Harvest sermon 2019
’It is harvest and we celebrate harvest, crops, grains, corns, apples, almonds, what we live by. And what the earth gives us to live by.
When I was growing up in Denmark, harvest time was a very special time a year. Denmark is indeed a small country, and you cannot travel far without coming to a seashore and in this time of year you cannot travel far without being surrounded by beautiful yellow fields of harvest and busy harvesters and farmers. There is something special in the air and there is a busy business when the farmers are trying to harvest while it isn’t raining!
That part about being prepared and timely, is part of a reoccurring story every harvest. Every year as far back as I can remember as a farmers daughter, growing up and partaking in the busy harvest time in Denmark, - there has always been this store about one local farmer – let us call him Ole – who always was and is late and who always was the laughing stock, the talking part, the gossiping part, the pitying even ridiculing part of harvest. Ole is always late. He is always the last one to get his crops harvested to much scrutiny of his neighbor farmers. Every single year Ole is the laughingstock…. And every year he somehow manages to harvest without too much loss of profit. He has had the family farms for more than 50 years. But they still talk about him, his poor management of time and opportunity. His pure luck and his lack of worry. Every year I remind my dad how grateful he should be for all the free entertainment and talk he has endured in for years – also this year.
This story about Ole and his poor management is not just a story about a poor farmer who is lucky, - to me it is also a reminder that we are indeed farmers, but we can not control nature. The crops grow while we are sleeping, and God let the sunshine and the rain fall on good and bad. Harvest is not just about luck, good management, fine farmer skills – it is about respecting and nurturing the nature. It is about accepting the gifts from god, all good gifts from heaven above – with equally respect, gratitude, thanks, awe and faith.
Soren and I was just in Seattle and visited the Nordic museum and is opening of a wonderful exhibit of LA Ring and his paintings. One of his most beloved paintings is Harvest Host from 1885.
· A portrait of his brother Ole Ring
· A portrait of a hardworking farmer from a time that might seem far away but still isn’t more than some generations back
· The reaper mowing down the grain, symbolizing our brief sojourn on earth, the ripe earth and the death.
· You can almost smell the grains when you watch the paining.
· Even if I am 55, I am not so old that I remember harvest like LA Ring, but I do remember the smells, the sights, the sounds and the blessings.
· 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 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.
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
At harvest time we do look up at the beautiful skies. Even more to look to God with gratitude and faith and not only focus on our own needs and our own skills. We should exercise to 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.
To be grateful and to be generous is the deepest characteristic of the holy and because we are made in God's image, our being grateful and 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 characteristics of the human. That we share. That we care. That we loo beyond our own skills, situation or comfort.
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.
Today we celebrate Harvest. It calls for 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 gratitude and generosity in us.
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 must share and care? It is harvest and it calls for gratitude, generosity, happiness, service and faith. Amen.