In 1961, on Pentecost—or Wit Sunday—Dag Hammarskjöld sat down to make an entry in his journal. He was the second Secretary General of the UN, the youngest person to ever hold that position. He was elected when he was 47 years old. And later on that same year, he died tragically in a plane crash. Following, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And following the crash, they found his personal journal. And later on, it was published, entitled Markings. And it has become a classic in spirituality.

“And on Pentecost,” he wrote, “I don’t know who or what put the question. I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment, I did answer yes to someone or something. And from that hour, I was certain that existence is meaningful and that therefore my life in self surrender had a goal.” It is quite powerful. That we might not remember the exact moment of when the question was put before us, but when we said yes to someone, to God, that we discovered significant meaning and purpose in our lives.

And one reason that Pentecost is also known as “Wit Sunday” is that historically and traditionally Pentecost has been a day in the church to celebrate baptism, where baptismal candidates put on white robes, where “white robe Sunday” becomes Wit Sunday. And baptism has long been an expression of our shared calling, our shared purpose, where we make a commitment to follow Jesus.

And we might be more inclined to follow the Jesus who says, “Come to me all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest,” than the Jesus who says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” Because down here in Alabama, especially during this time of year, we know that the hard work in the fields is quite difficult, quite taxing. That we need that rest that we find in Jesus. We need to hear again and again that “today’s worries are enough for today and that tomorrow’s troubles will tend to themselves.”

That rest alone cannot fully address the problems in this world. It’s like that technique called facing used in grocery stores where they pull every item to the edge of the shelf and turn it out to face the customer so that the shelves always look fully stocked. That there is someone whose job it is just to wander around the store and make sure everything is facing the customer. That if there’s only one can of tomatoes left, they’ll pull it to the edge, face it outwards so that it looks like they’re not about to run out.

The world is full of gaps and holes, challenges that we need to acknowledge and face. But as Richard Lischer reminds us, the Gospel is not a problem solver, it is a promise. It’s a promise from the one that we said yes to, to always be with us, to guide us through all of those challenges. And we find deep meaning as we care for one another through all of those challenges.

That here in this passage that reminds us that the harvest is plentiful, it is the first time that the Gospel of Matthew uses the word disciple. It is almost as if this is the job description of a disciple. We’re like Jesus, we are to care for the sick, support the vulnerable, offer compassion to all. And the good news is, it doesn’t require a list of certifications. We are to go out without bag, without belt. That compassion does not mean we can type 80 words per minute. And empathy does not mean we’re proficient in Excel. And patience does not ask us to be an expert in AI.

And if this is the job description in the Gospel of Matthew, the passage we read from Romans is the other duties as assigned, which usually turn out to be the most important part of any job description because those other duties always come up. And they are usually the less glamorous parts of the job description. Maybe that’s why we don’t say them out loud on the front end. They’re just other duties as assigned that we don’t always want to do them. The CEO doesn’t want to be bothered with the invoice of new bathroom fixtures. The attorney doesn’t want to be bothered ordering pens for the firm and the accountant does not want to water the plants in the break room. They are the other duties as assigned. But they are essential.

And Romans focuses in on them, whereas they might be unpleasant, they are unavoidable. Where suffering leads to endurance and endurance leads to character and where character leads to hope and where hope does not disappoint. That they are never listed explicitly on the job description of a disciple, but if we have ever tried to love anyone, we know that we will experience this. But there is deep purpose and meaning found through them.

In his novel, Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry writes about this small town in the midst of upheaval and change, that people are buying cars for the very first time, which means they are moving out to other locations. There are farmers trying to adapt and survive as there are new machines that can be used in the field. That change is happening at a rate that it is tearing at the very fabric of their lives. And Jayber, the local barber and gravedigger says, it is not a terrible thing to love the world knowing that the world is always passing and irrecoverable to be known only in loss. That change is inevitable. But he says, to love anything good at any cost is a bargain. That alongside the hardship is this deep meaning and purpose, which we call faith, something that we do together.

It is the faith that we read about in Galatians 2, where in verse 16 it says, we know that a person is justified not by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. That’s how the New Revised Standard Version translates it. Faith in Jesus Christ. But the King James Version translates it differently where it says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. And there’s a difference. Faith in Jesus Christ, where we put our belief and faith or the faith of Jesus Christ, the same faith that we find in Jesus. And the grammar of the Greek allows for both.

And we need both faith in Jesus and the faith of Jesus. That we need faith in Jesus because we can’t do this on our own. We need the one who says, come, all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. And we need the faith of Jesus. Because the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few. Whereas we love others, we face suffering. We embrace endurance. We develop character and we discover hope. That as we say “yes,” we receive this shared call, but it is full of meaning and purpose. Amen.