The time of increase
Published 12:29 am Tuesday, October 20, 2026
The above title might have gotten you started already on the often-repeated refrain of recent months about increased prices—as well as increased frustrations, complaints, worries, and fears. While acknowledging those realities, I want to redirect them instead of amplifying them. Which brings me around to why I mentioned that word in the first place: because autumn is thought to come to us from the Latin word auctumnus—meaning “the time of increase.” How can we not think of fields and trees swelling with the ripe and ready harvest … along with the joyful gratitude that accompanies that abundance, right?!
In the last part of Psalm 65, we encounter this thankful hymn of praise to the Lord of Creation: “You visit the earth and water it; You greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; You provide their grain, for so You have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth. You crown the year with Your bounty; Your wagon tracks overflow with abundance. The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy.” Even amid difficulty or scarcity in some areas of life, there is still great evidence of abundance on which our eyes and minds and hearts need to be retrained and refocused.
How we deal with abundance matters, like Jesus made clear in his “parable of the rich fool” (Luke 12:13-21). The man who had a plentiful harvest tore down perfectly good barns to build larger ones in which he could store “all my grains and my goods”—even as congratulated himself saying, “You have it made for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry!” Little did he know, however, that his life would end that night and that all he had would go to someone else. “So it is,” Jesus said, “for the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Then Jesus told his disciples not to be filled with anxiety about life, but to learn from the ravens who neither plant nor harvest, who have no storehouses or barns, but yet God feeds them (Luke 12:24). He also stated this in the following verse: “And who of you can add a single hour to your span of life by being anxious?”—making the point that anxiety adds nothing but really subtracts from life instead!
In Eric Sloane’s 1973 book of preparation for our country’s bicentennial, The Spirits of ’76, he wrote: “The gifts of life are more and more taken for granted and the general belief is that we constantly deserve more than whatever we already have…. Although we have progressed technologically to an astounding degree, we have stood still (or often receded) spiritually…. We constantly expect more than that which we have”—citing in that last sentence words from the namesake of Pennsylvania, William Penn. One can’t help but return to Luke 12 and those yet later words of Jesus about seeking the Father’s kingdom and knowing that what one needs in life will be added … and that where one’s treasure is, there the heart will be also (vs. 31 & 34).
This time-tested prayer states it well: Almighty God, You crown the fields with Your blessing and permit us to gather in the fruits of the Earth. As stewards of Your Creation, may we receive Your gifts in humble thankfulness and share Your bounty with those in need, through Jesus Christ, our Lord—Amen.
You’re welcome to join us at the Bethlehem Community Garden (behind our building at 607 North Maguire) on Saturday, Oct. 24 from 10 to noon for a Harvest Pumpkin Giveaway, as well as in our Sanctuary at 5:30 that evening for our worship service, and at 10:30 Sunday morning, too, as we highlight the good work that the Migrant Farmworkers Assistance Fund does for seasonal agricultural workers in our region.
