I have recently spent miles, even hours, driving past fields of corn and soybeans.  I found myself pondering what it would take to bring in that harvest if the farmers didn’t have machines… and then, the question of whether machines leave anything behind for the poor to gather… and how many of our poor might go out into the fields, combing through fallen stalks for grain to sustain their families… and whether any but the hungry would see value in that small overlooked harvest.

As I’ve mentioned before, my mind goes off in tangents that fold back in on themselves quickly, making interesting connections.  Now the trick is to find an organized path so I can invite you to journey along.

Many of us recognize the blessing and curse of machinery.  Tasks get done faster, and the saved time is taken up by required maintenance.  We can work independently, robbing ourselves of community.  We must work harder to do the important things that once came naturally, because we are now capable of doing more than is naturally possible.  With all that, I’m still thankful that our farmers have machines that support them in their work of providing the food I enjoy.

Not all harvests are food.  Jesus spoke of a ripe harvest and the need to petition the Lord of the Harvest to send workers into the field.  It occurred to me, we’ve become too comfortable with the idea of giving this task to machines.  Yes, there is a machinery to ministry – radios, internet resources, and books can be made available in remote places, and fewer linguistic experts can reach greater numbers of people.  Many have grown spiritually without being confined to conflicted schedules or limited access.  Yet, these supplemental resources have all but replaced the personal discipleship of families, churches, and communities.  Machinery can cut a wide swath through the fields, watering, fertilizing, even harvesting, but machines require maintenance, and we risk falling into the trap of believing that they can take care of everything.  Jesus said to ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers, not merely tools or machines.

In the biblical economy, harvesters were instructed to leave some fruit and grain behind for the sake of foreigners, the fatherless, and widows.  Those without resources were invited to gather food for the price of effort.  This was a time of no government resources, even prisoners relied on friends and family to provide food.  Like machinery, our modern ways of guaranteeing food are both better and worse.  We allegedly have more reliable coverage and fairer distribution, yet there’s a loss of community, a rise in entitlement philosophy, and a chasm between the owners who have enough to share and the poor who would work to share in it.  The book of Ruth shows the beauty of a foreign widow finding her provider and a whole new life, because there was a system that made it possible, a God who made it providential, and two people with right perspectives.  Just as we have given to technology the task of ministering to souls, we have given to government the task of stewarding God’s supplies.

What would happen if a person were to walk through a field today, gathering armloads of fallen corn?  Some might call them a thief, others might point them to a social services office, because that’s how things are done now.  Would it cross anyone’s mind to introduce the gatherer to the owner, in case a mutual arrangement could be worked out?  There was a time when farmhands were hired in just that way – sleep in the bunkhouse, eat around the table, and receive a few coins to spend or save in trade for fence mending, wood chopping, and cattle wrangling.  Not so today, and our personal worlds are smaller for it.

What happens, then, to the grain the machines leave behind?  Is it less market-worthy because it fell beside the wheel and rake, rather than into it?  Will no one get the benefit of the overlooked harvest?  Will it just lay there until it becomes fertilizer?  Take these questions, these images, and think again of the harvest Jesus referred us to – the harvest of souls, and the need for workers.

Radios and books, even internet videos, are reaching many and developing disciples of those who avail themselves of them.  That leaves out two groups – those who don’t know about the resources and those who couldn’t use them if they did know.   Here’s where I get blunt – Deaf people don’t listen to radios – one cannot read the lips of a vibrating speaker.

Driving past those fields, I’ve seen individual plants, and a person in every stalk.  God loves the world, yet He sees individual people.  This is my heart, folks, to walk through the fields of America seeking the overlooked harvest, the people who either don’t have access to discipleship communities or don’t know that resources are finally being made available in their language.  I’m thankful to be working on technology that will reach many children, and enable churches to provide teaching.  I’ll work on that project, that machine, until it gets up & running (unless God says otherwise).  I believe it’s good and worthy, and that it is my current assignment.  I also believe it’s not sufficient to reach those who have fallen, unseen, by the wayside.  We need to go and make disciples, person to person.

I’ve heard a few times too many that I will have a hard time finding investors for such a small and dispersed group of people.  Someone who is hungry enough will see the value of fallen stalks of corn in a harvested field.   We may need to do some fasting to develop that kind of hunger.  Read Isaiah 58 with today’s news in mind for thoughts on fasting (and a new exhibit of blunt).  There is an overlooked harvest, the Lord of the harvest is willing to send workers, are you?