Pentecost 4C 2025

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

Recent studies have revealed what many of us already knew. Church attendance
is down—way down. In our diocese, we gathered just a few weeks ago as a
congregation met one last time for worship in its familiar building. At our recent clergy
conference we were told about one that closed a few years ago who gathered for the
deconsecration of the building two days before its sale was final.

Some of you here remember a time when pews were comfortably filled, even
when they weren’t cooled to an accepted temperature. There may be some who also
remember wearing suits and hats and gloves on those occasions. Many continue to look
around and ask “where is everyone?”

That doesn’t seem to be a question that Jesus cares to answer. Instead, Jesus
might ask a question that gets more to the point. But then, he probably wouldn’t even
ask the question. He would just make a statement.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, ask the Lord of the
harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” We just sang a hymn that echoes what we
call “The Great Commission.” Matthew puts it this way: Go and make disciples. Luke’s
version is a bit more subtle while also getting down to business. Go on your way.
Don’t worry about what you will take or what you will need. Those who welcome you
will take care of that.

But . . .? But what? What if they don’t? Where will we eat or sleep? Don’t
worry about that, Jesus says. If they don’t welcome you, they’re really rejecting me, and
what’s more, they’re rejecting God. Let God handle that. Just know that when they
welcome you, they welcome me, and they welcome God. Tell the story. Do my work.
Heal the sick, send a few demons packing.

Do you understand what Jesus’ words mean? When we’re doing God’s work,
telling the story of grace and forgiveness in whatever form we use, it’s not just us doing
the work. God is with us, God is there. This also means that our work is not about us.
It’s about God. Otherwise, we substitute ourselves for God, and violate rule number
one.

We—all of us, not just the ordained—are laborers whom God sends into the
harvest. We walk into some fields that are plowed and ready for planting, and some
that are rocky and overgrown from years of neglect.

A few weeks ago I said to a couple of our members that I thought it was time that
we started collecting dust to form into human shapes. Some might call that getting back
to basics, to the beginning. My comment was that the more traditional method of
forming human beings didn’t seem to be working as well as it used to.

The baby boom many of us grew up in was an unusual time. Birth rates grew at
an astounding pace. Jobs seemed to be created out of raw firmament and houses and
schools sprang up on what was once mostly farmland. The house I now live in is in one
such development that sprang up in the mid-1980s. Then, the second wave of births
was expected as baby boomers married and had children.

That was how congregations grew. But birth rates declined, and many opted to
not have children at all, even if they got married. It seems we need to find a different
way of creating children.

You might think that strange, but what I mean is that we need to rediscover what
it means to create children of God, or, to use Matthew’s words, make disciples. So-
called church growth programs don’t really work, and I believe God turns away from
them because they focus on the wrong thing. We aren’t laborers for a harvest to gather
bodies into our empty pews. We don’t make disciples of budgets.

Instead, we are called to live our lives as a revelation of God’s presence with us.
The name chosen for this place, Immanuel, is so much more than a sign on the corner.
It is our reason for being, our purpose. Our task is to live in such a way that the Spirit
of God that wafted over the waters at creation, that gave and continues to give life, is
our invitation to join in the community of believers. We are created in human flesh,
then re-created (Paul uses the word “adoption”) in the waters of baptism. Perhaps,
when we come to the full revelation of who we are as children of God, we will finally
understand what it means to be both created and begotten.

We are sent into a harvest to tell the story of a God who appears in human form,
and in some way to be the evidence of God’s presence, the revelation of the risen Christ.
This is the same God who calls life into being and sustains that life by being part of it.
The presence we carry, that really carries us into the harvest field is that of a Creator
who gives life where sickness and death threaten to take it away. It is a story of One
whose presence stands firm in faith in the face of cruelty and oppression. It is an
acclamation that, even when it seems all is lost, God shakes new life out of the death-
dealing ways of the world.

We don’t have to fight evil, except when it tries to take control of our own lives.
We can stand in the strength of the risen Christ and announce that God has already
overcome sin and death, standing with the faith of Jesus that holds true to this day. The
adversary, Satan, Jesus calls it, wants chaos to overshadow that truth. And when we
give in to chaos and its fuel, anxiety, we risk doing Satan’s work and not the work of the
new day Christ gives us.

Because this day is the day of the new age declared on a lonely hill outside
Jerusalem. It is the day where the strange fruit on a desolate tree blossomed into new
life. It is the day when evil itself remains fallen, overcome by the unending power of
the life of the living God.

Laborers for this day are still needed. Are you ready to sign up for the work
given for us to do? The joy of new life for us and for all who welcome the story that is
ours to tell depends on your answering “yes.”