Open Your Eyes

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IF THE GOOD NEWS REALLY IS GOOD NEWS, why wouldn’t we do everything in our power to share that good news with others?

That was the question I kept returning to in my sermon on February 5, the Sunday of our Annual Parish Meeting. It was a question I could not help but ask given the Scriptures of the day: Elisha working his socks off to restore the Shunammite Woman’s son from the dead; Jesus’ concern to get on the road so that all of the people in the surrounding villages would have a chance to hear and experience the Gospel.

If you recall, I repeated this question from the pulpit with a specific purpose in mind. This spring we are conducting our third Harvest outreach as a parish. Harvest is a ministry of invitation by which our parishioners get on the phone (if not literally “on the road”) so that others can have a chance to hear and experience the Gospel. We call up our neighbors, and if they are presently without a church home we invite them to St. John’s. We also take prayer requests, and an on-site team lifts up in prayer the various needs we encounter. In many ways, Harvest is program that gets our church doing all the things a church should be doing: reaching out in care and concern to those around us.

Sometimes we (either the Church as a whole or we as individuals) don’t reach out in care and concern because we are blind to the needs around us. Once when Jesus was ministering in Samaria, he said to his disciples, “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.” (St. John 4:35 ESV)

“Look,” he says! “Lift up your eyes!” His disciples were preoccupied, it seems, with their own hopes and fears, perhaps the particular hopes and fears of their people, Israel. But there they were, in Samaria, and streaming to Jesus were these foreigners—men and women (who, incidentally, were donned in the white robes distinctive of Samaritan dress, then and now)—needy people for whom the good news of Jesus was like living water. The fields were white! The disciples just needed to open their eyes.

What I love about the Harvest program is how it opens our parish’s eyes to the needs present in our community. We talk to people on the phone who are lonely or distressed or “stuck.” We pray for those who are grieving or troubled or ill, and sometimes we see God answer in miraculous ways. But the greater miracle is how it changes our hearts as we “lift up our eyes,” consider the needs of others, and by prayer and invitation extend the love of Jesus Christ.

If the good news really is good news—if the beautiful life, the atoning death, and the mighty resurrection of our Savior is indeed the best news of all—why wouldn’t we do everything in our power to share that good news with others, throwing ourselves into this year’s Harvest? I hope every member of the parish will take up my challenge to get involved. Open your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest!

Yours always in Christ,