Scripture Reflections

“For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” (John 4:37-38)
 
After Jesus’ disciples came back to the well with food, thus interrupting his conversation with the Samaritan woman, she went back to town to tell people she had met the Messiah. Her testimony was simple: “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Messiah?” Based on that testimony, people from the town started going out to meet Jesus.
 
As the Samaritans trickled towards the well, Jesus told his disciples to look at the “harvest.” We can imagine Peter, James, John, and the rest shielding their eyes from the sun as they gazed at Samaritans walking to them, ready to meet Jesus. This was a moment when the disciples didn’t need to expend effort—the “catch” was jumping into boat. At that moment, Jesus quoted the proverb, “One sows and another reaps.” The disciples were reaping a harvest of souls that they didn’t have to plant; they got to share in the fruit and joy without doing the work.
 
Who did the sowing?
 
Was Jesus referring to the words of Scripture, or the voices of previous generations that prepared the people of this little village for the Messiah? Perhaps. Many seeds were planted before this moment, after all. But in the immediate context of John 4, the only sowing done was by the unnamed Samaritan woman. She planted her seed boldly—we can imagine her grabbing people in the market and saying, “I think I just met the Messiah!!”
 
To be fair, evangelism is rarely this easy. The disciples got to reap without working, because she planted the seed, and even her planting was just a simple, exuberant challenge to others to come meet Jesus. Most of the time, both sowing and reaping take more work than this.
 
But sometimes, when the Spirit moves, evangelism is this simple. Revivals tend to catch the Church by surprise, because the “cause” seems so insignificant. A single prayer meeting, an exuberant testimony, the decision to confess a hidden sin—the list of things that has sparked revivals over the centuries seems so ordinary. Sometimes the Spirit takes off, and the harvest grows way out of proportion to the planting, at least from our vantage point.
 
In Christ,
 
Steven+