Sharing the Labor

"I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor." (John 4:38)

Today I am looking at the part where Jesus said that others have labored and you have entered into their labor. I have previously suggested that one way of seeing this is that the woman took over harvesting when the disciples failed to even discern there was a harvest even going on and they may have become part of the content of her harvest instead of the other way around. I still say that is a very valid potential, but there is more than one way to read these words.

Clearly, Jesus is saying that they are entering into someone else's labor, whoever that may be. Another way of perceiving this may be to suggest that they had opportunity to join alongside others who were more aware of what was going on and what needed to be done. This certainly has a lot of evidence to support it. Jesus was eager to get on with harvesting given the ripeness of the “food” waiting to be taken in and enjoyed. The woman did not take long to see the enormous potential in this harvest and jumped right in to help in every way she could. Now Jesus might be saying to His disciples that He wanted them to observe and learn from others about the true nature and methods that would be effective and join in helping out, even if that meant needing to be mentored by a Samaritan woman.

The Samaritan woman was clearly already involved in the harvesting. She was working so fast and so enthusiastically that she was already returning to Jesus with as many people as she could bring at one time to present to Him to continue processing while she might return for more. This is the true spirit of a real harvester – a person who has a clear vision and passion for introducing people to Jesus and inducing the most curiosity and hope in their hearts as possible. Then as they are stunned by the surprising light glowing from the harvester's face, like deer in the headlights, instead of trying to indoctrinate them herself or even mentor them she simply leads them immediately to Jesus for Him to do what He does best – reveal to their hearts the passionate love of the Father.

This is what real harvesting is all about from heaven's perspective. This is the kind of harvesting that I want to participate in and become more effective myself. But this kind of harvesting requires first a transformation of the soul and spirit, a fire in the bones, an infusion of the very passion of God that lights up every faculty of the heart and mind and stimulates one to dare and do things they never dreamed of doing or saying before. It cannot happen unless the Holy Ghost has invaded the heart and taken over the life.

As I read today's reading from My Utmost For His Highest I felt a resonance with this very message. If you recall, when a person harvests grain by hand it is necessary to use a sharp tool like a sickle. I also remember that in Revelation Jesus is portrayed as having a sickle coming out of His mouth to reap the harvest of the earth. In another place in Revelation He is seen as having a sharp sword coming from His mouth. When I put all of this together it really fits well with what Oswald Chambers has to say in relation to one of the important but uncomfortable methods needed in real harvesting.

I came not to send peace, but a sword. Matthew 10:34.

Never be sympathetic with the soul whose case makes you come to the conclusion that God is hard. God is more tender than we can conceive, and every now and again He gives us the chance of being the rugged one that He may be the tender One. If a man cannot get through to God it is because there is a secret thing he does not intend to give up—‘I will admit I have done wrong, but I no more intend to give up that thing than fly.’ It is impossible to deal sympathetically with a case like that: we have to get right deep down to the root until there is antagonism and resentment against the message. People want the blessing of God, but they will not stand the thing that goes straight to the quick.

If God has had His way with you, your message as His servant is merciless insistence on the one line, cut down to the very root, otherwise there will be no healing. Drive home the message until there is no possible refuge from its application. Begin to get at people where they are until you get them to realize what they lack, and then erect the standard of Jesus Christ for their lives—‘We never can be that!’ Then drive it home: ‘Jesus Christ says you must.’ ‘But how can we be?’ ‘You cannot, unless you have a new Spirit’ (Luke 1 l:13).

There must be a sense of need before your message is of any use. Thousands of people are happy without God in this world. If I was happy and moral till Jesus came, why did He come? Because that kind of happiness and peace is on a wrong level; Jesus Christ came to send a sword through every peace that is not based on a personal relationship to Himself.

Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI : Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935, S. December 19

Stealing the Fruit?

"I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor." (John 4:38)

This just suddenly jumped out at me. Something seems terribly unfair about this situation, at least it would be very easy to make that conclusion from some perspectives.

Since I am wrestling with another issue right now and have been thinking about it a great deal lately, I am ripe to notice things that might trigger my “fairness” hot-button. And when I read a verse like this it has a lot of potential to trip that trigger. In life as we are used to it and from our assumptions about what is fair and right, people who put much effort and time and skill and have invested much of their life into some project should be the ones who should reap the positive benefits of all their work. This is a standard and fundamental principle of life that nearly everyone believes in.

So when someone comes along and jumps in at the last minute to grab the good stuff, reap the harvest of rewards away from someone, yet who has not put in the hard work that others have invested, at the very least we levy the charge of unfairness if not downright theft.

For someone to spend years growing a crop of fruit trees only to have someone else come along and pick the fruit for themselves without reimbursement or even acknowledgement seems blatantly wrong.

For someone to invest much of their life training another individual to do a certain job and then never be recognized for the years of investment, patience, trouble and headaches that it took to make that other person famous and successful seems just unfair at best.

For someone to create a masterwork of art or spend years designing and growing a garden that is an amazement to look upon and then have someone else come along and pick the flowers or worse yet take all the credit for the work is just wrong and dishonest.

I am not saying that Jesus is endorsing or even necessarily talking about all of these scenarios. But this is the kind of thing that can really send people off in a rage because of so many experiences of unfairness and injustice that already exist in this sinful world. So why would Jesus come along and seemingly begin to dabble in this area by talking about having someone reap and enjoy all the benefits of harvesting something that they had not taken part in planting and cultivating, the really hard part of the project?

This is almost like coming to a farmer who has invested thousands of dollars along with months of hard work, sleepless nights out in the field planting and fertilizing and weeding, and telling him that someone else will now take care of harvesting his fields this year and will take the produce and profits for themselves. I really don't think that would go over well at all with most farmers that I know. In fact, you likely might find a threatened lawsuit on your hands in a situation like that.

So what makes this statement of Jesus a whole lot different from these other scenarios that seem so obviously unfair and even dishonest? And is our answer going to be more of a knee-jerk reaction designed to mindlessly justify God by coming up with some platitudes about God being able to do whatever He wants without needing to justify His decisions with us? We can say that, but it does nothing to improve His reputation with those who are still choosing to think for themselves. It might silence some of the questioners but not because it gives them any satisfactory answers but simply because they realize their questions are not being respected or listened to honestly.

But this verse makes it quite plain that Jesus intends to say something that many of us find really disturbing if we are willing to face it squarely. He apparently is saying that He is willing to send someone different into a harvest and allow them to gather the rewards or fruits of someone else's labor with little to no acknowledgement for the efforts of those who previously put in long hours of fruitless effort before that harvest. I believe that it may be very helpful to explore this part of the story more openly and candidly. I find no place in this passage where Jesus gives any clue whatsoever as to who may have been the originators of this potential harvest.

It does remind me of a story that Jesus told that is equally discomfiting and has irritated many since the day He told it. It is found in Matthew 20:1-16 and talks about a farmer that paid the same wages to people who obviously worked very different lengths of time and dramatically different outlays of effort. The workers who had put in a full days work in the hot sun were incensed and angered when they saw the master paying others who had just showed up for a little while at the end of the day. The master had the gall to pay the last workers the very same amount that he had paid the first. This whole situation seemed patently unfair and they couldn't help but have an outburst of protests over it. If they had had the chance they might have formed a union and pressed legal charges against this unfair employer and may have even picketed his farm.

This issue of fairness is far more intense and sensitive for many of us than we may realize at first. I am starting to become aware of how deep this issue of justice and fairness runs inside my own heart by how quickly I react with intense anger inside whenever I hear of someone being mistreated or especially when I feel cheated or taken advantage of by others. Whether it is an abuse of power and authority or whether it is stepping in to steal the results of my own work and investments, I get very upset when I feel that evil men are able to steal from the honest work of others and even institutionalize it into a system of self-serving laws and enforcements they can impose on everyone around them.

Is Jesus saying here or even implying that this system of institutionalized injustice and legal abuse is somehow justifiable? I hardly think so. But what is going on here? What important truth might be overlooked by a passive or cursory reading of this fascinating story I have been probing for so long?

Variations in the Harvest

From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all the things that I have done." So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. (John 4:39-40)

I just love this part of the story. It warms my heart and stirs my imagination. But it also raises even more questions. I like questions. Questions that are stirred up when I read the Word give me opportunities to listen to the Holy Spirit reveal more to my heart about God and how He feels about me and how He works. So when I feel questions coming up I know that the One who inspires questions also provides answers if I am willing to spend time with Him.

This passage brings me back to a subject that has been of intense interest to me for a very long time. It is also the main issue that brought me to land on spending so much time in the book of John instead of continuing on with my systematic study of the New Testament. The book of John I believe focuses on two main issues that are central in the life of every true believer in Jesus. The first is the real truth about love and the second is the issue of what makes up true belief.

Both of these subjects are very much a part of this story though love is not directly mentioned. But if love had not been obvious and very much present in Jesus' interactions with this woman and the people of her town nothing would have taken place and no one would have entered into belief. It is love that inspires belief and it is belief that opens up the heart to receive even more love and to reflect it to others to in turn inspire curiosity and draw them into belief.

This is so different and refreshing from the kind of “belief” and “love” that was around when I was growing up. Both of these words had more of the religious version of definition rather than the real meanings attached to them. I could go on ad nauseum about the mistaken views of these concepts that are so familiar to me, but I would rather spend most of my time dwelling on what I am now beginning to see is the real truth about them. That is why I am spending all of my time in this book, because I want to experience the real thing and get away from the counterfeit ideas that have kept me in confusion and blindness all of my life to the real glory and beauty of God's character.

As I have said before, I am jealous of this woman and all the other people in her town because I am far more like the baffled disciples blundering along behind Jesus wondering what He is doing and why instead of entering into the joy of God and celebrating with abandon the goodness and kindness that He is showing me. I want to celebrate, but I want it to be from the heart and not just a performance.
That means that my heart has to “get it” and for that to happen I have to depend on Jesus to open my eyes and replace my heart of stone and do whatever it is that He does to transform a person completely from darkness to light. I am tasting it, I am excited about it, I want it, I ask for it but I still feel like the bulk of it is still ahead in my experience.

I am fascinated and also confused by this statement that many believed because of the words the woman spoke when she came rushing into town all breathless and animated and totally filled with joy. That certainly would get my attention like it did their's if I had been there and known the history behind this woman. But to move so many people into a state of true faith in a person they had never even met and knew nothing more about than the implications behind the few words of this woman is absolutely astounding to me. Obviously the Spirit of God was doing most of the communicating at this point because on the surface there simply is no compelling power that I can see strong enough in these simple words to transform so many people without something far deeper happening that does not appear on the surface.

But there is much more in here that grabs my attention and intensifies my inquisitiveness. I really wonder why John felt it so important to explain how two different groups of people in this town came to believe in Jesus and embrace Him so readily. It is absolutely clear that this town was ripe for harvesting – that can't be missed in this story. But I find it compelling that John wanted to show that different people come into belief at different times and by different means. Some of these people were ready and eager to believe simply based on very little evidence. Yet others needed Jesus Himself to spend some time with them before they were willing to trust in the testimony of this transformed woman they knew so well.

Many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world." (John 4:41-42)

Somehow I sense that there are extremely important reasons for John taking the effort to carefully spell out these various ways people experience true belief. Again, the whole book of John repeatedly and incessantly talks about this issue of belief and I feel that most of us know very little about the true version of this most important element in our experience. This belief is the very same thing we call faith, and what I have seen called faith in most people's lives is generally useless and powerless and not very attractive. It certainly does not have the compelling power to draw a whole city full of people out of town to chase after a single man and to invite Him to stay with them as their guest based on such a scant testimony as this.

It is clear here that there are several ways and timings through which various people will enter into true faith. I would like to grasp this much better in my own mind, but far more urgently I want to experience myself the intensity and reality of the kind of belief and faith that all of these people suddenly encountered and embraced. I want to have a testimony confront me that will unlock the secret places in my heart that are desperate for a real Savior to come and spend time with me. I am thirsty to drink for real this water of life and to get involved in the harvest that is going on all around me that I am largely oblivious to and certainly not very involved in at this point. I am tired of missing out on all the excitement and waiting for all the deep damage to be repaired that is starting to surface from the recesses of my soul.

But as I become more aware of the growing intensity of my own hunger and thirst I realize that this in itself is really a good sign of hope. I have been praying to be more real and to feel my true hunger for a long time. So I should not be surprised – and I'm not really – when these feelings begin to show up in my mind and heart. I want to feel my true condition and be fully converted so that God can use me and put me to work in His harvest operation. I want a piece of the action, but I don't want to do it without a true conversion and a genuine encounter with Jesus.

So as I see it right now, I am going to keep tagging along behind Jesus with His other bewildered disciples as He continues to patiently and kindly mentor me on what is really going on. And I trust that when the time is ripe for me that I too will be harvested and then be prepared to turn around and effectively become a reaper myself in full cooperation with Him.

Who's Harvesting Who?

"I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor." (John 4:38)

I keep thinking about the relation of Jesus' disciples to what was going on in this story. It seems obvious in a number of ways that they just were not “getting it” very well. Their prejudices were so strong that they were blinded from appreciating what Jesus was all about – openly loving and saving every person regardless of culture, gender or background. Their training in religion, like ours, handicapped them from entering into a sympathetic spirit with that like motivated Jesus.

And yet they were with Jesus for that very purpose and He was determined to do whatever it would take to transform them into men who would finally “get it”. Just as He had chosen the children of Israel and had worked with them for centuries, not based on their greatness or their numbers or their goodness but because they were the weakest and the fewest in number and in need of the most help – likewise Jesus chose men for disciples who in religious people's eyes were possibly the least qualified to invite into a religious training curriculum.

So I suppose that it should not be much of a surprise that the dullest people in class were the ones who were under the most intensive training. Jesus, the most advanced teacher ever to live on planet earth chose to work with the most difficult and slowest learners just as He had chosen the Israelites centuries before to prove that love can reach to the lowest places and transform the most problematic people into efficient reflectors of His glory if they are willing to cooperate. That gives me hope too.

But at this point in their training they were still largely clueless though nonetheless very much loved by Jesus. So Jesus takes them through another mentoring exercise to show them what real religion is supposed to look like. Jesus came to earth primarily to reveal the truth about God and how God wants to relate to sinners. The Jews had very distorted ideas of who a sinner was and what made a person a sinner and based on their ideas they considered these Samaritans to be on the hopeless side of salvation. But Jesus completely ignored labels and prejudices when dealing with people and saw everyone around Him from the perspective of their heart condition and the atmosphere of their spirits.

As I ponder this verse something rather fascinating begins to emerge. I cannot be certain yet if what I am seeing is exactly what Jesus was trying to convey, but if so I find it compelling. Jesus said that He had sent the disciples to reap where they had not previously labored. That seems rather plain enough in relation to this story. It appears to me that Jesus did not intend for the disciples to just go into town to only look for food while totally ignoring the people they would encounter there. Yes, that is likely what happened on their short trip, but it was certainly not what Jesus saw as the real potential for them.

Now He was reviewing their trip upon their return and in a way was critiquing what had taken place in order to try to get them to perceive their roles differently. “I sent you into town for much more important reasons than just to look for food. These physical exercises are always just a cover for our real mission in life” This is the point where Jesus was trying to wake them up as much as possible to the kind of reality that was the context in which He operated.

But what comes next is rather interesting depending on the assumptions we bring to this story ourselves. We too have a great deal of blindness because of our assumptions about how God operates and relates to various kinds of people and those prejudices also prevent us from seeing many things in the Bible. It says here that others have labored and you have entered into their labor.

This is where it can get really interesting. Who are the others that Jesus is talking about here? Is it His own encounter with the woman He had just finished talking to there at the well? Was it some unknown person who had had an influence on her or the townspeople before Jesus had arrived there? What might Jesus be really talking about in this phrase?

It occurred to me this morning that very possibly Jesus might have been referring to the woman herself. Maybe this woman had “gotten it” so quickly that she instantly and even unconsciously had become a highly efficient laborer with Jesus and was even then working very hard to help Him bring in a great harvest that is described in the rest of this story. But the amazing part of this is that what might be seen in this verse, at least in my view, possibly the disciples themselves may have become part of the harvest that she was working to bring in. Maybe when Jesus said that they had entered into the labor of someone else that at least in part it could mean that they had become part of someone else's harvest.

I unfortunately feel more identity with these dull-minded disciples than I do with this woman who so quickly “gets it” and jumps right in to be a co-laborer with Jesus. I suspect that I may end up like these disciples as part of the harvest that needs to be invited and even instructed in many ways by new people who may not know as much about the Bible as I do but may have far greater maturity in other emotional areas than I do. I sense that I too am often blinded by my religious prejudices which prevents me from appreciating the potential for someone to minister to me whom I would normally assume needs my instruction more.

I want the eyes of heaven and the heart of Jesus and most of all His humility to see people the way He sees them instead of through the dull eyes of religious prejudice. I want to listen to the Spirit speaking to my heart and revealing to me what is really taking place in His harvest instead of insisting that it must happen the way my religious culture insists it must take place. I want to cultivate an awareness of what God is really doing all around me that currently I am far to blind and ignorant and prejudiced to perceive at this point. I want to quit being so clueless and start entering into the real joy of my Lord.