Jesus said to [His disciples], “My food is that I do the will of He who sent Me and complete His work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months and the harvest is coming’? Behold, I say to you, lift your eyes and se the fields that are white for harvest! Already he who harvests is receiving wages and gathers fruit for life eternal, so that he who sows and he who harvests might rejoice together. For in this the saying is true, ‘One sows and another harvests.’ I Myself sent you to harvest that which you have not toiled; others have toiled and you have entered into their labour.”
John 4:34-38; my translation
Such is the Office of Holy Ministry; we reap that which we did not labour, merely continuing the labour our predecessors have laid down before us. At my first call here at Zion Lutheran Church in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan as Associate Pastor, as well as campus ministry pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Chapel at Central Michigan University, it didn’t take me long to realise what a great inheritance I’ve received. Men greater and much wiser than I have preceded me and served in the ministry of Word & Sacrament to the students, as well as the members of Zion. Even the students I currently have and continue to receive are a blessed inheritance. The students that come and participate at the chapel come already having been well catechised by their pastors. I thank these brothers for their arduous, faithful labours. I simply build upon the catechesis they have sowed into their youth. They are white for harvest, and I reap that for which I did not labour, and then pass them on to another pastor to do the same when they graduate and move elsewhere.
This would perhaps bother a person with vain pride, who desires to make a name for himself by building his own foundation upon which his successes can rest. Rather, I find it a great comfort and a tremendous blessing that I continue the reaping of catechesis rather than having to start from scratch. Wherever a pastor serves, the field of the flock is white for harvest. Others have laboured before him, and he continues to reap that he may rejoice with the true Sower, who is Christ the Lord. It is also incumbent upon us as pastors, then, to leave the field in good order for our successor to continue to reap as we accept another call or fall asleep in the Lord and rejoice with our wise Sower.
The Lutheran Column 