Harvest Thanksgiving
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Readings: Isaiah 5: 1-7 and Matthew 21: 33-end
When it comes to Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, I often choose different readings from those printed on the Sunday sheet, as readings for the 18th Sunday after Trinity may not be particularly suitable for Harvest. But this year, there didn’t seem to be any reason to change the readings. The word ‘harvest’ actually occurs in the gospel passage we just heard. Both readings today centre on the story surrounding a vineyard, which doesn’t yield the good grapes it should. The landowner did not receive the yield he expected, partly due to the carelessness and indifference of the tenant farmers.
These days, we are more likely to hear that climate change is the principal reason why an expected harvest does not come. Too wet; too dry; rain coming at the wrong time or in torrents washing away bone-dry soil. The almost indisputable evidence is that human action or interference is partly if not mostly responsible for climate change. The nature of Harvest Thanksgiving has changed greatly over the last fifty years or so. Perhaps we should use this festival as not just a time to say ‘thank you’ for what we have, but also a time to ask ‘What are we doing with what we have been given?’
Let’s look at the Old Testament reading from Isaiah today. In the story, the vineyard represents God’s people, first ‘planted’ – as you might say – in the Promised Land, and bidden to bear fruit – the fruits of righteousness. The conditions were good, but the people were unfruitful and unfaithful. The Lord had chosen his people to become a beacon to humanity, but they disregarded this. How easy it is to take God’s blessings for granted and to forget that we, who have received blessings, are, in our turn, to bless others.
In the gospel Jesus develops the parable in his admonition to the Pharisees and chief priests. In the parable, the landowner does not receive the harvest due to him, so he sends slaves and messengers to collect the produce. Eventually, he sends his son, believing that the tenants would respect him. But they saw their chance and conspired to kill him, so that the inheritance would pass to them. It took a while for the penny to drop, but the Pharisees and chief priests came to see that Jesus was speaking about them. Throughout the gospels we see even some of the Lord’s closest companions failing to grasp the message. And Jesus’ teaching continually urges his hearers – across the centuries – to allow the boundaries of their thinking to be challenged and extended. So what does the passage say to our Harvest celebration today?
As we look at the passage more closely, it seems to speak to our current ecological crisis, and to the modern world of today.
The very first sentence challenges our ideas of human entitlement. ‘There was a landowner who planted a vineyard….’ Our modern global economy operates on the dangerous illusion that we are the absolute landlords of this planet. We often treat the Earth not as a sacred trust leased to us by the Creator, but as a commodity to be exploited and strip-mined for endless consumption. Like the tenants in the parable, we have forgotten that we are merely guests. Notice how deeply God is invested in this world; the landowner doesn’t just throw some seeds into the dirt; he meticulously plants the vineyard, puts a protective hedge around it, digs a winepress and builds a watchtower. So before the tenants even arrive, the vineyard is already an act of love.
In the story, when the tenants saw the son of the landowner, they detected an obstacle to their absolute greed. They thought that by casting the heir out, the vineyard would be theirs without accountability. We witness the same logic in the way we treat the world sometimes. We attempt to silence the voice of the Creator in our science and ethics because acknowledging God means acknowledging limits. We treat the natural world as if it had no inherent value or divine significance, turning a beautiful vineyard into a profit margin. The tenants mistook the beauty of the gift for absolute ownership. In our turn we should remember that what we have is gift: the soil, the sun, the rain; already provided. So we will say later “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the splendour and the majesty; for everything in heaven and on earth is yours; all things come from you, and of your own do we give you.” We are not the owners, but the gardeners invited to work alongside the Creator in a partnership of love and joy.
In the parable, the landowner sends his servants to collect his share of the fruit, but they are beaten and ignored. Today, the servants are the many prophetic voices warning us about the unsustainability of what we do. Not just the Greta Thunbergs and other protestors who may irritate or inconvenience us by their actions. But there are other authentic prophetic voices – such as climate scientists whose findings we ignore at our peril. And then there are silent prophetic voices, such as indigenous communities fighting to protect their fragile environments, and the global poor who so often bear the brunt of rising sea levels or devastating droughts, despite having done the least to cause them. When we ignore these warnings and carry on with our unsustainable ways of living, we mimic the wicked tenants who locked their gates against the landowner’s messengers.
Jesus concludes the parable with a stark warning. ‘What will the owner of the vineyard do?’ Addressing the chief priests and the elders, he says “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits.” We can’t perhaps take the analogy of the vineyard too far, as Jesus says the landowner will give the vineyard to others. We can ask – will there be a vineyard to hand on?
We can ask what a fruitful and faithful harvest would look like? Of course, we’ve been talking a lot about the material harvest, but a strong theme in our harvest hymns and readings is the harvest of the soul; the yield of our lives in terms of righteousness and honest living. And these two themes, material and spiritual, go hand-in-hand. A true harvest of righteousness will involve transforming our relationship with the created order. Church communities are urged to play their part by making their activities as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible.
Here are three suggested priorities – not just for churches, but for everyone. Firstly, Tend the Vineyard. Encourage local bio-diversity, plant wild spaces, protect our waters. Then Secondly, Live within Limits. Shift away from a culture of waste, practice rigorous recycling and choose ethical sourcing. Thirdly, strive for Distributive Justice: ensuring that the abundance of the vineyard feeds the hungry rather than lines the pockets of the greedy.
So, a true celebration of Harvest would be to drop the illusion that we own everything or anything. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. We are caretakers, stewards, blessed with a beautifully complex yet fragile home. Let us return the vineyard to its rightful master. May we build our lives on Christ, the ultimate cornerstone, and work the soil of this earth with gentleness, humility and gratitude. Only then can we offer back to God a harvest that heals, rather than hurts, his creation.