Working for the Harvest

For the past month or so, we’ve had work being done to repair the window frames on our vicarage. And, because it’s a very old, listed building, this has taken a lot more time than expected.

Here at St Cadoc’s, you’ve learned a little bit about that over the past couple of years, as it’s taken time to restore and re-order this beautiful, historic building. It’s wonderful, now, though, to be able to see how everything here has come to fruition.

When it comes to our house, instead of the whole army of labourers I was expecting, most days there has just been the one skilled workman. Slowly working away on his own, day by day, window by window to sand and chip away, restore and renew.

As I’ve been watching his progress, I couldn’t help but be reminded of this week’s Gospel.

‘The harvest is plentiful,’ Jesus tells his disciples, ‘but the labourers are few.’ And in today’s Church we can often relate. Like that one lone workman, we can sometimes feel as if we’ve been left on our own.

This is not just true of the numerous jobs that need doing to keep our churches going, but it can also be true of our Christian witness in our workplaces, our communities, our schools. Whereas Christianity was once a central conviction in society, today it has become a marginal faith. And so, we can often feel increasingly isolated, and unsure what the Church’s purpose should be.

So what can we do about this? What does it mean to live as a faithful Christian — a ‘labourer for God’s harvest’ — in today’s secular world? And why does it matter?

In order to answer these questions, we first need to understand the ‘harvest’ Christ is referring to. This is one of a number of images Jesus uses to help us understand God’s plan, for the Church and for the world.

Just as, with a farmer, their labour all year is working towards a harvest, so the same is true for God. Clearing the ground, preparing the soil, planting the seed and nurturing the potential crop — all of these tasks serve a purpose, because they all lead eventually to the harvest. While, much of the potential might be hidden, the farmer has faith that, if they continue to work diligently, in the end the harvest will come.

So it is, too, with Christ’s body, the Church. Christ encourages his disciples to pray for labourers to join him in his work. And later, he commissions them to join in with this work themselves.

A work which is motivated by love — his compassion for a crowd who are ‘like sheep without a shepherd’. And which is rooted in hope — the confident hope that, by God’s grace, the harvest one day will come.

A faith in our — and God’s — future.

This work of the kingdom, this labouring for the harvest, flows naturally from hearts which are filled with Christ’s love. From our natural desire to bring healing to others, to free our neighbours from the things that might bind and constrain them, to offer them hope and peace and fulfilment.

But, in a world where there are so many other powers at work, it also requires us to live with focus and intention. To focus on Christ, and on sharing his story, rather than allow ourselves to be distracted by the many other stories that surround us.

And to bear witness, intentionally and sacrificially, to his Gospel of grace — no matter what it might cost us. ‘You [have] received without payment,’ Jesus tells his disciples, now ‘give without payment.’

This is hard, especially when we live in a world where there is often so little charity or goodwill. A world where everything, and everyone, has a price and a potential value to us.

It’s very easy for us to stop being sacrificial, and instead become transactional, about the way we approach our relationships. With one another as fellow workers. With those who need our help. Even, sadly, with our neighbouring churches.

Christ, however, does not operate in transactional mode, but in a relational and sacrificial one.

To gain a bigger harvest, today’s farmers might buy up more land or purchase bigger machinery. But instead, Christ prays for more workers. More people — flawed human beings like you and I.

No matter how undeserving we may feel, he draws us in with his extravagant love. He pays the price for our sin, and stands alongside us in our suffering. And he sends us out to work for his kingdom, with the promise of his Holy Spirit to help us.

We boast not in ourselves, writes Paul, but in ‘our hope of sharing the glory of God’.

A glory revealed, not through power or conquest or any human achievement, but in a broken body nailed to a cross. In the love of God poured out for the world, no matter how undeserving and no matter the cost.

I wonder, who might Christ be calling you to serve today?

How might you — in your workplace or place of learning, among your family, friends or neighbours — work alongside him bringing wholeness, reconciliation and hope?

And how might this congregation, working together with others across your Ministry Area, be more fully a sign of the heavenly harvest which is to come? A harvest more incredible than we could even imagine. More extensive than our eyes could comprehend. More full than our hearts can even bear.

Because, despite how diligently and skilfully he’s doing it, thankfully we are not called to be like that lone labourer. The one who’s slowly sorting out my window frames.

No matter how it might sometimes feel, we are not on our own. We are gifted with a community of fellow labourers alongside us and a whole family of churches all around us. And even more than that, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of Christ himself, who lives within us to strengthen and sustain us.

Today, may Christ strengthen us in our calling, and renew us in his Mission — until that day when his harvest comes and his kingdom reigns, forever and ever.

Amen.

Sermon preached at St Cadoc’s Caerleon in the Beechwood Ministry Area on Sunday 14 June 2026.