Unharvested Fields

The area of fields white for harvest but with few workers

A Lenten and Easter series on fields needing harvest

You probably recognize the imagery our Lord used. It comes at the end of Chapter 9 of Matthew. He used the simplest of images to convey this overlooked priority for the church’s mission:
            Fields of people
Harvest that is neglected
Spectacular prospects
Too few workers
Prayer for more

These unharvested fields we refer to as “frontier mission.” That’s because they lay beyond the present mission of the church. Vast resources go for to fields where workers have been harvesting year after year. But Jesus is turning our attention to those people where the workers are few—very few and far behind the harvest needed.

Transferring His imagery to current numbers and locations, the church sends over 90% of our mission resources to where harvesting has a long history. To those fields where the Gospel is unknown, it’s a different story. There are about 1.8 billion  people in today’s world living in unharvested fields, in the dark about Jesus Christ. For these 28% of the world’s population, we allocate about 6% of our resources.

I consider myself an expert in the reasons for neglecting the some harvest fields. I was director of a missionary society that serves the church’s work among those fields. Anglican Frontier Missions concentrated on the 25 largest and least evangelized ethnic groups. As Director I was on the other end of the telephone receiving calls from those interested in the least evangelized people groups. They were few in those days. I soon discovered that my major role was as advocate for these fields. That meant listening to the churches’ mission stories, appreciating what they were doing, and trying to figure out why that did not include the Qashqa’i of Iran, among others. After fifteen years in that role I became an expert in these reasons.

This is a very timely introduction for this series. This coming Sunday I will give a presentation to a church about involvement with frontier mission. Having this presentation in mind has helped to crystallize the challenge. Let me share my thoughts.

This church is one of the friendliest churches I know towards frontier mission. They have a sound mission life, both locally and beyond. Furthermore, this is the church that gave me immense personal and financial support in the early days of AFM. Yes, this is my former parish, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia.

I have told the rector and missions chair that I will go to meddlin’. That is, I will offer ideas for connections and engagement in frontier mission. I have four suggestions in mind, opportunities that most congregations in the US could consider:

1. International students;
2. A local ethnic group with ties to previous mission outreach;
3. Foreign missionaries supported in the parish budget;
4. A missionary from a local church.

Each has benefits that commend them:

1. Students from other countries, students who will become leaders back in their own lands. Several churches I know are having successful outreach for students in their vicinity. At the nearby University of Richmond there are over 600 foreign students. Most are from China, with India second.
2. Permanent residents from countries where we have previous contacts. For St. Matthew’s that would be Ethiopia. Several trips to one particular area and a bishop from neighboring tribes give a head start in meaningful connections.
3. Overseas missionaries supported by the church. To highlight these pioneer missionaries would take our attention to their dangerous and strategic places and people.  Four Moldovans receive funds in this church’s budget.
4. A missionary going to a country in South Asia. This is the most intriguing because of today’s Episcopal/Anglican world. This missionary was raised Episcopalian and now worships at an Anglican church. She is warm and friendly. She has good relations in both groups and has a relative in St. Matthew’s. Of course, the issue is cooties. Will one group get the cooties of the other?

Now, I attend three churches from three different Anglican bodies. I have my ecclesiastical allergies, and none of them is activated in these three churches.  As a disconnected missionary type with official ties only in Nigeria, you can tell that getting torqued over divisions between Bible-centered, Spirit-filled, etc., churches bores me. Unity in Christ is a possible fit here.

I would say that I will report the outcome next week, but I have learned that the reality is always a long-term sorting out. What I will report on is the first reason for neglect and my response. The report will come the following week—a look at the 10 million Hindu Marwari of Rajasthan, India.

Picture: A field of winter wheat almost ready for workers.

Photo – Fr. Jacques Hammel, recently martyred in his church in Normandy, France
The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

One of my visions of heaven involves a Starbucks-like setting where ambrosia and manna are served. Around the tables are saints from all eras and diverse localities. The conversation clearly thrills all those listening, for they are sharing the ways God has loved them, how they experienced God’s grace.

This scene, we may say, is the assurance of things they hoped for.

When we read and hear of the stories of the saints of the church, we are hearing reports from citizens of heaven. Until our time of arrival there, we have opportunity to eavesdrop on these who have gone before. The writer to the Hebrews recognized the special value of their stories by including this great eleventh chapter. We can only imagine the taste of ambrosia and manna, but the stories are the stuff of real life.

They knew the promise. They held on because they had heard God promise that He has a city that is not of this world. Theirs was not a faith built upon dreams or fantasy. He promised; it was so.

They were strangers and exiles. This world was not their home. For all their opportunities for comfort, success, and more, they knew that this world was not all there is. The world to come was a reality greater than the illusions of grandeur here.

They knew God was the architect. The best they had experienced here was nothing in comparison with what God has designed. No advertisement—whether it be of extravagant luxury or enviable lifestyle–nothing earthly would compare with the City of God. “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined—what God has prepared for those who love Him” (I Cor. 2:9).

They were bulwarks of truth. Their faith communicated truth, real and trustworthy truth. This world is not all there is; this world has fools’ gold; this world is corrupt and will be destroyed; this world will capture, dehumanize, destroy, and discard.

To be sure they also had trials of faith, times of doubt, and temptations to which they yielded. In vivid detail we read of all these in the Bible, and we know all the saints since then have the same tales. But by the grace of God they “endured to the end.”

We, too, face trials, doubt, and temptations. We, too, have shame and embarrassment for how we have dishonored God and hidden our testimony. As we strain to hear the stories of the saints who have gone before, we gather a bit more faith to believe, stronger courage to witness, and a clearer vision of the city God has prepared.

World Christian Trends 

The section on martyrology in this volume is truly extraordinary. In 40 pages, encyclopedia size, we read a list of martyrs and massacres beginning with year 33. Then the list of martyrs is given by country.

What follows is a random selection of martyrs, chosen for variety of eras and localities. These are people whose excitement and awe fill the conversations around the tables. From them, even from these very brief sketches, we can distill the signs of grace and hope that stayed alive in them, even as they faced death.

Aretas of Yemen, burned with monks and nuns in 427. The blood of the martyrs in that country has barely penetrated the soil. The harvest in this land remains small.

Wenceslas in Bohemia, the saint of the well-known carol, who gave his life for the Lord in 929. He left a legacy of kindness as well as clear faith in Christ.

Peter of Castelnau of Toulouse, France, the city where my French cousins live. Their faith is buoyed by the legacy of this martyr of 1208 and others who secured a stronghold of faith in this part of France.

Daniel of Belvedere from Morocco, a Franciscan monk who met his death in 1220. He was determined to show that to be a Moroccan can also mean to be Christian. That continues to be vehemently denied by the rulers there today.

Tamerlane’s brutality and massacres of hundreds of thousands of Christians between 1358 and 1401. No list carries their names, no plaques or saints days, but each one is known by name by our Lord, each one precious to Him. He has given each a white robe and a seat on the front row.

J. de Almasia of Paraguay martyred by the Agaces Indians in 1536, showing the centuries of resistance to establishing the church in the highlands and savannahs of Paraguay.

L. de Quiros, one of eight Jesuit priests killed in my native Virginia in 1571. I look forward to learning the good and the bad of the efforts to assist the Indian population to embrace the faith of the crucified Savior.

Donna Beatrice, one of the early martyrs of Sub-Saharan Africa, being burned at the stake in Congo in 1704. How many people will we meet who suffered for the faith, who brought many to the Lord, and who influenced generations that followed? We will meet many of these.

E. Trieu and J. Dat were two Vietnamese priests pioneering in Indonesia in 1773. Henry Lyman and Samuel Munson, sent out by the American Baptist missionaries to Sumatra, Indonesia. They met their death in 1834. Sumatra still has several large unreached groups there, the larger ones being Lampung and Komering. Blood of martyrs and prayer will one day bear fruit.

David Dapcha Lama, a Nepalese missionary in the earliest days of Christian witness in Nepal.  He gave his life in 1958 when there were so few Christians they could not be counted.

30,000 Igbo Christians massacred by Muslim mobs in Nigeria in 1966. The fervor for mission in Nigeria has not come without enormous cost.

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is a chapter of encouragement. The tales of the saints inspire faith, as well as awe and praise of God. The writer meant for us to eavesdrop, for from them we draw hope and strength as we prepare for our place at the table.

Photo – The city of Istanbul