When Jesus looked out over the crowds, His heart broke. They were so confused and aimless – like sheep without a shepherd. “What a huge harvest!” He said to his disciples. “How few workers! On your knees, and pray for workers.” Matthew 9:37-38, The Message

Jesus has become a sensation, so much so that the overwhelming size of the throngs is impeding His ministry. His ministry is becoming a victim of its own success. So much so that Jesus enjoins the people He heals not to tell anyone about Him. So much so that Jesus travels back and forth across the lake with His disciples to get away from the crowds, not because He is trying to avoid them, but because the numbers are so large He cannot function.

Yet when Jesus looks on the masses, His Shepherd’s heart prevails over concerns about operational impediments from the numbers. The masses are His ministry. His heart breaks over every individual. He sees the crowd not as a unitary, unmanageable mass, but as individuals, albeit many of them, each with his or her own needs. He sees trees, not a forest. Lots of trees. Each with needs.

No, not needs. A harvest.

Multitudes. Confused and aimless. No shepherd. No one caring for them. A problem? A need? Well, kind of. But to Jesus: a harvest. An opportunity.

Not a harvest as in something to take for one’s own benefit. Not something to seize. Not bounty. Not a harvest as in for personal gain or wealth.

What then? Why is this needy multitude seen as a “harvest?”

And why, when Jesus gives the imperative to pray, is the prayer for workers, for harvesters, rather directly for the needs of the multitude to be met? Because the need is fundamentally for a shepherd.

Jesus sees the crowds as lost, homeless, and adrift. They are uncared for. They are not under any shepherd’s watchful eye.

A feral animal is one that has escaped from domestication and become wild. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feral. “The goat is one of the oldest domesticated creatures, yet readily goes feral and does quite well on its own. … Sheep are close contemporaries and cohorts of goats in the history of domestication, but the domestic sheep is quite vulnerable to predation and injury, and thus rarely if ever is seen in a feral state. “ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_organism

These Jesus sees in the crowds were intended to be “domesticated.” They were intended to live in flocks cared for by a shepherd. They were never intended to live as wild, feral animals. People are more like sheep than goats. We are “vulnerable to predation and injury.” People are in trouble when they are sheep without a shepherd. We were not meant to live in the wild, on our own. Humans are intended to live in families and communities, to be cared for, to care for one another, to be shepherded, by human shepherds, and by the Chief Shepherd.

There is a graphic example of this just a few verses earlier, where Jesus encounters the two demoniacs in the region of the Gadarenes. Matthew 8:28-31. They lived in a cemetery, in the wild. “The men had terrorized the region for so long that no one considered it safe to walk down that stretch of road anymore.” They were feral.

Jesus delivers them, and where do the demons that had oppressed them ask to go? Into a herd of pigs. Up until then the pigs were being cared for by swineherds, i.e., pig shepherds, and were doing just fine. The result of the demon possession: the pigs became feral. The pigs fled the care and protection of the swineherds. In their wild, feral state they were so unable to care for themselves they immediately perished.

Jesus comes in the opposite spirit. He wants to transfer people from their feral state to a shepherded one.

Jesus wants not only for them to be immediately healed, but for them to be shepherded. He wants even more than their immediate deliverance and relief, as needful and wonderful as that will be. He wants their permanent care and vitality. He wants to rescue them from their fundamental orphaned plight and change the entire trajectory of their future. They multitudes are to be “harvested,” i.e., gathered in again to a domesticated flock, not for the purpose of domination, control or possession, but for their safety and permanent, ongoing welfare.

Our world is filled with people who are sheep without a shepherd. Examples abound. One is the children of Ukraine who are abandoned, abused and orphaned. They were living on the streets. They are being brought into shelters, orphanages, and adopted homes. Jesus has sent workers, harvesters, shepherds to rescue them. Children in this plight are in not only Ukraine, but throughout the world. LORD, send your harvesters.

Other examples are victims of human trafficking, homeless, the lonely isolated in their homes, widows young and old, the addicted, the infirm, the elderly, those disabled and more. Even among those who are affluent and prominent who may appear externally to be needless may also be afflicted with demons less apparent but no less painful, and may also be sheep without a shepherd.

Through my human eyes the needs are not only urgent, they are overwhelming. The vastness of the needs appears unsolvable, and I fall into paralysis of inaction. What can my small effort do? But through Jesus, a few loaves and fishes can feed a multitude. Through Jesus. And when He does, He feeds the multitude not directly but through people, through a team.

Jesus also saw the crowds, the masses, the multitudes. He did what he could with God’s power for the individuals he encountered. He managed his circumstances to preserve His limited human resources. And He instructed us to pray for harvesters.

The remedy, the antidote, for the needs of the multitude is not just the immediate physical healing and demonic deliverances that Jesus was delivering one by one. It is for every individual to be gathered into a shepherded flock.

Hence, the prayer is for shepherds. Lots of them.

The prayer that Jesus instructs us to pray is for the Lord of the Harvest, the Chief Shepherd, to send out harvesters, shepherds. There is genius in this instruction. Our natural human response, if not paralysis, is to rush out and be the shepherds, the harvesters, and urge others to do the same. The need is great. Our hearts break with compassion. We want these needs met. This is a right and good instinct, but it risks jumping over a critical step. It is the Lord of the Harvest Who must send out the workers.

Jesus introduces a paradox. The need is great – get down on your knees. Not: the need is great – spring into action.

Domesticating feral animals – or bringing people into shepherded care – is no easy task. Many, of either kind, do not want to be domesticated even if that is in their best interest. There are other risks and challenges. Providing the needed care requires wisdom, care, resources and strategy. The Chief Shepherd knows how He would have us respond, and how He will provide the resources. He sends us. He empowers us. He equips us. He puts us in teams with mutual support, and diversity of gifts, talents and roles, that function as an entire, living organism. There is a world of difference between being sent, and going on one’s own.

Plus, it is His flock, not ours. This is not a flock for us to possess, but to steward, under His instruction, for His purposes.

Again, just a few verses up on this passage, is a picture of this principle, Matthew 8:5-12. The Centurion implores Jesus to heal the Centurion’s servant, but refuses Jesus’ offer to come to the Centurion’s house, because the Centurion knew that he, too was “a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” Ministry is always “under” the headship of the Chief Shepherd. And it is also communal. It so much more powerful this way, as His power flows through us, as a body, rather than one person trying to do something on his or her own meager power.

Not everyone can go.  All can pray.  All are called to pray.

We sense the urgency of the need, as did Jesus, and still does.  My urgent response: LORD, send out workers. This is not avoiding responding to the need. It is the essential first response to the need.

And then, when He sends, me and others, it is time to go, in all the unique and diverse ways He sends. To “harvest,” to gather in, to shepherd, to heal, to care for, to feed, to clothe.

LORD, the fields are white, ripe, and ready for harvest. The needs are great. Send Your workers. Send me among them. Show me my part. Engage me in Your team, and send me.

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