Stepping on My Own Toes

I am preaching on Matthew 9:35-38 this week, where Jesus says, "Ask the Lord of the harvest to send forth workers into his harvest field." In preparation for that, I ran across a sermon I brought in 1989 at my first "full time" church. I was 28. It was on John 4, where Christ spoke to his disciples of the ready harvest following his talk with the Samaritan woman at the well.

The following section of the manuscript got me to thinking. I had been preaching and pastoring 10 years when I said this, and I sure hope it's still true these 18 year later:

Come join Jesus in the fields and you'll find yourself caught up in something much larger than yourself. You'll find yourself in something that began before you came along and will continue long after you're gone. You'll pick up where others have left off and leave your work for others to finish.

The further I go in the Christian ministry, the more comfortable I get with just being a part of this cosmic drama of redemption. The further I go, the less important it becomes that I be well-known, well-respected, well-demanded. I am growing more and more content to simply harvest what others before me have sown and to simply plant some small worthy seed that others after me can harvest.

In some circles, we speak of blunt preaching "stepping on toes." Now that this 46-year-old preacher has heard from his 28-year-old self, excuse me while I go soak my feet.