Lord of Harvest, Send Forth Reapers
The floors were often cold when we arrived at the little white, wooden framed building with a heater in the corner for winters and open windows in the summer. The benches, made by the men of this growing church in South Texas, must have been designed to keep children awake through the employment of sharp edges that provided discomfort to the back of short legs. My young reasoning for this assumption found support in the verse my father repeated to me several time during public worship. “Sit up straight and stop moving,” he would whisper into my ear as though quoting from A Child’s Guild for Attending Worship. (I still cannot find that verse in the Bible.)
I was too short in my seat to see them, but my most vivid memory was the sound of the men leading prayer on bended knee in front of the assembly. Deep, melodious voices filled the room with a version of Matthew 9:36-38, “Lord, we pray to Thee that Thou would send workers to Thy harvest, for Thy harvest is white, but Thy harvesters are few.”
Later, another building, much larger and modern for the time, was built on the same property. To the delight of us children, the benches were replaced with heavy, wooden, professionally built pews that made “sitting straight” more tolerable for the short-leggers. The windows were smaller, as ceiling fans moved air to cool worshippers who now had the blessing of a public address system. Prayer leaders no longer knelt, but stood behind a chrome microphone that caused terrible feedback when the deep, loud prayer voice was employed. Men learned to speak more softly, “Lord, we pray to Thee that Thou would send workers to Thy harvest for Thy harvest is white but Thy harvesters are few.” Many changes were taking place in the assembly, but the requests to the Lord remained the same.
In the 1960’s, like so many other churches across the nation, my home town congregation built a new building. Central heat and air replaced all windows and ceiling fans. Padded pews and carpeted floors provided more comfort to the experience of the growing number of children. The baby boom generation had arrived, bringing the addition of youth ministries.
Prayers remained highly respectful but seemed more conversational than the short sermon style of the past. I remember much stir among fellow worshipers as prayer leaders spoke “You” and “Your” rather “Thee,” “Though,” and “Thy” into tiny microphones, “Our Lord, we plead with You. Please send workers into the world to teach others about You, but Your harvest is white, but the number of workers is few.”
Changes have occurred over the years in the building, seating and physical aids employed by God’s people in public worship. (Has anyone seen my song book?) While there have been many changes, the point of this reflection is not the change of the material but the consistent content of the prayer, “Lord, please send workers into the white harvest of souls in this world.”
While God’s people have been pleading for more harvesters, three huge social phenomena have developed…
- · People are living longer
- · The number of people living longer is growing and
- · Retirement is expected and affordable to most.
As a social gerontologist I can offer scientific explanations for these three phenomena, such as…
- Improvement in public health
- Reduction of certain diseases through improved health care, which also lowers child mortality rates
- Economic advances that reduce sickness related to stress, and
- A little thing called Social Security
I know and teach about these things in my work. But deep within me resides a question that I feel I must put before God’s people—“Is God involved in any way in bringing about these three intersecting, historical, social phenomena?” How should God’s people view what is happening around us?
As a community of faith, maybe we should begin to consider that God has been answering our persistent prayer, though with a somewhat different response than we visualized with bowed knee and squeaky microphones. Maybe God has been saying “Yes” to our prayer all along, not with young missionary families, but with healthy, retired individuals.
Maybe God is making us the answer to our own prayers!
I am old enough and, hopefully, wise enough to avoid saying exactly what the Creater is doing. However, the health, relative wealth, available time, wisdom, and lifelong skills smong our present and future retirees could be offering the greatest resource to the church of our Lord since Pentecost!
Maybe we need to do a little changing—in how we view retirement.
Dr. Charlie Pruett is the director of the Pruett Gerontology Center at ACU and a deacon at Hillcrest church of Christ in Abilene, Texas