Strange Harvest

Pastor’s Epistle—September 2023

Three times in the year you shall hold a festival for me. You shall observe the festival of unleavened bread … You shall observe the festival of harvest, of the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall observe the festival of ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor.

—Exodus 23:14-16

Come, ye thankful people, come. Raise the song of Harvest Home! All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin. God, our Maker, doth provide for our wants to be supplied. Come to God's own temple, come. Raise the song of Harvest Home!

—Hymn by Henry Alford, 1844

Holidays are often accused of being pagan, when in fact they are simply seasonal. Every culture that knows winter knows a winter feast; and a spring celebration; and a harvest festival come fall. Such are our shared natural responses to our shared natural world. They are pagan only in the sense that G.K. Chesterton used the word: as a synonym for human.

Last month I spoke of the Loaf-Mass, or Lammas, a traditional Christian observance thanking God for the firstfruits of the grain harvest. This of course coincides most cleanly with the climate of northern Europe and the British Isles; other Christians would harvest at other times. And just as we solemnized the firstfruits, so now we salute the gathering of last sheaves at harvest’s end.

In the Hebrew Bible, the Festival of Ingathering—also known as Sukkot, the Festival of Booths—corresponds to the end of Israel’s agricultural year. For 2023 this falls on 29 September, a day that Christians mark as Michaelmas, the Feast of St Michael and All Angels. Michael’s, mind you, is one of my favorite unsung holidays, rife as it is with angels and demons, themes of darkness and light and crisp red autumn leaves.

Yet during England’s Reformation, saints’ days were often suppressed, even for the angelic captain of the heavenly host. Thus did churchmen birth a new substitute holiday in an attempt to usurp the place that Michaelmas held within the peasantry’s heart. They called their new invention Harvest Home, and it fell about a week before Michaelmas upon the autumn equinox.

In one sense, Harvest Home was a failure. Despite the Reformers’ best efforts, St Michael proved too popular. And rightly so; I have a personal devotion to him myself. Yet rather than ignoring their new holiday, the people simply added it to their annual cycle of celebrations. In other words, they liked both Harvest Home and Michaelmas. Why settle for one when both would be more fun?

Granted, Harvest Home observances have waned in recent centuries. So too has Michaelmas for that matter, though both now appear to be enjoying modest comebacks. But some populations never stopped raising the song of Harvest Home—including, for some obscure historical reason, my Mother’s people, the Pennsylvania Dutch. To this day, in Lutheran liturgies throughout the Lehigh Valley, produce from field and garden, in baskets or in jars, will be placed upon festive boards for blessing and then distributed as the congregation sees fit.

I consider this a lovely way to thank God for our daily bread and all the other sustenance which the earth and heavens provide. ‘Tis a charming custom and meaningful tradition, certainly. But back in the day, one must confess, it used to be quite a bit wilder.

Throughout Europe one finds the folk belief that the vital spirit of growth within all vegetation flees before the scythe, retreating all the way into the final sheaf of grain. This last grain would often be fashioned into the rough likeness of a person or animal: a “corn dolly.” According to Pennsylvania Dutch folklore, the grain of the corn dolly was to be ground and baked into a gigantic pretzel festooned with colorful ribbons and brought to the church for blessing.

After worship, the pretzel then would be auctioned off, with the caveat that every bid had to be paid, regardless of who won. And the grand prize, rather than being eaten, would be broken back up and scattered throughout the farmers’ fields to appease the faeries who lived in the corners of cultivated ground, and to return the vital spirit to the soil for the coming spring.

I can’t say as I’ve ever seen a magical pretzel auctioned off in the parish, but I must admit I find the prospect tempting. One must do what one can to keep Church weird, after all.

This might all seem silly to modern sensibilities: a charming folk Christianity at best, pagan superstition at worst. But this blending of the natural and supernatural worlds, of love for Creation and her Creator, came naturally to our forebears. To them the world was not simply a magical place, but an outright miracle. And this inculcated within their communities a sense both of gratitude and of wonder.

Now that to me sounds immensely appealing. In an age so desperately in need of reënchantment, we might all do well to raise the song of Harvest Home.

In Jesus. Amen.