselves what we are to proclaim to others. Know that we are loved by God. Know that “his kindness endures forever.” Know that he became incarnate in Jesus Christ and offered himself completely for us. Believe this. Reject the lie which seeks to sow doubt and fear into our minds and hearts. As the Theme tells us, “Let us open our hearts to his grace” working in us to plant this truth deep within us so that we can live in the knowledge of the love of God for us.
From this foundation of faith in the Gospel ourselves, we will be ready do as the Psalm urges us: “Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands; serve the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful song.” We will be able to answer the Lord’s desire for more laborers as we joyfully proclaim by our lives and our words, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”
How am I praying and sacrificing for more laborers for the Lord’s vineyard? How has God sent me out into the “vineyard” of the world to proclaim that the Kingdom of God is at hand? In what ways has God manifested his love and mercy to me?
Excerpt from The Anawim Way, Volume 19, no. 5. More information about The Anawim Way may be found here.