Tag: harvest

The “First Thanksgiving”

November 28th

Now the Spirit explicitly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith… They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods that God created to be received with gratitude by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing should be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, since it is sanctified by the word of God and by prayer.

1 Timothy 4:1-5 (HCSB)

…our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as served the company almost a week… many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

from Mourt’s Relation (A Letter…)

Like I was going to post anything else.

The story is cliche for a reason, okay? It’s pretty impressive that a bunch of exhausted, starving, persecuted, not-especially-skilled, English peasants managed to land in a completely unfamiliar place, with a wildly different culture, and not get themselves killed.

I mean, half of them died of terrible diseases. But, hey, it was a different time.

On that cheerful note… Happy Thanksgiving?

 

Working for the fruit that lasts

November 11th 

…And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from the same. But in the third year you will sow and reap; you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root below and bear fruit above. For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.

2 Kings 19:29-31 (BSB)

Do you not now see the fruits of your labors, O all you servants of the Lord that have suffered for his truth, and have been faithful witnesses of the same, and the little handful amongst the rest, the least amongst the thousands of Israel? You have not only had a seed time, but many of you have seen the joyful harvest; should you not then rejoice, yes, and again rejoice and say Hallelujah, salvation and glory, and honor, and power, be to the Lord our God; for true and righteous are his judgments.

When by the travel* and diligence of some godly and zealous preachers, and God’s blessing on their labors… many became enlightened by the word of God, and had their ignorance and sins revealed to them, and began by his grace to reform their lives.

from Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation (Ch. 1)

* I honestly have no idea whether ‘travell’ was supposed to be read as ‘travel’ or ‘travail’ so I just picked the one I liked best, even if it’s probably wrong.

The chapter this comes from is an explanation of how the Pilgrims left England for the Low Countries, (this is before they somehow decided that Massachusetts was a good idea), and there’s a lot about how hard life was if you weren’t part of the official church. We also skipped most of the complaining about ‘papists’ here. To be fair though, almost everyone was pretty rotten to each other, and dealing with the religio-political complex of the time had to have been deeply unfun, so I’m going to give them a pass on all the grandiose, post-exilic rhetoric they had going on there. (I wanted to subtitle this post ‘God working through crappy political scenarios and other pointless, frustrating situations caused by human self-will and selfishness,’ but apparently I have some sense of proportion left and it won’t let me.)

Anyway, Happy… Mayflower Compact-Signing Day? (Actually though, I think it was November 11th in the Julian calendar, so we’re ten days early. Oh well, no takebacks.)

Prayed-reading

October 21st 

The slacker does not plow during planting season; at harvest time he looks, and there is nothing.

Proverbs 20:4 (HCSB)

In devotional reading our whole being (not only our intellects) must be quieted; and made open, receptive, expectant; and above all else, humble. It is not so much the work of the intellect as the attentive receptiveness of the whole man. Any spirit set upon ferreting out the hidden mysteries of God will result in total failure. Humility will accomplish what cleverness and pride cannot accomplish.

A helpful analogy: The farmer places  his seed in the ground.  Rain, sun, air, soil—all these work together to bring about the slow processes of germination and growth. Long before any visible action occurs above ground, there is the sinking downward into the soil of the tap-root, upon which the later growth and harvest will depend. All of this prior, underground work is hidden from the sight of man, going on in the darkness. Only after this hidden work is accomplished does there then appear above ground the green shoot. Only after weeks and perhaps months will the harvest come.

Devotional reading is farming, the sowing of word—seeds in the ground of the mind and spirit, with no expectation that the harvest is to be reaped at once. The word-seeds must have time to germinate, sink tap-roots deep into the mind and heart. The harvest of the word-seeds sown to-day may not come until years later. The harvest will come when least we expect it, and always with the note of being a revelation given to us from God, and not the work of our own minds

…begin your reading always with prayer. Thus all your reading will be prayed-reading. Such prayed-reading will make you sensitive to words and meanings.

from C. F Whiston’s Introduction to Stillman’s translation of Christian Perfection

I also liked the quote: ‘The rush and speed of our modern life does not make it easy for us to go at the devotional pace, “not faster than a walk.” ‘ (The introduction was written in 1946.)

…and here’s Audrey Assad’s Even the Winter on Youtube and Spotify.

Harvest metaphors

September 29th

Does the plowman plow every day to plant seed? Does he continuously break up and cultivate the soil? Certainly… bread grain is crushed, but is not crushed endlessly. 

Isaiah 28:24,28 (HCSB)

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
John Donne, Holy Sonnets (XIV)

Because it’s a classic, and I’m feeling self-indulgent, and because I’m still steaming mad about the article on the ‘eroticism’ of George Herbert that I read two years ago. Erotic metaphor has a long and variable history, but no one who has anything even remotely approaching a temper can interpret Herbert’s passion as even the most sublimated sort of eroticism. Hopkins, yeah, probably. Donne, definitely. Paul, Augustine… Hildegard of flipping Bingen, sure. But that is emphatically not Herbert’s focus.

On a related note, I really liked Sayers’ (I think it was in Catholic Tales) use of the whole troubadour meme to expand on the Christ and the Bride metaphor, with Christ as a wandering minstrel whose ‘rivals’ have ‘weirded him to wander through black enchanted lands’ with ‘his red robes gone to ruin and his riches gone to wrack:’
Singing ‘Lady, lady, will you come away with me?
Was never man lived longer for the hoarding of his breath
Here be dragons to be slain, here be rich rewards to gain…
If we perish in the seeking, why, how small a thing is death!’
It’s probably a little bit heretical, but… *shrug*
Sorry I’m too lazy to look the rest of it up. See above about self-indulgence.
Anyway, Happy Michaelmas to anyone who cares, and this evening should be the beginning of Rosh Hoshanah, which isn’t exactly a harvest festival, but the timing is related to Sukkot, so… close enough.

Praying for workers

June 20th

He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

Luke 10:2 (NIV)

The Lord frequently taught His disciples that they must pray and how they should pray. But He seldom told them what to pray. This He left to their sense of need and the leading of the Spirit. But in the above scripture He expressly directs them to remember one thing. In view of the abundant harvest, and the need for reapers, they must cry to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers. Just as in the parable of the friend at midnight, He wants them to understand that prayer is not to be selfish; it is the power through which blessing can come to others. The Father is Lord of the harvest. When we pray for the Holy Spirit, we must pray for Him to prepare and send laborers for the work.

How little Christians really feel and mourn the need laborers in the fields of the world. How little they believe that our labor supply depends on prayer and that prayer will really provide “as many as he needs.” The lack of labor is known and discussed. Efforts are sometimes made to supply the need. But how little the burden of the sheep wandering without a Shepherd is really assumed in the faith that the Lord of the harvest will send forth the laborers in answer to prayer.

We miss the compassion of Jesus which gave rise to this request for prayer. Believers must learn to love their neighbors as themselves and to live entirely for God’s glory in their relationships with fellow-men. The Father’s first commandment to His redeemed ones is that they accept those who are perishing as the charge entrusted to them by their Lord. Accept them not only as a field of labor, but as the objects of loving care and interest.

from Andrew Murray’s With Christ in the School of Prayer 
(Prayer provides laborers)

Murray actually quotes the passage from Matthew 9, but we already used that, so.

…and for your listening pleasure, Harvest’s extremely cheery, If We Don’t Believe on Youtube, and no other links, because apparently I am just so uncool that I listen to music you can’t find on Spotify. Oh well, it’s not like this comes as a surprise.

Workers in the harvest

May 13th

Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

Matthew 9:35-38 (NASB)

From the beginning of Christianity, the natural overflow of being a disciple of Jesus has always been to make disciples of Jesus. “Follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men”  

After Jesus rose from the grave, He left His followers with a simple command: “Go into all the world and make disciples”  The church should be known for this. If we are going to call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ, we should be making disciples.

But most Christians today are not known for making disciples. We have developed a culture where a minister ministers and the rest of us sit back and enjoy “church” from a comfortable distance. This is not what God intends for His church.

We have a responsibility to grow in our love and service to God and others. This is what it means to be the church. We are not merely responsible for our own spiritual well-being; we are called to minister to the people around us. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ means that we learn from Him, fellowship with Him, and obey everything He commands us. We study the Bible to learn about who God is, who we are, and what God is doing in our world. The Bible compels us to join God in what He is doing in and around us. Studying the Bible is important, but the goal is never knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

Being a disciple of Jesus means that we are being transformed into His image. God wants to change us so much that it intrigues others. This gives us the opportunity to tell them about the God who is transforming us. Teaching others about Christ is essential to being one of Jesus’s disciples. As we teach others to love and obey Jesus, we are fulfilling His command to make disciples. Your goal should be to train up other followers of Jesus who are even more committed, talented, and equipped than you are.

from Francis Chan and Mark Beuving’s Multiply

There’s also a free ebook, and accompanying video resources on the website, but I linked to the paid version because I like to support people who make an effort to make free things. 

…and Brandon Heath’s The Harvester on Youtube and Spotify respectively, because I have literally zero imagination.