Church, Steeple, No People?

It is amazing when you consider the breadth of Scripture. Nearly any topic that you could possibly think about is spoken of in Scripture. And so in writing this newsletter article, I decided to look up what the Bible has to say about fall or autumn. To be honest, there was no verse that came right to mind when I was trying to think about this just from memory, but with the help of a computer program I was able to pull out some references to autumn.

And we might say that autumn is known for three things in the Bible. It is supposed to be the time when the fruit trees are full of crisp crops. It is supposed to be one of the times where rain falls in order to bring forth the later harvest. And finally, it is the time where work must be done in the field to plow and to plant.  I suppose if we were to sit down and write things that mark autumn for us, we might come up with a very similar list.

I thought though that we might focus our thoughts on a proverb today, a proverb that does speak about autumn.  Proverbs 20:4 delivers us this wisdom, “The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.”

The plainest sense of this proverb is obvious. Around here, we might say that if you do not prepare the soil and drill your wheat in the autumn you certainly shouldn’t go out next summer looking for harvest.  Imagine a farmer going out to his fields early in the summer only to return home in utter despair. His wife asks him what is wrong and he replies, “There’s nothing. It is not that the wheat looks good or bad. It’s not that its needs rain or sun. There is no wheat. How is that possible?” he cries out to his wife.  “Well Tom, remember last fall, you never planted any seed.”

Now as with all the proverbs there is a lot of practical wisdom here. Obviously, there are many things in life that require a lot of work long before the harvest comes. And if one is lazy regarding such work, the harvest just will not come as expected. We might say of course that for students or children, the work they put into learning knowledge and skills at the time may seem unfruitful, but in the long run they see the harvest. Work done throughout a relationship again might in the moment not yield any immediate fruit, but any work done on the relationship ends up making the relationship more fruitful in the end.

But today let us think about this in terms of our sharing of the gospel.  After all, the Scripture often use the image of harvest to speak about people coming into the kingdom.  Sometimes we look around at the empty pews or lack of kids in Sunday school or whatever else catches our eyes as a mark that something is not what it could or should be and we are greatly saddened. We wonder where all the people are.

It is like we do the familiar finger play but with a tragic ending, “Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors, but where are all the people?”

And of course, there will always be ups and downs in the church in any location in God’s wisdom and of course God will gather all the ones He has chosen.  But if the reason there is no harvest, no people is because we are lazy in drilling the seed of God’s word, the story is tragic indeed.  Of course, the pews will be empty if we do not share the good news with others.  Of course, the classroom will be all too quiet if we never invite the little ones in our community.  “The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.”

Let us all repent of expecting a harvest while being lazy about the autumn work of planting the seed.  For then our God will forgive our laziness because of the toil of Jesus on the cross.  He will forgive us and raise us up, freeing us to be full of zeal in the autumn work of planting that we might rejoice when he brings the harvest.  Be not the sluggard.  Be who Jesus has made you in baptism to be.  Be one who sows the seed and looks forward to the harvest.  Amen.