From the Pastor:
Harvest Season
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.”
God’s Promise to Noah ~Genesis 8:22
Dear friends,
Just a few days ago had the pleasure of witnessing the Harvest Moon, the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. Here in the northern hemisphere, the practice of marking the harvest with festivities extends beyond the beginning of recorded time: bringing in the grain (or the soybeans, or the corn) is cause for celebration!
Our Jewish siblings mark both the harvest and the escape from enslavement in the seven-day festival of Sukkoth (a Hebrew word that means “booths” or “tabernacles”). For those who live in homes, simple wood-covered structures may be put up outside and decorated; and festive meals are shared there. Children love to sleep outside in the sukkah! One rule: the sukkah must allow the rain to come in. The reality of camping out in God’s creation is acknowledged.
Christians celebrate our faith in October as well. On October 5 we marked World Communion Sunday, an international event when Protestant denominations reflect on the gift of our unity in Christ. On that day we remember that we all share the communion table and are made one in the body of Christ as we receive the Lord’s Supper. This, too, is a harvest, as we remember the love and abundant provision of God, as souls are gathered in prayer and in breaking the bread and sharing the cup.
Our other celebration takes place on the final Sunday of the month: Reformation Sunday (this year, October 26), when we remember the wise souls who saw that, in some of its practices, the church had strayed from its foundation in Christ. It was on October 31, 1517, that the Augustinian friar Martin Luther sent his 95 theses to his Archbishop. The Reformation had begun. Luther’s concern was the sale of indulgences, by which people could, in theory, buy themselves out of time spent in purgatory, a kind of waiting room for heaven (not a feature of Protestant belief). As the Reformation spread throughout Europe, other traditions, practices of faith, and even doctrines were examined and challenged.
Author and lecturer Phyllis Tickle suggested that every 500 years or so the church has what she referred to as “a great rummage sale,” in which the Christian church undergoes a time of re-examination of cleansing and reform. Her calendar would suggest we are in that reformation time right now.
I wish each and all of us a beautiful harvest season, filled with celebrations that make our faith alive, inviting, and filled with joy.
Grace and Peace, Rev. Pat