Have you ever been down to the bank on late Friday afternoons to deposit a check? Are the lines long on Friday afternoons? Yes. Do you enjoy waiting in those lines? No. And you are pleased when you hear the voice of the bank manager echoing through the bank: 'Tellers to the front window please." And you want those tellers to come immediately, when the line is long. Not in five minutes or ten minutes or fifteen minutes. The action is now. We need some extra workers now.

Same song, second verse. Have you ever been grocery shopping on Friday late afternoon about 5:30, when the lines are long at the cash register? The lines are so long. Do you enjoy standing in line for a long time, waiting for your turn at the cash register? Of course not. And so there is a sigh of relief when you hear the voice of the manager of the grocery store speaking through the loud speaker system: "Cashiers to the front please." And you want them now. Not in five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The crisis at hand is now and needs to be solved now, not in fifteen minutes.

Same song, third verse. It's that time of year when we start to hear radio advertisements calling for strawberry pickers. When the strawberries are ripe, they need to be picked immediately, so we will hear advertisements calling for "workers for the strawberry fields are needed now." Not in a week, five weeks, ten weeks. Those workers are needed now in the fields when the harvest is so ripe.

It is with these images that we hear the famous teaching of Jesus when he says: "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he will send workers...now!"