It can be confusing for Christians to talk about this season as “the fall” in America. When the church mentions “the fall” it often sounds ominously like a disaster: Adam and Eve falling into shame; their children falling into sin; God’s people falling into slavery or exile; God’s temple falling into idolatry or ruin. But when Christians (speaking in North American English) talk about “the fall” these days, it likely has more to do with pumpkin spice and leaf- peeping than with chaos or despair. We mean autumn. We mean harvest. We mean Halloween Reformation and Thanksgiving. For us there is more to “the fall”

than a long-ago bite of a forbidden fruit––for us, “the fall” is also a festive ingathering of produce and pies, a colorful cornucopia of vegetables, a welcoming table set with ripe, inviting fruit. And no fruit is more nourishing (this season or any) than that perennial fruit of the Spirit––that ripe, wonderful delight of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. What an awesome time for America, for the church, this fall can be! A worthy reminder, since this fall is also feeling for many of us like an angry, bitter, contentious and divided election season. Come, Holy Spirit: come!

In our Bible’s ancient Book of Judges, we find a faith-filled fairy-tale of a parable about the trees of the forest electing a king. Imagine fragile saplings and all the bushy undergrowth groveling at the roots of flashy, flowery trees. They’d ask the olive tree to rule over them, but rich olive oil is too expensive for their taste. They’d follow the fig tree as their leader, but fear its sweetness is too

saccharine for their sensibilities. They’d gather for the grape vine to guide them, but its wine is too intoxicating for an educated electorate. So the forest finds a thornbush––and the thornbush is intrigued by their logic-defying devotion. Doesn’t the forest know that the thorns will grow and pierce its most delicate leaves, choke its most vulnerable roots, steal its most longed-for sunlight, puncture its most precious fruit? Yet that thornbush is all too willing to reach out its prickers among the people. If the forest elects to be crowned with thorns, the thorns are ready to crucify.

Jesus knows how thorny our lives and times can feel. Jesus preaches about the seeds that look for a place to grow––maybe on paths, maybe among rocks, maybe under thorns as a last resort when anxieties make the whole neighborhood look too dangerous to trust that will God give life here.

Jesus knows how it feels to wear the crown of thorns as it chokes, as it pokes, as it pricks, as it tricks us into a thinking that anger and bitterness and contention and division and death and despair rule over us. Jesus knows the pain of a soul in a wretched world, crying “My God! My God! Where are you‽”

It’s not always comforting to realize how we get what we ask for, what we shout for, what we vote for, what we work for. And when mob mentality takes control in the Bible––when disciples run away from Jesus and ask for thorns to replace our God’s crown of justice and love––well, it might truly feel like “the fall.” Would that we had worked harder to harvest better olives, figs or grapes!

Yet this autumn offers us hope. We need not harvest hate or hurt or histrionics. We need not run to thorns. We are called as harvesters into the ethical fields of God’s good news in Jesus Christ, who promises that our days will be governed by divine love: love between heaven and earth, love for one another as for our own selves. Our New Testament defines this love as above all patient and then kind…love, patience and kindness being key marks of the fruit of the Spirit upon which we feast this season (and eternally as God’s hope-filled and ethically-oriented people). Our hope is that––guided and informed by the fruit of the Spirit, following our Christ who conquers thorns for the sake of healing, loving, welcoming and embracing all people––we will cast our ethics in favor of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self- control.

Praying under the rule of the gospel Spirit, let this be a season of thanksgiving for all.

Come, Holy Spirit: come!

In the Sacred Spirit’s fruitful peace, Pastor Joel