The Church and Its Mission

Text
John 4: 35 Do you not say, There are yet four months, then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your
eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.

; ,
, .
Literal: Do you not say, it is four months and [before] the harvest comes? Behold, I say to you, lift up your
eyes and see [observe, understand] the fields, they are white toward [for] harvest.

Introduction
Believers form the church. In other words, the church is the communion or community of believers (communio
sanctorum). Believers are called to partake in Gods nature, on the one hand, and participate in Gods mission,
on the other. Inasmuch as they are privileged to enjoy the heavenly blessings of the eschaton, they are also
called, commissioned to be light among the nations.
Mission had been understood as the business of the churches, in which they plan and execute according to
the expansionist ideology of their time. The pope or the archbishop was the highest authority who used to send.
That was changed in the late 1950s when a German missiologist, Georg Vicedom. For him, mission is the
possession of no one, including the church. For him, the author and the executer - in other words, the owner - of

mission. He thus coined the Christian mission as mission Dei.
With this background in mind, we can now turn our attention to our text. This text is not about the content or
the skills of doing mission. It rather pays its attention to the spiritual pre-requisite of discerning our surrounding.

Exposition

1. Context
The text is located in the early phase of Jesuss earthly ministry and, geographically, Jesus is in the region of
Samaria, in a particular place called Sychar, on his second itinerary from Judea to Galilee. Textually, it comes
after the story of Jesus unprecedented conversation with the Samaritan woman and right before the story of the
faithful official.

2. Exegesis
Verse 35a: Say you not that it is four months and [before] harvest comes. Here Jesus draws agrarian
imagery, as the society then was primarily agrarian.
: It is four months Harvest time in the Hebrew Bible (OT) is in the month of Nisan (April).
The four-month period span is typical of the life-cycle grains from germination to harvest. April is the fourth month
of the year, which apparently places the time of Jesuss saying four month earlier, probably towards the end of
December or early January.
: We all know what this metaphor points to, especially in its New Testament sense. In agrarian
sense, it points to the time when the yields of the fields are ready to collect. The word has 13 occurrences across
the New Testament.

Vesre 35b: behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and see [observe, understand] the fields, they are [already ]
white towards [for] harvest.
: Jesus is exhorting his followers to look up (in the sense of looking beyond). In other words, the
disciples are not look to the immediate or what is at hand; instead, they are to look beyond what is the immediate.
It has also to do not only with once view or observation but also the position or the vantage point from which the
observation (discernment) is done.
: To see, to notice or to observe/discern
: White, bright, shining. The fields are ripe for gathering.

Interpretation
 If we look at the immediate context of our verse (John 4:35), Jesus saying is a response to his disciples urge
that he should eat something in order to keep his bodily strength for the rest of the day. His disciples, although
they on apprenticeship with Jesus, and get their teaching and training first hand from him, they at times seem to
fail to comprehend what his earthly ministry is for.
Typically, they are concerned with the immediate, with the mundane. They fall short of perceiving the nature
of his ministry. So, perhaps, in the middle of Jesus ministry to the people of Sychar in Samaria, they urge Jesus
to have his meal - a sublime but potentially distractive proposal.
To their shame, if you like, Jesus response is quite telling. He says, I have food to eat which you do not
know about. So much for their comprehension, they were even more confused and colossally fail to understand
the double meaning of his saying. Perceiving their confusion, Jesus explains to them that the food he was talking
about was actually to do the will of his Father, who send him. Task of this mission is to herald/proclaim the good
news of the Kingdom of God to the world.
Using an agrarian example, he sets out to tell them that as his followers then are also invited and
commissioned to follow suit. In the metaphor Jesus uses, we see that contrary to what is seen with our
ophthalmic senses - the greenness of the fields (if harvest comes within four months, it is then apparent that
fields look green), the disciples are exhorted to look the whiteness of the fields.

Application