April 14, 2021 John 4: 35-38
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him,
‘Rabbi, eat something.’ 32But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know
about.’ 33So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something
to eat?’ 34Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to
complete his work. 35Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”?
But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for
harvesting. 36The reaper is already receiving wages and
is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice
together. 37For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another
reaps.” 38I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others
have labored, and you have entered into their labor.’
39 Many Samaritans from that
city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I
have ever done.’ 40So when the Samaritans
came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two
days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They
said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe,
for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of
the world.’
It is a harvest
comparison. Jesus sets the stage by
pointing out their harvest is expected in another four months. That is for the crops. Then Jesus follows on the food metaphor. The people ‘need something to eat’, they
need, actually, the message that Jesus brings as the Messiah. They are looking
for something, for this Messiah to save them.
‘The fields are ripe for harvesting.’
This is exemplified by the woman at the well Jesus was speaking to.
Jesus said his food was ‘to do the will of him who sent
me and to complete his work.’ Jesus is
self-describing as the reaper ‘earning his wages’ and ‘gathering fruit for
eternal life’, in the sharing of the good news, the gospel message, with the
woman at the well (as well as looking forward to who else will come hear him
from the City). Now, the sower and the
reaper may rejoice together. Whereas the
‘reaper’ is Jesus, the one who shares the fulfillment of the Good News, the
‘sower’ is a much wider quantification.
Sown among the Samaritans was the very basis of faith
that they grew up with, from the Well of Jacob to the sacrifices made on the mountain
to their very contradistinctions with the “Jews” who center their worship in
Jerusalem. The ‘sower’ is essentially
summarizing the woman’s entire religious upbringing. Now Jesus, the Messiah, the ‘reaper’, is
fulfilling the expectations raised in her faith background. Thus, the sower and the reaper now celebrate
together.
So it seems that there is an old saying, “One person
sows, another reaps.” Maybe I do not
understand the cliches of bygone eras, but that seems rather obvious. I suppose it could be that it is in defiance
of the assumption that the same person who sows also reaps, the one who plants
the crops also harvests them. But Jesus
is not sharing this to provide for whatever their local equivalent of a bumper
sticker.
In this case, the ‘sowing’ has been done. The woman at the well was prepared to listen
to the message of Jesus. Her faith
background as a Samaritan, her ‘virtuously challenged’ lifestyle-which Jesus
spoke the truth of, without judgement-those came together in this moment of
conversation with Jesus, the Messiah, for the Spirit to take hold and fill her
with the hope of Jesus’ message and ministry.
It is the ‘reaping’, the speaking of the truth, that the disciples are
being called to do with Jesus.
Others have prepared the way. The disciples are called upon to go out into
the world and continue that work, either to prepare the way, or to ‘reap’, to
bring the good news that will center into the heart and soul of those to whom
they speak.
The disciples, if they carry the bias against the Samaritans
of the Jews who center their faith in Jerusalem, they would be skeptical of
Jesus’ ministry among ‘them’. They are
worse than ‘un-believers’, they are ‘wrong-believers’. And feelings against wrong-believers tend to
run in greater expression that unbelievers (the unbeliever can be dismissed as
ignorant, but the wrong-believer is messing up the message). Now Jesus stands among these ‘wrong-believers’
and says they believe, correctly.
Jesus’ work started among the Jews, as he said earlier to
the woman at the well, but now, for the disciples, he is going to show how that
work extends far beyond them. Which is
to our benefit, as Gentiles!
More tomorrow.
Peace, Pastor Peter
No comments:
Post a Comment