Note: I preached this homily a few weeks ago, but actually just winged it from a few scribbled notes. Several people asked if I could put it on the blog, so I finally got around to doing so. I think it's pretty much what I said when I preached it.
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Readings: Gn 32:23-33 • Psalm 17 • Mt 9:32-38
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The Gospel passage we just heard really had a lot to do with my becoming a deacon. I have to go back 40 years. I was a naval officer, in my early 30s, and our ship was in Keelung, a port in Taiwan.
On one of my days off I took the train to Taipei, the capital city, and just spent the day sightseeing. As I roamed about town, I stopped by an art gallery and bought a couple of prints, actually temple rubbings, and then found a bookstore with lots of English language books. While browsing I came across a very fancy New Testament, all leather-bound and very reasonably priced…so I bought it.
Hungry, I stopped by a restaurant for a late lunch and, sitting alone, managed to overcome the language barrier enough to order some rice and chicken and a cup of hot tea. As I waited for my food, I opened the New Testament and discovered it was in both Chinese and English – on opposite pages. I turned to the page marked by a ribbon – the final verses of Matthew Chapter 9:
"The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest" [Mt 9:37-38]
As I was mulling this over, thinking about what Jesus might have meant, a young Chinese man, probably in his early twenties, approached my little table and asked if he could, as he phrased it, "eat with me." I thought that a bit odd, since I was not only a stranger but also a foreigner, but of course I agreed.
Immediately he began to talk, telling me he was earning his degree at a local university and had to demonstrate some fluency in English. Pretty sure I was an American, he wanted to practice his English on me. He then noticed my open New Testament and asked what I was reading. When I told him it was a Gospel passage from the New Testament, he asked, "What's the Gospel? What's the New Testament?"
I told him it was about Jesus' life on earth, His teachings, and His death and Resurrection, but he looked very puzzled and asked, "Who was Jesus?" At that moment I realized the Gospel had not yet been preached everywhere, that we had not yet made "disciples of all nations."
And so, we ate and talked about Jesus. When I got up to leave, I handed him my newly purchased, fancy New Testament. You would have thought I had given him the Emperor's jewels. You see, it was then I decided that God wanted me to do something related to that harvest Jesus told his disciples about. I just didn't yet know exactly what that work would include.
But in that moment, with those few verses, I really believe I was given a glimpse into the very Heart of Jesus, for that's what the Gospel does. By asking His disciples to pray that way He was trying to convey to them the desires of His own Heart. He wants us to see as He sees, to lay aside all our worldly desires and pursue only that which God pursues.
So often, you and I pray that God will raise up others, you know, priests, religious sisters and brothers, even deacons, but they're not the only laborers. It was over that chicken and rice in the presence of that young man that I realized "laborer" was just another word for disciple, and that's what Jesus was asking for. And that means each of us...you and me. We are all called to go out into that vineyard for the harvest...every single one of us. We are all God's laborers.
I don't know if that Chinese-English New Testament had an impact on that young man who's probably now in his sixties. But his conversion wasn't my work. All you and I do is the little bit the Holy Spirit leads us to do. The rest, all the heavy lifting...that's God's work.
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