Harvest Festival & Baptism
“Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives....”
Overview
“Today we celebrate the harvest. We give thanks that we have been given all that we need to survive and thrive.
In a time of uncertainty, when harvest yields across the globe have fallen, this morning’s readings both celebrate abundant harvests:
Luke 12:16-21 tells the story of a man who had such a bumper crop that he needed a bigger barn. We might call him a success: someone who has produced abundantly. We might call him prudent: someone who has planned for the future. Jesus calls him a fool.
Surely his plentiful harvest cannot be the source of his foolishness? After all, this is what God promises to his people in Deuteronomy 8:7-18.
No, the problem with Barn Guy is his inability to look beyond himself. It’s all me, me, me, I I, I, and my, my, my. In the words of Deuteronomy he has “said to himself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ He is oblivious to his dependence on others and their dependence upon him.
Our well-being is dependent upon the work of countless people without whom we would cease to survive, let alone thrive. Without one another we are all paupers.
Today we give thanks for all that sustains us, above all our community and our dependence upon one another.
FIRST READING
Deuteronomy 8:7-18
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.
Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.
GOSPEL
Luke 12:16-21
Jesus told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’”
