The Harvest is Plentiful

Isaiah 55:8-11 (NRSV Updated Edition)For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

I grew up in rural central Kentucky in the 1950s. My father yearned to be a full-time farmer but was never able to purchase enough land to support us. Still, we had a large garden of lettuce, onions, radishes, tomatoes, corn, carrots, green beans, and potatoes. We children helped with planting, hoeing, harvesting, preserving, and of course, eating the bounty of this garden. During the long summer months, my mother watched the skies and prayed for rain. I do not remember any summer when we did not have enough rain, even though it did not always come when we wished. But we never went hungry, and we enjoyed the bounty of the garden deep into the winter months as we emptied the canning jars. The harvest was always plentiful.

The United Methodist Social Principles speak directly on our relationship to God’s creation, stating “We affirm that all creation belongs to God and is a manifestation of God’s goodness and providential care. Human beings, nonhuman animals, plants, and other… beings participate in the community of creation, and their flourishing depends on the care of all God’s creation. Rather than treating creation as if it were placed here solely for humanity’s use and consumption, we are called to practice responsible stewardship and to live in right relationship with the Creator and with the whole of God’s creation.”

Recently a farmer in central Kentucky died. His name was Wendell Berry. Wendell Berry dedicated his life to agrarian principles. He owned a small farm and lovingly tended it for seven decades. He believed in the bond between humans and the land, and he advocated for this bond all his life in poetry, essays, and novels. In his essay titled A Native Hill, Berry wrote,

“There appears to be a law that when creatures have reached the level of consciousness, as men have, they must become conscious of the creation; they must learn how they fit into it and w