Fortunately, the chickens are only a part of my memories of the spring/summer harvest, a time that brought together parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins to join in one of those seminal moments in family history. Besides, the younger cousins could always be saddled with Big Chick Edna and her evil gang from the coop. The rest of us could run amok in a world of harvesters and wheat and laughter. When the family was all together, and all working, it always seemed a moment that kept us grounded in an identity older than any of us, even older than my great-grandmother, who sat on the porch with her cane and her smile as she watched the three subsequent generations perform the same role as did the three generations before her birth.
There is something of my great-grandmother’s smile in the season of Pentecost, based as it is on the spring harvest in which the Israelites annually engaged since their escape from the Egyptians. As the Israelites in Palestine were an agricultural society, their calendar was marked by two poles: a spring harvest of grain [actually, barley] and a fall harvest of fruits. The harvest of grain began during the feast of unleavened bread, which was the fifteenth day of the first month of the year. That day sheaf of grain was ritually cut by the priests (Lev.23:10-15) and then waved before the Lord in the Tabernacle and, later, the Temple. This cutting and waving of the grain before God signified that the spring harvest could begin.
In order to mark the season’s conclusion, the Israelites counted seven Sabbaths from "wave sheaf day" and celebrated that end date as a holy day. (Lev.23:15-16). When the Greek language became dominant in Palestine, the holy day became called “Pentecost”, because it came at the end of a fifty day period, Not only was the end of harvest labor and its collected fruits celebrated, but the Israelites would recognize the gift of the Promised Land, liberation from slavery [both physical and moral] and, in the days after the Resurrection, the harvest of new members for the early Christian church.
Pentecost has lost some of its general luster over the centuries, surrendering the attention it used to receive to the Feasts of the Incarnation and Resurrection [better known as Christmas and Easter], yet it still fulfills its spiritual function to celebrate the eternal Promised Land that is ours through baptism, liberation from slavery to sin, and the continued harvest of new members for our parish and its mission. This year, Pentecost Sunday is on May 23rd. I would hope on that day we could celebrate the various ministries of the parish, the welcome addition of new members, and renew our Baptismal Covenant in a manner that highlights what our Christian culture has enabled us to receive. And, in keeping with a once-vivid and now unfortunately fading tradition on Pentecost Sunday, please remember to wear something red, as it celebrates the infusion of the Holy Spirit, not to mention the fire of passion that has always characterized true Christians throughout history.