This weekend I participated in a grape harvest at a lifelong friend’s home vineyard. (And no, I didn’t stomp the grapes like Lucy Ricardo!) Along with maybe 80 others, I spent the morning cutting grapes from the vines, harvesting about 3,200 pounds of grapes.
There were jobs for everyone. The majority of us cut the grapes from the vines, but the harvest wouldn’t have happened unless others gathered, separated the stems, and crushed them. There was even a group who manned the kitchen to heat and serve a huge lunch for all the workers as we celebrated. And yet we were all there for the same purpose—to bring in the harvest.
I couldn’t help but think of the way God has made the church (1 Corinthians 12). Paul describes us as a body with a variety of parts that accomplish different but necessary jobs and yet work together toward the same goal.
Some of us support behind the scenes by serving those who are picking the fruit God has ripened.
Others are out there cutting the fruit. Some gifted differently take what is harvested and work to achieve God’s purposes in their lives. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).
Let’s celebrate the various ways that God has gifted and created us to all participate in great work of his harvest and quit wishing we had what others have. Each of us is needed for God’s great work in the world.
