Days of Harvest
Days of Havest
Jewish people will have celebrated the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot) from Tuesday evening through Thursday evening this week. Shavuot celebrates harvest first fruits, the ingathering and tithing of Israel’s crops: figs, grapes, dates, pomegranates, olives, wheat, and barley. While the Temple stood, families brought their tithes to Jerusalem and presented them to God with a moving liturgy:
“A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation…And God brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, O Lord, have given me.”
(Deuteronomy 26)
Harvest themes came to be associated with God’s provision, covenant faithfulness, and future hope of peaceful nations united in worship of the living God. And their agricultural rhythms and struggles came to symbolize the tensions, tragedies, and celebrations of human life as members of God’s family. The Psalmist cries out:
Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like streams in the Negeb!
Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!
He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him.
(Psalm 126: 4-6)
In our readings for this Sunday, we encounter some of the deep and mysterious contours of harvest symbolism. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a harvest of grain and like the growth of a mustard seed. Echoing the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel, Jesus challenges his listeners not to mistake small beginnings with insignificance; rather, days of harvest are coming, even if we can’t imagine how.
How we live in the meantime is something we’ll explore together on Sunday.
Peace,
Steve E+
NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
1309 Workday—Tomorrow, June 15, 9AM-Noon. We will be doing a little bit of just about everything: filling another dumpster, clearing brush and weeds near the creek, clearing ivy from the trees in our “front yard”, some cleaning at “The Parsonage”, and a few other minor jobs. Please bring gloves (and if you have them), gas powered line trimmers, backpack blowers, rakes, pitchforks, garden shears, etc.
Membership Sunday—June 23
5th Sunday Potluck—Sunday, June 30
Bowie Baysox Baseball & Fireworks—Friday, July 19 and Saturday, August 10
Room Needed—A summer intern from Turkey (Ege Korkmaz) who works with Josh Dittmar is in need of a room in the Annapolis area, even if just for a week or two. If you’ve got a spare room and can help, contact Josh at josh.tree.dittmar@gmail.com
