Dear People of God on Cape Cod,

We are entering the Fall season!  Some people would say this is the best time on Cape Cod: cooler days, fewer tourists, families getting back to school and work after vacations, plentiful harvests of apples, squashes, corn, and cranberries…

For our church life, there are church conferences and reports before we begin a new liturgical year with Advent themes.

Harvest time evokes gratitude for God’s bounty.  Themes of stewardship as we participate in God’s plans for the environment conflict with champions of domination. Like many of you, I have been an amateur farmer [2 pepper plants and one cherry tomato plant!]  while enjoying the convenience of modern markets. 

We are called to be stewards of the future.  Stewardship involves planning, not just our needs today. 

There is a wonderful story in the Jewish Talmud about a teacher named Honi who encountered an old man planting a carob tree.

Honi asked the old man how long the tree would take to bear fruit. “Seventy years,” the man replied. Honi was confused. He knew the old man would not live long enough to eat from this tree.

The man answered that when he entered the world, he found carb trees planted by those who came before him. Just as his ancestors planted for him, he would plant for those who came after.

I love the clarity of this story. The old man saw wealth in a different way than we do. His wealth was not merely what he possessed. His wealth was what he could pass forward. He saw himself as part of a chain of stewardship, reaching back to ancestors he never met, and forward to descendants he would never see.

Many Indigenous traditions share this wisdom. The choices we make today also affect future generations. The Earth is not just something we inherit from our ancestors to use. It is also something our descendants trust us to care for.

This Harvest time – the Fall is a great time to reflect on how our practices will bear fruit in the future and not just for our table.

Blessings,
Pastor Dianne