Scripture Sunday: Lord of the harvest

by Ashtyn Adams

Matthew 9:35-38 (NRSV)
35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Here we are confronted with the “Lord of the harvest,” a particularly intriguing metaphor for God. I admit, part of the fascination may simply be attributed to a sheer isolation from a meaningful relationship with land. Our awareness concerning food production and use of agricultural language has drastically changed post Industrial Revolution. Yet, the pages of the Bible are painted with farming language. Kinship with the land is a common, if not central, theme throughout the Old and New Testament. The intimacy between the first human and the earth are immediately evident in the Hebrew in Genesis: the Adam from the Adamah; the earthling created from the earth. One of my Old Testament professors, Dr. Ellen Davis, notes that the first covenant of God’s is indeed one with the land. “The whole earth is mine,” declares the Lord, and we are to be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation among it (Exodus 19:5). 

When I hear the phrase, “Lord of the harvest” though, one of the first images in my mind comes from my own grandpa preparing for his almond harvest in Madera, CA. I would watch him out in the fields for hours by himself, shaking and sweeping trees. To see the abundance afterwards was striking. I found myself in awe of how the harvest was there all along, how the green kernels hiding in the trees I stared at months prior were brought to completion as the brown hulls cracked open. Although my grandpa worked from dawn to dusk during harvest season, as an outsider looking in, I felt as though there was a sort of ease to it all, a rhythm and freeness I was drawn to. Was there a holiness to this process? Could I grasp something of the divine in the harvest? Was God like a humble farmer?

Jesus’ instruction to pray to the Lord of the harvest arises from compassion on the harassed and helpless among them and immediately precedes the commissioning of the twelve apostles to heal, cleanse, and proclaim that the Kingdom has come near. This metaphor of harvest and posture to be a worker in the field is essential to understanding how this kingdom is an alternative Kingdom to Caesars in Matthew’s Gospel. To pray to be a worker in the Lord's harvest field means life is not something to be possessed and safeguarded, raw materials are not something to be hoarded and exploited. There is plenty for all when we acknowledge whose the harvest is and do not take more than we need, which is why Jesus also reminds the apostles in the commissioning, “freely you have received, freely give.”

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While this passage is often spiritualized, it is essential to think about God in our agricultural practices, to toil over whether they actually reflect the God we claim to be in relationship with. Currently, it is not difficult to see that they don’t. Industrial agriculture has maximized crop yields and meat production at a lofty environmental price, with soil eroding ten to forty times faster than it’s replaced. Monocultures have stripped the land of biodiversity and the natural ways of regeneration for sustained fruitfulness. Artificial fertilizers create “dead zones” in our bodies of water. Not only is our soil damaged, but our food is wasted. While enough food is produced to feed 1.5 times the global population, a third of it is thrown out and nearly a quarter of children under age five are malnourished. What does it mean to pray to the Lord of the harvest while we farm in a destructive way, without concern for our families, communities, and future generations? Would we even recognize the Lord of the harvest in our present day? Will we ask to be workers in his field? It would be a dangerous prayer, especially since our practices currently resemble Caesar more than Christ. 

What does it mean to pray to the Lord of the harvest while we farm in a destructive way, without concern for our families, communities, and future generations?

It is not only the crowds, but the land itself that is now being harmed and harassed. We must look at it, like Jesus, with compassion, recognizing the gift that it is and our place within and among it. We must remember that God is the Lord of the harvest who brings abundance and bounty when creation is cared for properly, when we labor in justice. Sustainable agriculture will honor the limits of the land so that our populations, locally and globally, can thrive in the way God wills. We can embody and bring glory to God the gardener, the Lord of the harvest who makes all things new. Jesus’ ministry was one of touch along with word, one that fed the hungry, that cared about the physical needs of people as he walked the Earth. Perhaps Jesus’ instruction in Matthew’s gospel will help us remember an essential title of the God we serve, the Lord of the harvest, and cultivate a deeper love and respect for the land, the starting place of every other mission field we are sent into.

Resources 
Books:
Painter, Betsy. A Christian's Guide to Planet Earth: Why It Matters and How to Care for It. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2022.

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​Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.

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