Scripture: Matthew 9:35-38 (NIV)
The Workers Are Few
35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Reflection: Are we losing this church?
In today’s reading, Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into God’s harvest field.”
In the context of The United Church, Winnipeg Presbytery, and our congregational lives, I call us to view these words through an intercultural lens. “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” Why are they few? Intercultural Ministries leaders suggest that we ask these questions, which you can find on the United Church’s website: “Who is missing? Who is not present at our table? Who is heard and listened to, and who is not? Whose leadership is respected, and whose is ignored? Who finds an easy place in our community, and who will pick up subtle signals that they don’t belong?” What I hear from these questions is a challenge to the multi-layered barriers that block the Others from fully participating in the United Church.
If I rephrase these questions in my own terms, they boil down to, “Who are considered as the Others (not capable to do the task, not familiar to the task) and therefore not invited to the table? And, who set up the table? Who calls it the Table for all, who puts out the chairs, who chooses the menu, who orders the food, who welcomes people to the feast at the table?”
In the next triennium, The United Church will continue to go through the hard, challenging task of change and transition in order to build a new structure and to live in it. On the journey, we might complain, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” What is the issue? What can we do now? What should we do differently? I see that Jesus has the answer already for us, plainly. “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into God’s harvest field.” We should ask God to send out workers. We should try hard to see who are the workers God calls to help us reimagine the church. We need to ask important questions through the intercultural lens: engaging difference. At the 43rd General Council, Jordan Cantwell opened the meeting with these words: “If we want to be different, we can’t be the same.” Our responsibility is to make sure that there is no margin, no uncertain or inhospitable places in our community, and that no one feels they are left out from the important conversations at the table.
I am so grateful that I was able to go to Oshawa this summer to participate as a commissioner in the 43rd General Council. Some of us might remember that I came in third in May’s election to be the GC43 commissioner (which means I was not elected, nor was I the alternate.) However, I was comforted and encouraged when a colleague of mine sent me these words, “God is not done yet! One of God’s habitual activities is creating possibilities for voices from the margin to be heard even when it takes a bit of wiggling to get them there.”
God actually did get me there, through the new category of Racialized members composing 20 percent of the commissioners from the MNWO Conference. I was sent! In addition, in Oshawa, I was elected to be one of the fifteen who would serve on the General Council Executive, from 2019-21. I heard someone say both affectionately and jokingly, “So now Ha Na is in power.” My response is no, I didn’t work hard to be included, to simply seek power. Please don’t put me in that box. I was and am eager for participation; I am eager for conversation. Why? What conviction or desperation or background inspires that eagerness?
In answer to that question, I would like to share with you what I wrote on GC43 Conversation, this past June. GC43 Conversation is the Facebook page where 601 United Church members were invited to chat before and after GC.
I said “I think that why we feel that we are losing the United Church we knew in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s is because…
We no longer sense eros, philia, fervor for wisdom and revolution…, And it is not our priority to bond passionate companionship for rebellious journey for equity, inclusion and justice,
And because those of us who studied someone’s passionate whispers and thunders secretly and fervently, and committed themselves to friendship and solidarity with the marginalized Others, have come to no longer need survival, once they have climbed the mountain and seen the vista.
However, we need to remember that there are still the Others who study and desire the new languages of revolution, with fervor, for their own survival at the present. These new “We” dream and seek solidarity and the alliance of strength, where possible, with you all!
We feel that our table is getting smaller, and workers are few.
We have become small and tired because...
even though we might break bread at the table with women, the queer, the poor, the immigrant, the racialized, we do it without intense love and interest to know the Others, and to converse with the Others… We might break bread with them, BUT WITHOUT such intense love that traditionally has been praised as eros, philia and fervor, these beautiful and powerful life forces, we do not let the Others influence us to change through love.
Jesus says, “The harvest is plenty and workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into God’s harvest field.”
Hymn: VU 572 Send Me, Lord
Benediction
Susan Beaver, Indigenous, queer spiritual future giant (I would call her like this) was among the seven Moderator nominees, this summer, and was a big inspiration to me.
She said, "We can do conflict like a ceremony.” (now my words: Here, I understand Conflict as a positive dynamic; conflict as a sign that the real conversation, the most important conversation, is shared and taking place among the stakeholders.)
She said, “We can do conflict like a ceremony, if you have peace in your hands, peace in your heart, peace in your mouth, peace in your mind, because peace is the presence of the Creator,”
Because… we must struggle hard, but at the same time we must be the most easy-going beings in the universe, because we all deserve a good life.
Therefore, … (now a Benediction), go in peace.
We’re unravelling and are travelling to a place
of new-formed-patterns,
as a fusion of loss, and hope, and pain and beauty.
May the Creator be the master of ceremonies of our life and of this night. Amen.
Hymn: VU 964 Go Now in Peace (singing in a round)
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