HARVEST SERVICE 2017.
Responsive Prayer to the God of Harvest
Pastor: Let us all pray to the God of Harvest and Grace
All: All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above.
So, we lift our hearts up to you, God,
in praise and thanksgiving!
Pastor: God of honey and harvest, of grain and grape,
of ocean and orchard; of vineyards and vegetables.
We praise You for the abundance, and
We pray that this harvest is shared justly as Your gift.
All: All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above.
So, we lift our hearts up to you, God,
in praise and thanksgiving!
Pastor: God of beehives and breadbaskets, of living webs and
Weaving of life, of ecosystems and economy.
We praise You for the wealth of the harvest, and
we pray that this harvest is a promise of grace for all.
All: All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above.
So, we lift our hearts up to you, God,
in praise and thanksgiving!
Pastor: God of bumble-bees and blue whales,
Of evolution and environment, of ice-field and star-field.
We praise You for the sheer wonder of the world, and
We pray that this harvest is about the wealth of Your
generosity reflected in our generosity.
All: All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above.
So, we lift our hearts up to you, God,
in praise and thanksgiving!
Pastor: God of creation and care.
We cannot sow our seed with clenched fists.
Help us to open our hands, so that we too
may scatter with hope and generosity our seeds of joy,
peace and justice.
All: All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above
So, we lift our hearts up to you, God,
in praise and thanksgiving! AMEN.
2 reading: The two brothers.
There is an old rabbinic parable about a farmer that had two sons. As soon as they were old enough to walk, he took them to the fields and he taught them everything that he knew about growing crops and raising animals. When he got too old to work, the two boys took over the chores of the farm and when the father died, they had found their working together so meaningful that they decided to keep their partnership.
So, each brother contributed what he could and during every harvest season, they would divide equally what they had produced. Across the years the elder brother never married, stayed an old bachelor. The younger brother did marry and had eight wonderful children. Some years later when they were having a wonderful harvest, the old bachelor brother thought to himself one night, "My brother has ten mouths to feed. I only have one. He really needs more of his harvest than I do, but I know he is much too fair to renegotiate. I know what I'll do. In the dead of the night when he is already asleep, I'll take some of what I have put in my barn and I'll slip it over into his barn to help him feed his children.”
At the very same time the younger brother was thinking to himself, "God has given me these wonderful children. My brother hasn't been so fortunate. He really needs more of this harvest for his old age than I do, but I know him. He's much too fair. He'll never renegotiate. I know what I'll do. In the dead of the night when he's asleep, I'll take some of what I've put in my barn and slip it over into his barn." And so, one night when the moon was full, as you may have already anticipated, those two brothers came face to face, each on a mission of generosity.
The old rabbi said that there wasn't a cloud in the sky, a gentle rain began to fall. You know what it was? God weeping for joy because two of his children had gotten the point. Two of his children had come to realize that generosity is the deepest characteristic of the holy and because we are made in God's image, our being generous is the secret to our joy as well. Life is not fair, thank God! It's not fair because it's rooted in grace.
SERMON:
Thoughts of Harvest, Fall, and Generosity.
When I was growing up in Denmark, harvest time was a very special time a year. There was something special in the air and there was a busy business when the farmers were trying to harvest while it wasn’t raining!
· I can still recall the smell of harvest; of grains in big bountiful piles ready to be delivered to the mill, but still just there to be enjoyed by jumping kids.
· The smell and the feel of sticking hay, pressed and loaded and brought to the hayloft, to be stored and used for the animals, but yet also one of our favorite places to play and built imaginary homes.
· I remember the sounds of working tractors and giant yellow harvesters, the busy sound of harvest. I remember the sticky straws left on the fields of gold.
· I remember harvest and how it was a change in so many ways.
· It marked the end of summer and growth, of seeds and sprouts, sunshine, and rain.
· It marked the end of summer: and the end of the endless days of careless free summer days for a child. Now it was time to go back to school. Now it was time to go inside.
That smell of harvest, that smell of grain and hay, that sight of harvested fields of gold, that sense of change, - is still reflected in Californian September Days as we sense the shortening of the sunny days, we feel the cooler nights, we feel the change. WE might not be part of the big harvest of the golden and green Californian Breadbasket, we might not own or work at a vineyard in Napa, Solvang or Temecula, but many of us still have orange, Lime or avocado trees to harvest.
Look at the cover of the bulletin. It is called “Weinberg” – a wine mountain or vineyard in German. It might be a picture of a vineyard in Rheingau, Mosel or Wurtemberg. But it could also be a beautiful vineyard in Solvang, Nappa or Temecula. The wine country whiter it is in France or Germany, in Argentina or Chile, in Australia or America, it a beautiful sight and smell at harvest time.
Our famous Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, loved the time of fall. Even if he spent most of his short life writing at his productive desk in the city of Copenhagen, he cherished the changing seasons. He even wrote a praise to Fall and praised Fall as the time of colors, the time of movement and passion. And I truly appreciate his words about fall as he wrote: "Why I so much prefer autumn to spring is that in the autumn one looks at heaven--in the spring at the earth."--Søren Kierkegaard
The Gospel today is the parable about the landowner who gracefully hired workers for his vineyard. And as he called the workers at the end of day, he paid them all the same amount regardless of how many hours the first ones and the last ones hired, had worked. “Unfair,” we think and so the first laborers thought so.
And then the landowner says the words that is the CenterPoint of today’s Gospel and are printed on the bulletin:
“Are you envious because I am generous? “
With these words he actually asks them to look up from the earth, from their own lives, their own situation, their own concepts of fairness - and then look up at the Heaven, to a wider perspective, to a divine perspective, to a heavenly generosity that colors our world and our days in ways we do not even give thanks for.
"Why I so much prefer autumn to spring is that in the autumn one looks at heaven--in the spring at the earth."--
WE see the drifting clouds of fall, and we let our thoughts drift too. Harvest time and fall is the time of thoughts, reflections, and gratitude.
As we heard in the old parable about the two brothers, who met face to face as they wanted to share the harvest and be generous.
And we were told that God was weeping for joy because two of his children had gotten the point. Two of his children had come to realize that generosity is the deepest characteristic of the holy and because we are made in God's image, our being generous is the secret to our joy as well.
Generosity is the deepest characteristics of the holy and envy might be one of the deepest characterics of the human. Envy is a sad feeling and a bad thing to react too. In our bible, there are numerous stories about the curse of an enviousness heart: Cain and Abel, Jacob and his brothers just to name a few. Envy is one of the deadly sins and the two last commandments of the 10 C is about envy: do not covet, do not envy, do not be jealous…. On our path to salvation we need to admonish our envy and live in generosity.
In the great Literature envy is green.
Shakespeare wrote in Othello: “Beware, my lord, of jealousy. It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock, the meat it feeds on.“ So, envy was named the green sickness or the green eyed monster. And we can be green with envy, which is not pretty. Maybe because we think that the grass is always greener next door…
But then look up. Look up at the blue blue skies that is blue for you and me and shared with divine generosity. And be aware of the generosity and the grace that meets you. Life is not fair, but thank God it is rooted in grace and generosity.
Today we celebrate Harvest. And it calls for anything but envy. It calls for the opposite: gratitude, generosity, happiness, service, and joy.
So today as we look at the crops of harvest, on the bread, the fruit and the corn – we are reminded of
the workers who picked the fruit, harvested the corn and worked the many hours at the vineyards, orchards, the farms. WE give thanks for the work of their hands, and we give thanks for the abundance of blessing we are blessed with. And then we look up – to give thanks, for rain and sunshine, for generosity and grace and for a divine presence in our lives and days that instills generosity in us and reject the green venomous envy.
Try to remember the last time the green eyed monster of envy took a hold of your heart and did force your eyes to the ground unable to see the splendor of the blue blue sky? Try to remember how the green-eyed monster took your strength and your generosity.
Then try to remember the last time you looked up to the endless skies of blue and the sense of grace hit your heart and you knew you have to share and care?
And then remember the words of God: “Are you envious because I am generous?”
We should be generous because God is generous. Amen.