Laity Needed

8 July 2025   Matthew 9:32-38

“Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”Matthew 9:38

Once you have accused your opponent of working for Satan, there’s not a lot of room for conversation.

The Pharisees had made the nonsensical claim that “he casts out demons by the prince of demons” (Matthew 9:34 – they would make the same ridiculous charge again in 12:22-32), and so it was pretty clear to Jesus that there wasn’t much left to discuss with the Jewish leadership. There were no leaders he could count on to help the people understand the spiritual opportunity that was now before them.

That meant Jesus had to deal with the crowds Himself, and he had a pretty complex relationship with crowds. On the one hand he regarded them with compassion: “They were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (9:36). On the other hand, crowds, by their very nature, contained many different sorts of people. Some were spiritually hungry, and knew it, and were ready to listen to Jesus’ teaching. Others were just along for the ride – Jesus was the celebrity du jour, and they gathered like people do on “red carpet” occasions. Others had heard Jesus could provide food, or healing, and they wanted only that from him and nothing more. Crowds were fickle, and Jesus knew it – it was a fickle crowd that would shout, “Hosanna!” on Sunday, and “Crucify Him!” by Friday. No wonder Hespent so much time in lonely places praying.

Jesus was an “event,” but he was not a “movement” yet. For that, you need leaders, people who can sift the crowds, find the ones who are ready to receive the teaching, teach the ones who weren’t ready yet, create the resources and institutions that you need to bring people along. For that you need leaders everywhere who can interpret to their relatives, neighbors, colleagues and friends the spiritual significance of Christ in the world: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (9:38).

In the history of the Church, moments of great spiritual opportunity have led to the creation of various monastic and priestly orders which became the engine of mission and reform – the Franciscans, the Dominicans and the Jesuits to name a few. Those orders, however, would have amounted to very little had there not been, at the same time, a renewal of the laity to do the heavy lifting. In every movement that has ever transformed the world, there have been some superstars like a St. Francis or a St. Dominic, like a Michelangelo or a Raphael, like an Einstein or an Isaac Newton. But those superstars didn’t come out of nowhere. Beneath the superstars, as it were, there was a large community of other people, less gifted perhaps than the superstars, but still people of immense talent, and their working, struggling and striving with each other created the superstars. The superstars come from communities of people who have seen that the harvest is plentiful, and lean into that work. There are no superstars apart from a dedicated community of laborers at work in the fields of the Lord.

We are living now at one of those moments of immense spiritual opportunity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC, paragraphs 898-901) teaches that it is the job of priests to sanctify the Church for this work. But it is the job of the lay faithful to sanctify the world. When Jesus is talking about laborers for his harvest, he isn’t just talking about saints and bishops and priests. He is even more talking about the lay faithful. He is talking about us. The next transformation of the world will be caused by people like us.