The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Trowell Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The title is, The Harvest is Plenty, and the scripture reference is Luke chapter 10, verses 1 through 12. 

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Luke. I'm reading from chapter 10, beginning at the first verse. The Lord Jesus appointed 70 and sent them on ahead of him two by two into every town and place where he himself was about to come.

And he said to them, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way.

Behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of the world. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, salute no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, Peace be to this house.

If the Son of Peace is there, your peace shall rise upon him, but if not, it shall return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house.

Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick in it and say to them, The kingdom of God has come near to you. But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you.

Nevertheless, know this, that the kingdom of God has come near to you. I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on that day for some than for that town. The Gospel of the Lord.

Somebody asked me after the last service, are you sure this is an Episcopal church? Yes, we're just discovering our roots. Strange thing about the Feast of Tabernacles is that the Israelites were given explicit and extensive directions for celebrating it as a kind of a thanksgiving at harvest time, long before there were any harvests for them to be thankful about.

We heard the reading from the book of Leviticus. Early on in their wanderings in the desert, they were given instructions for celebrating a harvest. and yet they had no harvest to celebrate.

Undoubtedly you remember that after they were liberated from slavery, from bondage, having been slaves in Egypt for nearly five centuries and we sang about how they came through the Red Sea, they found themselves in the middle of the Sinai Peninsula and basically they stayed there for the next 40 years. Somebody has calculated that it should have been an 11-day walk from Egypt to the land of Canaan. That's an easy walk at a child's pace or at the pace of bringing all those animals with them.

Approximately 3 million people could have moved from Egypt to Canaan in about 11 days. But a funny thing happened on the way to the promised land. they doubted they became fearful they trembled over what await them there they never got in for a whole generation you may remember that at one point Moses selected twelve men one from each of the twelve tribes and sent them into the land of Canaan to spy it out, check out what's there come back and report to the rest of us and they came back and two of them were absolutely jubilant fellows by the name of Joshua and Caleb.

They came back and they said, you have never seen anything like this. It exceeds our wildest imagination. Talk about a land of milk and honey.

It is absolutely bursting with good things from God. There is such rich produce there that it would stagger the imagination. And just to give them a little taste of what that would be like, they brought back a single bunch of grapes.

One bunch was so heavy, so huge, that it took the two of them to carry out a pole between them. They said, this is beyond anything you've ever dreamed of. Come on in. Let's inherit what God has promised.

But the other ten spies, they're right. That's what it's like. But there are giants in the land.

The men of Canaan are huge. Men of war. They have armament.

And there's no way they can go in and take that land. Now mind you, God has overturned the mightiest army in the history of the world up to that point. And the Israelites didn't fire a single shot.

He visited Egypt with plague upon plague, each one worse than the one before, devastating the people who are resisting him, visiting judgment upon them, finally slaying the firstborn of all of Egypt. And then when they finally allow the Israelites to go, Pharaoh changes his mind and chases after them. and as we already saw his whole host gets drowned in the Red Sea but God can't give us the land of Canaan because there are giants in the land God said because you haven't believed none of you are going to get in none of this generation will get in to the land that I promised you and they spent the next 40 years in the wilderness dying off so it was their children and their grandchildren who came into the land of promise, with two exceptions.

Joshua and Caleb got in because they believed. They trusted God. One of the keys to receiving what God promises is simply believing it.

Believing that it's so and daring to enter into it and seeing Him move in power to fulfill His promise. It's not the only key. If you make it the only key, you may well get yourself in trouble.

But one of the keys to receiving is believing. Two men believed, and two out of the three million got it. But the others were out there for this whole generation, 40 years of wandering from place to place.

I counted up, and it turns out that in 40 years, they moved 42 times. That's kind of like some of the armed services. But they didn't have the benefit of United Van Lines, and they didn't even have the U.S.

Army to help them. They kept moving. They were never in one place long enough to bring a crop to harvest.

And even if they had been, there was no possibility of doing that because of the weather and the growing conditions. Nothing grew in the wilderness. And yet, all during that time, God demonstrated His love and His mercy and His faithfulness to His people by providing for them supernaturally.

Some of us were away together yesterday, a parish family, and we were looking at some of the passages relating to this. They were in the middle of a place where no water was to be found, and yet God opened the rocks and brought forth water. They were in a place where nothing grew, and yet every morning they'd go out and find what looked like frost or dew on the ground.

And they picked it up, and lo and behold, it was good to eat. They said, what is it? That's what the word manna means.

What is it? They didn't know what it was, but it was good to eat. And then every evening, God would send a breeze from the seashore, and with it, the quail would come.

And day after day, week after week, for 40 years where there was no harvest, God provided for the needs of His people, demonstrated His faithfulness. But finally that time came to an end. Forty years was over.

Everybody except Joshua and Caleb had died off. And God said, Now you can go into the land of promise. Now I'm going to keep my word.

Cross over the Jordan and the land is yours. And they crossed over. We read in the book of Joshua that four days after they entered the land, they celebrated the Passover.

And it goes on to say, And on the morrow after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land. Unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna ceased on the morrow when they ate of the produce of the land.

And the people of Israel had manna no more. But they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. As wonderful as it was, as dramatic as it was, as miraculous as it was that God provided manna from heaven day after day for 40 years, that was not his best plan.

That was not his highest intention for his people. What he intended was they leave Egypt, they celebrate the Passover, and they leave Egypt, they walk 11 days and move into the land of Canaan. That's what he intended.

isn't it interesting that the exodus begins with the Passover and now when it's finally complete it ends with the Passover it's almost as if that whole 40 years wilderness experience was a great parenthesis in the plan of God he picks up right where he left off come back here celebrate the Passover and fulfill what it's about enter into the land you know that's good to meditate upon you never can go back and undo a mistake history is history you can't undo it but the lovely thing about our God is that wherever you left off with him you can pick up right again that very same place and that's what they did they picked up right where they left off that year they ate the harvest of the land of Canaan and God said Do you remember those instructions I gave you? Way back there at the beginning, I gave to your fathers and your grandfathers, and I told them, when you have a harvest, here's how you to celebrate it. Well, you've got to harvest.

Celebrate it. And what he said was this, when you've gathered in the produce of the land, I want you to keep a feast for a whole week, a Sabbath at each end, and a whole week of celebrating. And you can go back and read in the Old Testament that was some wild celebration.

That was the biggest bash of the Old Testament. They were really partying in what God had provided, in the goodness of God. But he says, during that whole week of celebration, here's what I want you to do.

I want you not to live in your fine, sturdy, permanent houses. But I want you to construct for yourselves little booths or tabernacles or tents. We have a facsimile of one out in the front yard this morning.

They were very impermanent structures. He said, I want you to spend that week remembering the time when you were in the wilderness, remembering the time when you had not entered the land, remembering the time when there was no harvest, remembering the time when I was feeding you morning and evening by the power of my hand. What a strange way to celebrate.

Finally, the harvest is here. Finally we're in the land. Finally we're established.

And yet we celebrate by remembering that terrible time of anticipation when it wasn't yet here. Well, I want to suggest to you that for the Christian, we're in a wilderness. And the point of the Feast of Tabernacles is that we too have a promise that awaits us and that unlike most of our other celebrations which we're looking back to something that has already happened.

In this one, we're looking forward to the fulfillment of God's Word. The book of Hebrews says, here, here on earth, we have no continuing city. We have no continuing city.

We've got cities, but somehow they never last. We build our cities and they come tumbling down again. One empire succeeds another.

There is nothing permanent here. This is not the place supposed to reside. We're just passing through it.

Peter calls us strangers and pilgrims or sojourners. There's an old chorus that says, this world is not my home. I'm just a passing through.

If heaven's not my home, then Lord, what will I do? The angels beckon me from heaven's open door and I can't feel at home in this world anymore. This world is not my home.

This world is not my home. St. John says, love not the world or the things of this world for the world passes away and the lust of it but he who does the will of God abides forever. If you have eyes to see the whole Christian experience, the whole Christian history is a wilderness.

The wonder of it is how lovely is God's provision in the middle of the wilderness. For many of us here in America, it doesn't feel too much like a wilderness, does it? You go visit Bishop Williams' hometown.

You go and see Gerard and Margaret in Pango. Or you go visit Sundar and Clara Clark in Madras. Or you go to Bombay or Calcutta.

You'll recognize that it's a wilderness. There's a danger in the wilderness getting too comfortable. And it's the very thing that the New Testament writers are warning us against.

When the wilderness becomes too comfortable, you might lose sight of the promised land. This world is not my home. I'm just passing through it.

I am not a resident here. I'm a pilgrim. I'm a citizen of another country.

The apostles said we serve another king, one Jesus. That's where our true residence is. Here in the wilderness, God is so good to us.

He gives us manna. He gives us quail. He gives us water from the flinty rock.

He gives us a whole lot more. But keep your eye on the goal. We're made for something else that will be so much more glorious than anything we've ever experienced here that it's all going to wrap up like a little memory and be forgotten.

in the old testament there were three great festivals there were four lesser feasts but three great festivals two of them have already been fulfilled in christ the first the one on which everything pivots was the passover and you remember how the passover was celebrated they killed a lamb they took his blood and splashed it on either side of the door and over the top And the angel of God's judgment, the angel of death, came and visited Egypt. And wherever he saw the blood, he passed over. Judgment passed over those who came under the blood.

The Passover has been fulfilled when Jesus Christ mounted up onto that cross and became the lamb slain for the sins of the world. And you and I, if we've put our trust in him, we've come under the blood. And God's judgment passes over us.

And that's what we celebrate every single time we come to the Lord's table. The New Testament says, Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast.

Passover has been fulfilled on Good Friday and Easter. The second great festival was that of Pentecost. Fifty days later, they went out and they gathered the first mature plants from the growing season.

They were sort of an anticipation of what was still to come as the harvest lay in sight at the end of that season. And Pentecost has been fulfilled. Fifty days after Easter, God poured out His Spirit upon that first little handful of Christians and inaugurated the age of the Spirit.

But they were just the first fruits. That's just the beginning, you see. They anticipate a harvest at the end which will be so much greater.

Pentecost has been fulfilled by the outpouring of God's Holy Spirit. The third great festival was that of tabernacles. And tabernacles came at the end of the growing season when they went out and gathered in all the harvest.

And then they had this great, tremendous celebration for a whole week long. And we stand looking backward at the fulfillment of Passover and Pentecost and looking forward to the promise of tabernacles. Sometimes people ask me, why is it that Jesus Christ has delayed so long in coming back?

I mean, I read the New Testament, and it sounds to me as if the apostles expected him in their own lifetime. How come it's been so long? Here it is nearly 2,000 years, and Jesus hasn't come back.

Why is that? one reason one reason the harvest isn't complete the harvest isn't complete and Jesus said I tell you the harvest is plentiful you pray to the Lord of the harvest that he'll send out laborers into his harvest and I'm delaying my return until all that harvest is brought in you want to know why we're so excited about outreach in this church because we think that the time of the harvest is very near at hand and Jesus Christ is coming back very soon and the Great Commission is still to be fulfilled. Do you know that here in the United States we have 6% of the world's population and 94% of all the full-time Christian workers in the world?

And there's a harvest out there and we want to be part of it. What a great, great privilege to be part of filling the Lord's barn full of his souls that he might come back and the party begin. Happy tabernacles, friends.

As good as it is, the best is yet to come. Let's bow our heads together. Lord God, we look back upon your ancient people and we see the extraordinary provision you made for them day after day.

And we smile at the way they grumbled and complained, unable to believe you for whatever the next problem was. And yet we find ourselves in that story. Lord, forgive us when we murmur against you, when we doubt, when we fear.

Thank you, Lord, for our daily bread. Thank you for manna from heaven. Thank you that absolutely every time we've come up against it, you've demonstrated that you're with us here in the wilderness.

Lord, thank you that we're children of promise and the best is yet to come. We say hallelujah to you this morning. Hallelujah to you, Lord.

Lord, we await your coming. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen.