The One Who Reaps

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” John 4:31-38

We awoke this morning to snow on the first full day of Spring. We had a few warm days and it seemed like warmth was just around the corner. This morning seemed like we got a set back and winter still has a little bit more to give. With each season, there is the possibility to enjoy and to bemoan, to wait for a different harvest or to frolic in what we have been given. Too often, we close our hearts to the here and now waiting for another season, until it is too late. None of us control the seasons, and most of the blessings we have come from others' labor and faithfulness.

Jesus was trying to help the disciples see the world around them and to be more than linear. They needed to see a fuller picture through the lens of God's love. And like us, they were stuck in the day to day routines, frustrated when schedules and things change, unable to see the gifts around them in the challenges and complexity. They wanted to reap what they would sow, but that was not their call. They wanted a transaction and they got a relationship, dynamic and moving.

Today, I want to rejoice in every complexity that I am offered and remember that God dwells in the changing places- seasons, times, outlooks and hearts - rather than in stagnant ponds of the long dead, frozen in time. May we all rejoice to be alive and ready to do the work we are called to do this day, for God's reign and for the care of the least in our midst.