Celebrating Harvest and Thanksgiving: right and proper?

The sanctification of days and times is a token of that thankfulness and a part of the public honour which we owe to God for admirable benefits - Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity V.70.1.

In his defence of 'celebrating festival days', Hooker again and again emphasises that it is natural to observe such days.  They have "natural causes" (V.69); they reflect how "nature bringeth forth time" (V.69.2); "the causes being natural and necessary for which there should be a difference in days" (V.69.3); they give expression to "the most natural testimonies of our rejoicing" (V.70.2); and "even nature hath taught the heathens" the significance of festive days (V.70.4); they are based on "the very law of nature itself" - and this "all men confess to be God's law" (V.70.9).

Hooker's defence of festival days also provides reason for the Church to mark Harvest Thanksgiving - whether in the festival of that name in the British Isles, or in the Thanksgiving Days of Canada and the United States.  It is natural for us to give thanks at the end of the harvest season, to give praise for the Creator's goodness in the bounty of the good earth.  This is reflected in the provision of propers for 'Thanksgiving for Harvest' in the CofI's BCP 1926 and the CofE's Prayer Book as Proposed in 1928.  Similarly, the 'Thanksgiving Day' propers in the Canadian BCP 1962 have clear reference to harvest (the lesson is from Deuteronomy - "a good land"), as do the propers in the PECUSA BCP 1928 (from the collect - "who hast blessed the labours of the husbandman in the returns of the fruits of the earth").

The worldly, earthy, popular character of such celebrations can - as mentioned yesterday - face criticism from within the Church.  Indeed, in some ecclesial circles, the very fact that such celebrations are natural can - contra Hooker - lead to them being regarded as a distraction to the Church's life and witness.  Hooker's point, of course, is that such an understanding fails to see the grace and glory animating the created order - "the very law of nature itself".  Hence, the critique of Harvest/Thanksgiving itself becomes an expression of secularism, a failure to celebrate the grace and goodness of God in the created order.

Harvest and Thanksgiving are wordly, earthy festivals rightly celebrated by the Church precisely because - to paraphrase John Milbank - 'there is no secular'.  In the words of Augustine:

For He is the same God who, throughout the whole creation, works miracles every day ... these which happen every day are accomplished as it were in the course of nature ... who does not wonder at water turned into wine, although God is doing this every year in vines?

Such worldly, earthy festivals are witness to a joyous vision of the created order, what Malcolm Guite describes in his sonnet for Thanksgiving as "Inwoven in the web of God's own grace".  If, as Alison Milbank has recently suggested, "secularism in our country is a loss of habits", the failure of North Atlantic Anglican churches to approach Harvest and Thanksgiving with a greater and more joyful confidence has resulted in the British Isles in a disenchanted, flattening of this season, and in Canada and the United States with the prominence of secular accounts of Thanksgiving.

As to the agrarian roots (pun intended) of both Harvest and Thanksgiving, rather than this suggesting the irrelevance of both days to the Church's witness in an urban or suburban environment and a globalised, virtual economy, it actually intensifies the significance of the Church's celebration.  Their very agrarian character recalls us from the delusions and deceits of urban living and the virtual economy.  To quote from Norman Wirzba's essay 'Agrarianism after Modernity':

Agrarianism builds on the acknowledgement that we are biological and social beings that live through healthy habitats and communities.  However much we might think of ourselves as postagricultural beings or disembodied minds, the fact of the matter is that we are inextricably tied to the land through our bodies - we have to eat, drink, and breathe - and so our culture must always be sympathetic to the responsibilities of agri-culture.  If we despise the latter, we are surely only a step away from despising the former, too.

This reflects a profoundly Biblical vision of the human person and community - in the Garden; in the Promised Land; in the Kingdom of God being like the sower, like the mustard seed; in the river of life throwing through the heavenly city, with the fruit-bearing tree of life on either side of the river.  There are no "dark satanic mills" disfiguring green and pleasant spaces in the heavenly city.

The 'post-material' characteristics of urban living and the post-industrial economy - disembodied living, relationships, and labour - are challenged by the very earthiness of Harvest and Thanksgiving.  So too is the disenchanted nature of secularism, as we give thanks for good and gracious bounty, for the yearly miracle of water turned into wine on vines.

It is precisely the earthy, worldly nature of Harvest and Thanksgiving that aids the Church in proclaiming and celebrating a rich, compelling, fulfilling vision of the experience of grace and gratitude in the created order. It is, then, right and proper that the Church's calendar marks and celebrates these days - for there is no secular.