A Harvest Homily to Remember :: Deuteronomy 26:1–11, 2 Corinthians 9:6–15, Matthew 13:24–30

I am sure you all remember the stories about the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock. I am sure you even have a picture in your mind’s eye, don’t you? Pilgrims in bonnets and stovepipe hats ... Indians in leather and feathers ... A huge wild turkey in the middle of a table ... A bounty of squash. ... Corn on the cob. ... It’s an image that continues to linger, even though some have tried to declare the picture to be more fiction than fact. 

No matter how it actually happened: What you should remember most is that people were unified ... brought together ... around food. They had been called together to give thanks that God was blessing them and keeping them, that God was making his face shine upon them and being gracious to them, that God was lifting his countenance upon them and giving them peace (Num 6:24-26). Our Divine Service tonight is no different. The same thing will happen. God has called us together to bless us and nourish us with a feast that will sustain us. 

During that first Thanksgiving, the harvest had come, and there was food for all, enough for the hard winter that was still to come. Tonight, our cup will runneth over, sustaining us into everlasting life, giving us the peace of God which surpasses all understanding. For this we should always give thanks.

Now I know that you have not forgotten that there’s such a thing as harvest time. It’s hard to drive past your golden fields and not observe your harvest. 

But the world around us has forgotten. Your fields and farms have become the stuff of social studies across the country ... not the everyday life you share. When the food keeps appearing on the grocery store shelves, the world finds it easy to forget that it actually grows and that you are among those who raise and harvest it. 

So tonight, I’d like to draw your attention to our readings from Deuteronomy, 2 Corinthians, and Jesus’ Parable of the Weeds. Not only do they reflect the first Thanksgiving, but ... more importantly ... they reflect our eternal thanksgiving for the Divine Service.

TO SEE THE HARVEST THAT GOD PROVIDES IS TO HEAR A HOMILY ON GRACE.

1. As in every Word of God, there are warnings in this homily, if we have the ears to hear.

There’s the warning about forgetfulness. That’s what God told Moses to tell the people in Deuteronomy 26. When you come into the land that YHWH your God is giving you (Deu 26:1) ... Remember! Take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest (v 2) and Remember! This is the land God promised to give you. Remember! This land flowing with milk and honey (v 9). Remember, it is God who gives his people abundant harvests. Therefore, remember to give thanks for the harvest ... remember to give thanks for his gifts ... Remember to give thanks ... remember to rejoice (v 11).

In their remembrance, they were to recite their history, saying: A perishing Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, with few men, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and many. And the Egyptians did evil to us and humbled us and gave us severe labor. Then we cried to the YHWH, the God of our fathers. And YHWH heard our voice and saw our affliction, our trouble, and our oppression. And YHWH brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with great fear, with signs and wonders. And he brought us into this place (Dt 26:5–9a).

Remember that He is the one who remembers.

We were wanderers ... enslaved ... impoverished. We thought we were forgotten. 

But the Lord God remembers. He hears us. He sees us. He saves us! 

And look at all this food! Look at all that he provides! 

Our hands are filled with the signs of his mercy! 

Thank you, Father!

2. To hear the homily of the harvest is to realize how easily we forget. 

During an abundant harvest, God commands us to remember times of need. But we forget how near hunger and hurt actually are. We forget what we need because our thanksgiving is ... all too often ... halfhearted or nonexistent. We forget what we need because we fail to remember past and present times of need. We forget what we need because we fail to remember how he gives ... how he sustains ... how he nourishes.

That’s what Paul tells us in Corinthians. Now this [is the point]: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows praise will reap praise (2 Cor 9:6). 

Do you hear this part of the harvest homily? 

Let us indeed give thanks for the good word of praise that God’s given us. Let’s eat and drink and rejoice and, at the same time, exercise discipline and sacrifice. Let’s remember to sow seeds for righteousness in abundance. God’s Good Word will achieve his purpose. 

3. This leads us to the most powerful theme in the harvest homily ... the one that Jesus emphasizes.

 He speaks of the harvest’s culmination when trees and vines are brimming with fruit ... when gardens are bursting with produce ... when golden stands of corn and beans and wheat await the harvest. ... He speaks of the fruit being plucked ... the grapes being stomped ... the wheat and corn being cut and stripped ... the seeds being ground ... and the chaff being burned and the field prepared for next season. It’s hard to remember that last part. We prefer to focus only on the times of plenty.

As Jesus tells us through the parable: In the season of the harvest I will tell the reapers: Gather first the weeds and bind them into bundles to be burned ... and then gather the wheat into my barn (Mt 13:30). 

Do we have ears to hear this warning in the harvest homily? 

Will we listen ... we who so easily forget that the whole point of life is not simply to consume God’s gifts but to glorify him with our lives? 

Will we remember that a harvest of souls is promised by none less than our Lord himself?

Will we be the good fruit that God preserves? Or are we just weeds, taking up space ... waiting to be burned? Weeds who choke on God’s Word?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, heed the words of John the Baptizer and bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, We have Abraham the father ... which is to say we are sons of faith ... For I say to you that God is able out of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Mt 3:8-10).

4. Now hear the good news inherent in the homily: Look around you. Do you see how the harvest is bearing abundance? 

In fact, Moses told Israel to plan on such abundance. You will rejoice in all the good that YHWH your God has given to you and to your house ... you and the Levite ... and the sojourner among you (Dt 26:11). 

Of course, the harvest homily’s good news includes the fact that our generous Creator provides us with plenty of food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, wife, children, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

And don’t forget: the Good News goes deeper than that ... he richly and daily supplies us with all that we need for our body ... AND ... soul. As Paul writes: God is able to abound all grace to you (2 Cor 9:8). ... That abundance was manifested first and foremost in our Lord Jesus, who gives and gives and gives. God’s only begotten son gave us his life, his death, his resurrection. He gives us the forgiveness of sins and the hope of everlasting life. He sees our need for a savior. He hears our pleas for grace. 

So he cast the good seed of his Good Word into the flesh. Though we were dead in our sin and trespasses because of our sins ... because we forget why we need him ... the Generous Giver of all good things remembered us and continues to do so. Jesus died and rose for you. ... He is now risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah! ... And through the abundance of his Good Word and His Sacraments ... you will be made alive with him. His Good Word and Sacraments give you live and salvation. The water of baptism sanctifies you and makes you holy just as the Lord your God is holy. Then whoever eats the body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus has eternal life, and Jesus promises to raise you on the last day (Jn 6:54).

Yes, as Paul says, You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God (2 Cor 9:11) ... in Jesus’ name!