A sermon written and preached by the members of the Youth Group at St. George’s Church Campden Hill, 3rd July 2016
THE HARVEST IS PLENTIFUL
A sermon
written and preached by the members of the Youth Group at St. George’s Church
Campden Hill, 3rd July 2016
Isaiah
66:10-14
A few
weeks ago, a Christian Aid worker came to work with the Youth Group. Several
different issues relating to global poverty were illustrated through the story
of a coffee farmer in Brazil who had worked with Christian Aid. This man had
previously travelled far from home to find work in a sugar factory. When he
arrived, the bosses took his identity papers, saying they needed to check them
and would return them. Instead, they kept them. Without these identity papers,
the workers couldn’t leave. The bosses withheld pay from them, and failed to
provide benefits like health care – and since the workers didn’t have their
papers, there was nothing they could do. This man organized the workers
together and they went on strike. Eventually, the bosses fled the factory and
the workers were able to retrieve their papers – however, since they hadn’t
been paid for a very long time, they had trouble surviving until they could
find other work.
Christian
Aid provided this man with land and coffee plants to help him begin a coffee
farm. Now, he is stable and making enough money to support his family.
Relating
to this story, we looked at a Bible verse that you also heard in church that
same week, two weeks ago now, from Saint Paul’s letter to the church in
Galatia. “In Christ,” Paul writes, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither
slave nor free, neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.”
If we were
to rewrite that for our times, maybe it would read, “In Christ, there is
neither Muslim nor Christian, neither migrant nor native, neither male nor
female, neither straight nor gay, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.”
The
problems of global poverty and injustice – all the ways in which we fail to
live up to the ideal of all being one, equal, respecting each other – seem so
overwhelming. In our Christian Aid
session, we learned that 2 billion people in the world still live in extreme
poverty, and a further 3 billion are in poverty. We hear every day of the
excesses of the super-rich, the companies allowed to evade tax, the horrible
mistreatment of workers, human trafficking, and so much more. We hear of mass
shootings in nightclubs, and the murder of an MP who spoke up for human rights.
We hear about refugees escaping the horror of war being treated like vermin,
the dehumanizing language used to try and make us see them as less than human.
Some of us try to take action – one member of our Youth Group is boycotting
Primark and Starbucks because of human rights violations and tax avoidance. But
it feels like the power of an individual is so small, and the evils are so big.
And that’s
where today’s Gospel reading comes in.
When we
read the reading, Margaret asked us, “what do you think Jesus means when he
says the harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few?” And the answer we came up with was, “there’s
lots to do, but there’s no people to do it.”
And in our
world today, there’s lots to do, but there’s no people to do it.
And so
what does Jesus do? He sends out 70 of
his disciples, and he sends them out in pairs. They’re not alone – they’re
working together to start doing the work of fixing the world’s pain. Jesus tells
them they are “like lambs in the midst of wolves.” We feel like this sometimes
– especially at our age, when we have so little power in the world, but care so
much about making a difference, and when we feel like we’re up against such
powerful evils. But the disciples
weren’t alone, and we – the modern-day disciples, aren’t either.
When the
workers in Brazil were being treated unfairly by their employer, they joined
together. They made a difference as a group. When Jesus sent out the disciples,
they worked together, in pairs. And we, as a church, can join together and make
a difference. Today’s Gospel tells us that Jesus doesn’t just call us to serve
him here in church, but out in the world. We are disciples not just for an hour
on Sunday, but every day.
And what
happened when the disciples did this? They returned, amazed. “Even the demons
are powerless before us!” they said.
They had more power than they knew. They could make more of a difference
than they realised.
The
problems facing the world today – poverty, climate change, tax avoidance, human
trafficking, gender inequality, racism, war, homophobia, and so much more –
feel insurmountable. But we, as Jesus’s disciples, are called to go out into
the world and do something about them. To heal the world’s sicknesses, and
preach the kingdom. We can do it. But we need to do it together. How can we get
started?