The Laborers Are Few

 Luke 10 1-11, 16-20

Come Unto Me
Wayne Pascal

July 3, 2022

 

The first church I was pastor at

had an attendance of about 350 people when I left.

They had choir of about 30 people and

four paid section leaders, three organs,

a preschool with nearly 200 children,

over 30 young people in the youth group.

150 children would come to Vacation Bible School.

I had to do a count for some reason and

the church had 36 paper towel dispensers.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

 

But every moment of my 8 years at that church

that congregation worried because we weren’t bigger.

Because  we didn’t have as many people

in church on Sunday as we used to,

or because our confirmation classes weren’t as large.

 

There is something hard wired in us,

maybe it’s in this country, that tells us

that bigger is better. That the largest

companies and institutions have obviously

done “something right” to get the customers,

or the attendance, or the money, or the notoriety and fame.

We have the same feeling about churches.

 

It’s a train of thought that is hard to get off the track of.

That is what we all are supposed to aspire to,

and all are supposed to be.

The first will be first, and best, and that is how

we all do God’s will, by being biggest, or bigger

and then, and only then, will we do our best work.

 

We look back on the “good old days” and

those good old days are usually “good old days”

because those are the days when we were bigger.

Size matters. And bigger is better.

 

But today in Luke we’ve got Jesus sending his apostles out

into the world to spread the word of God around.

There aren’t too many bits of advice from Jesus on how

the church should look or behave in the world, so this one sticks out.

 

Jesus doesn’t so much give them the content of their message

as much as the method they should use and what they might find.

He admits that he’s sending them out into the world

like lambs in the midst of wolves.

And yet he sends them out only in groups of two.

 

In other words, go lean. Only two people,

There were 70 of them. Jesus could have sent them out

all together so they could stave off those wolves.

They could have had power in numbers, at least they

could have had a choir and a softball team.

 

And Jesus he gives them some further instructions,

“Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals.”

In other words, don’t even bring any lunch money,

no extra clothes, no change of shoes,

And don’t bring your large paid staff, or programs,

And no paper towel dispensers.

 

Just don't carry any of it, Jesus says.

You don’t need any of that.

You just need you, and not a lot of you either.

Just you. Just two of you. That’s all you need.

 

We have confused what the world values with what God values.

We have confused the stuff of our institutions with ministry.

We have tried to make the earmarks of success in the world

the earmarks of success in the ministry of Jesus Christ.

But that doesn’t always work in the kingdom of God.

 

Sometimes maintenance of a large institution

forces churches to put the work of the Spirit second.

Often the expectations of a larger population forces us to

second guess God’s call to us.

A lot of times, people fall through the cracks in a larger church.

 

I’m sure there are large churches that do great ministry

but I know there are large churches that do things

that greatly wound many of their people.

And there are small churches that fall into those same

categories. I’m not saying that one is better than the other.

What I’m saying is that size doesn’t matter to Jesus.

 

The world wants more and more and more.

But Jesus doesn’t ask that of us.

What does God demand?

Two of us. Two people meeting another person

is all we need to do God’s work.

 

We have been meeting about our church,

talking mostly so far about our past and history

and this week we said Goodbye to the people we miss.

Those who have left or died. We are realizing 

that we are not the size were at one time. Almost no church is.

We can’t do things the way we used to do it.

Good. That will force us to think and be present.

Size doesn’t matter.

We are amazing and resilient and a powerful force

for Jesus here on this Island at all sizes.

 

Jesus doesn’t need us to be big.

Jesus just needs us and our voice to

carry his message into the world.

Two by two, carry no purse, no bag, no sandals.

We are perfect for ministry just as we are.

 

We are at our best in the church when we are vulnerable.

When we lose our defenses, our agendas, our programs,

and our pre-conceived notions. When we come together,

person to person and relate to one another.

When we come to our neighborhoods with empty hands

and say, “what do you think we should do now?”

When we bet our lives on the movement of the Spirit

and the generosity of those we touch.

We can do that no matter what size we are.

 

There is a pastor who was talking about their congregation.

They have 10 people in the pew on a good Sunday.

And a couple of those 10 people do a ministry

visiting inmates in the prison that is near them.

They met an old man there named Joe who

was in prison for a murder he committed when he was young.

He’s in prison for life and will never be released.

The pastor led a bible study about Moses and Joe

was moved by the fact that Moses had committed

murder and God still used him to do things.

He said he wanted to be used by God to do good things.

The pastor said that a couple weeks later, he opened the 

mail in the office and it was from the prison. Inside there were

15 little money orders from all different prisoners.

The money was to send the one child they had in the church


to summer camp. Size doesn’t matter.

 

The kingdom of God has come near us.

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Thanks be to God.