What do you think Jesus meant when he said the laborers are few?
I was kicking around on-line the other night and landed on a website that had a spin off of the humor of Jeff Foxworthy with a few lines of “You might be a Methodist if you….” Of course, I didn’t get the joke since, I’m not a Methodist, but I thought it was a fun idea and I mused over what our “You might be a Roman Catholic if…” statements might be. Here are a few I came up with.
If you have an irrational fear of the front pew, more than 5 siblings or if you've ever spit out a bite of a hamburger when you realize it is a Friday during Lent…you might be a Roman Catholic
If you have ever wondered what the “legal” maneuver is to remove the communion wafer, or more properly the body of Christ, stuck to the roof of your mouth…You might be a Roman Catholic.
And, if you heard Jesus say “The harvest is plenty, but the laborers are few” and your first thought was of the “shortage” of priests and vowed religious in our church today, you might be a Roman Catholic.
Some thoughts on this last one. Our self-understanding as members of the body of Christ demands at the most basic level that there be some real sharing of life among us. We pray together, celebrate our rites of passage together, we have some common sharing of finances in support of our parish ministry. In short, we are in relationship with one another. Our relationships are the bricks and mortar of “the kingdom” we proclaim and the love we share in these relationships is the very essence of the God we believe in.
That being said, anyone who has every truly loved another, knows very well that the business of relationship is not for the faint-hearted. At best, our relationships are as close to heaven as we will get this side of the grave, at their worst they are heavy, hard labor.
Once the honeymoon is over, so to speak; the butterflies ceases, excitement wanes, whether it be a new romantic squeeze, a new-found friend, a new church or even your dream job – eventually the inevitable happens. Disillusionment sets in. Conflicts begin. We begin to see all the flaws and failings. We are misunderstood by our spouse, our parents say painful things, we are over-looked at work, every friend we have will at one time or another hurt our feelings. Even our church family is not free of gossip, injustice and other painful realities.
At this point, we are tempted to cut and run. We’ve been duped! This isn’t the person I fell in love with! The people in this church are the body of Christ? Yeah. Right. We feel justified in saying God couldn’t possibly be calling me to love under these conditions.
But perhaps that is precisely what we are being called to. Loving each other through thick and thin is heavy labor that we are ALL called to do by virtue of our baptism. Of course, Jesus never calls us to be doormats, or to stay in relationships where we are taken advantage of or are victims of abuse. But what if we resisted isolating? Barreled through our disillusionment and tried our best to love, in word and deed, those people that God has placed in our path?
I suspect we might reap a great harvest for God. We are the laborers, appointed by God to love people into life, heal wounds with our acceptance, drive out demons with our kind affirmations, cure the sick with our time, touch and care. To love those who are not perfect, including ourselves.
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