Sowers & Reapers

During the presidential campaign of 2012, President Obama lit a fuse with the statement, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” Those who had invested their fortunes, blood, sweat, and tears in their businesses understandably didn’t take too kindly to the statement. President Obama’s statement was pulled out of context. He was saying that many other circumstances and people came together to create an environment that helped you build that business. I still have a problem with his context, because he was referring to how the government was the entity that created all the conditions for good business-building. Any business that deals with government regulations and taxes can tell you that, generally, the government is more of a hindrance to business than a help in our society. However, I digress. There is an element of the President’s statement that was true: whatever we accomplish, there were others who contributed. The business builder must work diligently to be sure, but if he is to build a successful business, there are many other factors and people that must contribute.

In John 4, Jesus speaks to his disciples about the coming kingdom harvest (Jn 4:34-38). He tells his disciples that he sent them to reap “that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors” (Jn 4:38). The disciples are about to walk into fields ready for harvest that they have had little or nothing to do with preparing. John the Baptizer, the prophets during the exile, and others have been planting and cultivating the fields for years. The fruit of their labor will be the success of the disciples’ ministry.

Granted, the reapers must be faithful. They must faithfully proclaim the message and incorporate the people into the church. But the success of their ministry, all the numbers that they will see at Pentecost and beyond, is the direct result of the faithful labor of those who have come before.

Once the kingdom harvest is in, both sower and reaper will rejoice together because we are all engaged in the same mission. The sowers didn’t appear to have successful ministries. Big crowds didn’t gather around them, hungering for God. Indeed, some of them were persecuted or killed because of the message they preached. Some of the sowers may be virtually unknown to us.

The reapers receive a great amount of attention. People are responding to the gospel. Lives are being changed. Cultures are being transformed. Everyone knows the reapers.

But the reapers have entered into others’ labors. They are profiting (Jn 4:36) from others’ work. They “didn’t build that.” Just a few years later, when Philip the Evangelist reaps a harvest in Samaria (Ac 8), it is because the Sower “must needs go through Samaria” to talk to one woman at a well.

There is a temptation for those who have success in any area of kingdom work (winning souls or building businesses) to believe that they have done it alone. The fanboys who come around them contribute to the situation. These people are practically demigods who have special gifts so that all that they touch turns to gold. No doubt, these people are gifted. Reapers must still work. But a good harvester will humbly acknowledge those who planted; those generations who came before (even with all their faults), those unsung heroes who invested time and energy in them, those quiet people who still stand behind them, whom no one knows.

We are not self-made, and any success we have cannot be attributed solely to us. Being a sower or a reaper depends on God’s sovereign choice of where to put you in history. Humbly acknowledge others, our common mission, and do the work God has called you to do, whether sowing or reaping.

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