A Ready Harvest

The analogy of farming is quite a simple one and something that I have come to learn from in my journey with God. As someone who grew up buying food from the supermarket, it was a joyful experience when I started to visit friends and communities with farms. What intrigues me is that at the heart of the cycle of farming, is a field to work, and a storehouse to keep the crop of the land. The farmer is dedicated to ensuring that he profits as much as he can from the size and potential of the field he owns. Therefore, he will work the ground tirelessly and thoroughly, ensuring that it has all that it needs to yield forth a generous harvest. The farmer understands that his produce is in the field, and the barn (which is the storehouse for the harvest) is simply meant to keep the proceeds. No matter how plentiful his barn may be, he never mistakes the place of storage for the field of harvest. The farmer’s strength is not necessarily in his barn but the field he works. However, a wise farmer is also cognisant that the barn he prepares must also be equivalent to store the size and potential of what his field is able to bring forth. The greatest tragedy of a farmer would be to neglect both, and become fixated with one over the other. Based on the level of work and the size of the field, the farmer hires and deploys workers to the field to work the ground in the season of harvest.

This analogy of the farmer, the harvest and the barn, is best understood and narrated by the Lord Jesus who brings his disciples to the knowledge of a ready harvest of souls and the need to not delay but to hasten to reap. Jesus Christ in conversations with his disciples, sees that his disciples are concerned about him having something to eat, while he is burdened by something greater than food. His response to them is, “My food… is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” (Jn 4:34). While the body demanded for him to pay attention to food, his spirit demanded for him to pay attention to the fields of lost souls, which he knew are ripe and ready to harvest. In a land full of spiritually lost Samaritans, he likens them to a field that are like a crop of eternal life. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the testimony of the woman he met at the well, and also from hearing for themselves from the Master’s words. The revelation they came to receive is that “… we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world” (Jn 4:42).

The Lord is the farmer that sees the world as a field and the gospel of the Kingdom as the much-needed seed. The Lord with great emphasis makes us understand that the world is ready; lives are lost but ready to hear and respond to the Good News of Jesus Christ. Jesus does not mistake the tribes, languages and ethnic groups that he has already been brought into the barn as a reason to not labour further into the field of the world; which he knows that there is still parts of the field that still need much labour and labourers. We must not say ‘it is four months till harvesttime’, like the disciples, and not see the opportunities by the well but make our way being concerned about the cares of life at the expense of the towns, regions and nations that are waiting for those who will sow and reap the crop of eternal life. It is even encouraging that many of us will reap where we have not laboured, and others will reap were we have worked, but we will all be ecstatic with joy when we see the people from all over the world brought into the barn of the Lord through our obedient service. The size of the barn owned by God is the size of the world, and a harvest that is ready but not harvested in time unfortunately decays. Our eyes need to open, and understand that Jesus met with one woman, but knew that there was a whole town ready to hear and respond to Him. Many came and believed in Him. Our work as servants to the Master who owns this world we live in, is to not only work under His instruction, but to seek to finish witnessing to the world as a field. Wherever we are and whatever we are doing, we should aspire to open our eyes in our homes, communities, workplaces and schools, to meet with ‘women by the well’ and create more opportunities for others to go to other parts of this world, to make Jesus known where he has not been heard.

I pray that our eyes would be open to see that the time to harvest is now, and more ready for us than ever before.

Sibusiso Banda