For
people not tied to the land for their livelihood rain is so often taken for
granted. On the positive side, sometimes
a rainy day is a welcome opportunity to stay inside and relax a bit, read a
book and nap. A brief shower on a hot
day cools things off. Other than that,
rain’s a bummer. It means you can’t go
out and play. It interrupts your
plans. It makes that trip to the grocery
store all the more a chore. It makes a
camping trip an absolute nightmare. Rain
makes mud. It ruins a parade. “Rain.
Rain. Go away. Come again some other day.”
Every
farmer knows the importance of rain.
Rain helps the crops grow and to produce their yield. It keeps pastures providing grass for
livestock. Rain is so important that it
can make you consider your relationship with God. You can find yourself praying for more of it
or praying for less of it. It can make
you wonder “Why God, what I have I done?” when just a couple of lines over,
they get enough rain, but you’re corn looks like the runt of the liter for lack
of it.
When
I was in seminary, I did a Summer Internship in a big country church in the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. One of
the perks was that I got to live with a local farmer, Mc Sterrett. He was a really good man, elder in the
church, recently widowed. It was dry that summer and when it did rain it was
spotty; a little here, a little there but never a good soaker everywhere. The geography of Mc’s farm was such that you
could stand on some of the hillsides and see a good distance up the valley. From that vantage he could literally watch it
rain on his neighbour’s farm while his looked like a dustbowl. He would joke about that and say, “I must not
be living right.”
In
a society that is tied to agriculture the belief that having the right amount of
rain is a blessing from God to his people is an obvious one, but a troublesome
one. In Deuteronomy 11:13-15 God makes
the promise, “If you will only heed his every
commandment that I am commanding you today—loving the Lord your
God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul—then he will give the rain for your land in its season,
the early rain and the later rain, and you will gather in your grain, your
wine, and your oil; and he will give grass in your fields for your livestock,
and you will eat your fill.” That’s a
wonderful promise but what if you are faithful and yet there’s no rain. Well, that’s the question Job asks and is a
sermon for another day.
Though just a thought
here; with the temperature of planet Earth rising, global weather patterns are
changing. Rainfall amounts, storm severity,
and wildfires will be an issue. Agriculture
on planet earth in the next fifty years is going to be dramatically challenged
by climate change and the change is happening faster than was predicted just
ten years ago. Maybe part of what it is
to love and serve God is caring for his creation rather than dominating it for
profit. But, the later seems to be humanity’s
track record and it’s gaining very fast on us.
Agriculture, food production, will likely be the canary in the coalmine
of what’s coming.
This pending climate
crisis puts me to mind of chapter one and the first half of chapter two of the
Book of Joel. God’s people as a whole
had stopped keeping the way of God, so they became beschmitten with locusts, a
plague of locusts and what the locusts didn’t devour their caterpillars did. Drought also came upon the land and the
people and the livestock starved.
Wildfires began to rage throughout the land. God’s people were becoming a mockery among
the nations for the way their God had let all hell break loose on them. Joel, the prophet kept calling for God’s
people to return God...and finally they did.
What’s more, if I’m reading 2:17-19 there seems to be a realization on
God’s part that his letting his people suffer so was a bad witness to himself
among the nations. That also is a sermon
for another day and I’m beginning to think that maybe a passage from the Book
of Joel wasn’t a good choice for a day when we are gathered to say thanks to
God for the harvest.
So, here we are. Most of you are farmers and all the rest of us
are tied to farming in one way or another if not in just the food we eat. Farmers feed the world. Here we are with most everything that’s going
to be harvested now harvested, we are breathing a sigh of relief. What God said through Joel to his people when
he restored them after that locust plague disaster he says to us: “O children
of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God; for he has given
the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the later rain, as before.”
Sing and dance in joy and rejoice in worship is a more accurate
there. Though we had our concerns as to
whether this harvest would happen, it has.
Joel speaks of early and
later rain and he is referring to the autumn and spring rains in the Middle
East and how they were abundantly just right back in Joel’s day when God
restored his people. We can rather
tongue-in-cheek joke that the early rain in the spring this year for us was so
abundant you almost couldn’t get on the land to get the crop in and then the
later rain in late summer was so abundant you almost couldn’t get on the land
to harvest the crops. But the harvest is
in – no locusts, no drought, no wildfire.
God has again been faithful and he has laid it upon our hearts to say
thanks.
On a personal note, it
gives me hope that there are still people of God among the people who produce
the food that my family eats and whose generosity keeps a roof over our
head. It is Good (capital G good) to
know that there are still people producing food who personally know for
themselves that it is by God’s hand that we all are fed. It is Good to know that there are people who
know that farming is not simply a matter of higher crop yields and profit
margins attained by genetically modified seeds, pesticides, and
herbicides. You love what you do. You care about your land. You care about livestock. You care about your neighbours. Every growing season is an exercise in faith. Every seed is a mystery to be pondered in how
one little seed can grow into a plant that feeds us and provides us with next
year’s seed. There’s the mystery of life
in every calving and the mystery of sacrificial death when the stock truck
pulls away headed for slaughter. Every
harvest is a sign of God’s love and faithfulness.
Looking back at Joel
again, that harvest was a sign of God’s presence among his people. He writes: “You shall eat in plenty and be
satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt
wondrously with you. And my people shall
never again be put to shame. You shall know
that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the Lord, am your God and
there is no other.” Every harvest is a
sign that God is with us. God is with
us. Let us sing and dance with joy and
give thanks. Amen.
