What sort of farmer would it be who expected a bumper harvest without sowing any seed? That just does not make sense, does it? Farmers know that in order to expect a harvest, you need to sow the seed – and fertilize it too – to get an even better yield! Leave the watering to the Lord.
Today we celebrate the harvest of every good thing we need for life.
The harvest is God’s response to our prayer: ‘Give us this day our daily bread!’ God abundantly provides enough food for all the world’s needs. Even if there is drought in one part of the world, there is more than enough in other places to share so that no one goes hungry. Hunger is not God’s fault – it’s ours!
But there is another harvest that concerns the Lord at a deeper level – the harvest of souls into the kingdom of the Lord. Jesus brings the image of the grain harvest to the soul harvest when he says: You may say there are still four months until harvest time. But I tell you to look, and you will see that the fields are ripe and ready to harvest. (John 4:35) He is talking about sending out harvest workers into the world ‘to seek and save the lost’. What sort of harvest should the Lord expect of us? How many seeds are we prepared to sow? What might these seeds look like? How do we each go about sowing the seeds for a harvest of the lost? And finally: How do we celebrate this harvest?
