I grew up in wheat-growing country in southern Alberta in the 1950’s. It was a good time for farmers. Several years of bumper crops, strong demand, and high prices brought them unheard-of prosperity. You might have expected that all this bounty from the land would have been cause for rejoicing. For some that may have been so, but for many their joy was muted at best.

My father used to tell the story of meeting one of his farmer patients outside the bank. Crop cheques had just come in, and this man had just deposited the largest income in his farm’s history. "How is everything?" asked my father. The man looked at him, with the merest twitch of the corners of his mouth, and said "Well, Doc, I reckon I can’t complain."

Like many of the farmers in that area, he had lived through the Depression, barely surviving from year to year. The miseries of the ‘30’s were still a raw wound. If 1956 brought a bumper crop and a huge payday, well, 1931 could easily come again. Let’s not get too happy. You never know what tomorrow will bring: there is good reason to be fearful of the future.

The prophet Joel spoke to the same kind of situation. The land had been devastated by a plague of locusts, a rapacious relative of the grasshopper that descends in huge swarms on the land, denuding it of almost all the fresh vegetation. When the swarm departs, the land is left bare and brown, save for a few mostly non-agricultural trees that the insects will not eat.

Joel’s first words, addressed to the soil and to the animals of the field, are "Do not fear." The Lord has brought the rain once more, and the land will once again yield its bounty. Give thanks, because God will do this.

The past has given the people cause to fear the future, but the prophet tells them to rejoice in the present, for the gift of the rain, which will restore the green fields and pastures, and produce. Joel tells them not to be trapped by their memories of the past, but to give thanks for what is and what is to come.

We hear much the same message from Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount. His words for us are "Do not worry…" Don’t fret about what might be, or what might not be, but be glad in the present, and give thanks.

We can so easily get stuck in memories of the past. We can just as easily bog down concerns for the future. But the only time in which we live is the present—the here and now, all we really have, so let’s make the most of it. Let us give thanks for what we have, not worrying about what we don’t have, and not fearing what might happen again. Here and now…give thanks to God.

It has rightly been said that gratitude is the most basic religious emotion, arising from the awareness of who God is and what God has done, and from the knowledge that we are the beneficiaries.

Today we give thanks primarily for the bounties of the earth, for the produce of soil that Joel exhorted not to fear. We look at the church decorations and are reminded of the harvest now mostly brought in, and the tables in our homes and elsewhere where the produce of the fields will be shared.

Times have changed since 1956. The agricultural economy is very different, and farmers have a much more difficult time earning a living from the land. Here and elsewhere, farmers have always known that they are at the mercy of the elements, whether it is this year’s hot dry summer or that plague of locusts in ancient Israel. Farmers are now also at the mercy of a much more challenging world economy. We do well to pray for them and their way of life, even as we give thanks for the fruit of their labours.

I used the word "mercy" deliberately, because it reminds us that we are all—farmers and town folk alike—at the mercy of God. God is merciful and gracious, feeding the birds of the air, clothing the lilies of the field—and caring for his people in good times and in bad.

Let us not live in fear. Let us not live in worry. Let us rather strive to live in gratitude for God’s blessings, grateful for our lives, for the fellowship of other people who enrich our lives, and for the bounty of the land, which sustains our lives. And let us live out that gratitude by sharing God’s mercies. Any gift worth receiving is a gift worth sharing. Let this be our prayer for today:

Amen.