'Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.'
I must admit to having always found harvest festival
a little confusing. I can’t be the only one to have ever wondered what tins of
baked beans have to do with harvest. A more natural image of harvest is the
eighteenth century farm worker, with his
scythe cutting down the wheat in a field, but how many of us actually have any
experienced harvest? The Victorians were so good at romanticizing the past,
making the age of pre-industrial labour seem so good; making us pine for the
good old days when you knew what was in your loaf of bread. It is thus no
surprise that it was they who invented this festival of Harvest. Yet the truth
was somewhat different from the pre-raphaelalite ideal. For our forebears
harvest meant sweaty, hard and dangerous work, and not a happy man on top of a
combine harvester. Harvest caused mass fatalities and injuries, and caused such
pressure on the Tudor economy that all religious festivals during the period
were abrogated.
Yet it was not only the time itself that was
dangerous. Harvest was a moment of judgement. Would the seed have taken? Was it
wet during spring? Was it dry during the summer? Had one waited too long before
harvesting? Rain and drought could cause devastation to a crop and result in
famine. Upon a successful harvest hung the lives of millions of people, and a
bad harvest was generally seen as a pestilence sent by God for past
misdemeanours; God’s wrathful judgement upon sinners.
And this interpretation was not merely fondly
invented, for the image of harvest is an important one in Christianity. From
the appearance of John the Baptist in the wilderness we are confronted with the
agricultural image of harvest. John threatens the people that the time of
harvest is coming, when the wheat will be gathered into the barn, and the chaff
will be burnt. Jesus sends his disciples into the world to gather the harvest
from the white fields of ripe corn, and he like John before him, tells of how
human society is like wheat and tares: the wheat to be gathered and the tares
burnt.
For those theological liberals amongst you this is
all rather worrying stuff: a manifestation of the God of wrath, rather than a
manifestation of the God of love. For the non-liberals amongst you, these
passages can also be used in a rather worrying way; that is to say, a Pelagian
way. If we choose and do what is good then God will live us and gather us into
the barn, whilst if we are bad then we’re for the eternal furnace with lots of
flames and worms.
The problem with all this imagery is that, to be
frank, we might find it all a little distasteful. There is at least an implied
threat in the use of this imagery that, unless things change, the hearers may
well be amongst the chaff and tares, and not amongst the wheat. However, the
imagery cannot simply be jettisoned or swept under the carpet, it is after all
a vital theme within the gospel narratives, and it must be said, a rather more
appealing one than the forensic idea of judgement according to law. The harvest
theme is rather richer, containing the ideas of growth and fruitfulness, which
are notably absent from the legal theme which concentrates on the misdemeanours
of mankind. Compare Matthew 25 with the sheep and the goats.
And, in fact, if we take a second look at the
harvest imagery divested of all its romantic Victorian trappings, then we see
that it is a theme that we can readily relate to in our lives. It is the most
vital description of both human and Christian life: it is about planting,
waiting, growing and fruitfulness. It is an image that tells us that our lives
do have a purpose: we are not left alone simply to wander through the valley of
life. No, we have a reason to be. We are doing something. We are growing
towards something, and that something is the harvest that God wants.
In the Old Testament lesson today we heard of the
creation of man, of the creatures, and of woman. Regardless of any political
incorrectness in the story, it is an important image for it tells of God’s
purpose for his natural world. Things were not created randomly, but in
due order, each one having its own purpose. And even if we think that species
evolved by some process of evolution, that does not contradict the fact that
such a process would have to be designed by God himself as creator. Men and
women are made for each other; they are designed to be together and to bear
fruit. This is God’s original intent, that man go forth and multiply, for this
is pleasing in the sight of God. A man leaves his father and mother and cleaves
unto his wife, and they become one flesh. And it is upon this dictum that Christ
presents his teaching on divorce: that which hinders God’s plan for the good of
humanity is wrong. Human relationships are meant to be fruitful and faithful,
and it is not God’s wish that any should sunder those relationships.
But the matter of harvest goes rather deeper than
that: natural growth is not enough for human beings: even if natural things in
and of themselves are good, they are not the ultimate good. For natural growth
has own one end: the growth of nature. Nature can but produce nature, natural
things cannot transcend the created order: there good is strictly limited to
their own sphere. But the letter to the Hebrews points out that the purpose of
the ordering of creation is somewhat deeper than to produce mere natural
growth.
Citing Psalm 8, the writer points out that men were
made little lower than the angels and all things were subjected to them
according to God’s good purpose. And this was done for a reason: to crown them
with glory and honour. In other words, even our growth in this life has a
purpose and it is our exaltation above that which is around us as our fellow
creatures. And the letter to the Hebrews states how this promise is fulfilled:
it is made real in the person of Jesus condescending to become a man. God’s
will for the increase of humanity is so that he can share his own divine life
with them by sanctifying them through the incarnation of his only begotten son.
Through Christ’s sufferings in this world he takes humanity into himself. He,
as it were, partakes of our humanity, so that we may be partakers, through
grace, of his divinity. We are blessed, sanctified and transfigured into a new
humanity; we are the children of God and so fellow members of the household of
God with our Lord.
Harvest for God then is two-fold. It is in the
natural sphere the increase of his creation. But this first reason is really a
mechanism for the second reality of the divine harvest: the fruits of
redemption. Our redemption means that we are God’s harvest, his chosen fruit.
And this brings us back to our Gospel reading today;
Jesus welcomes the children. Jesus welcomes the children and blesses them: they
are to be his harvest of righteousness. As the eternal word, he made each one of them and, as the
Son of God made man, he blesses each one of them and imparts to them his grace.
We are those children. We are the children of God, he made us and he sanctifies
us with his very self. We are God’s harvest, and with us he is very pleased.
So when you put your can of beans down the front
here, remember that you do it not for sentimental reasons, or for the fact that
by doing so you might win God over to counting you into the barn and out of the
fire. Do it rather with the remembrance that like the can of beans you yourself
are someone’s labour and you were not left sitting on the shelf, but were
picked up, purchased, and sent to do something which was good. You all are
God’s harvest, and you are sent out to produce yet more fruit.
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