Do you see the harvest display before us this morning?  It is a sign of the provision of God.  It reminds us that everything we have comes from God.   We gather it up and place it before us every year so that we can give thanks for the provision God provides.  It shows us what life is like in the kingdom of God .  Where Christ reigns there is enough for everybody and no one is ever left out.  Where Jesus rules there is plenty for everybody and we all make sure that each and every one of us is provided for.  This harvest display is a sign of the provision of God.  It reminds us of the life that is given us as a gift, a life that Christians live every day.  

We get this practice from ancient cultures who gathered up a representative sampling of the harvest every year in order to give thanks.  We especially draw on our own Old Testament heritage where the harvest festival was a moment of thanksgiving and sharing.  Every year the people of God offered up the first and the best of the harvest in gratitude for that which was provided them by God.  Every year at harvest time they shared in a thanksgiving feast or festival where everyone shared alike.  At these harvest festivals, as the Old Testament makes clear, the people of God were instructed to make very sure that the widows, orphans, foreigners, strangers, and the poor shared equally in the feast.  

You see, in ancient culture there was always plenty of “fat sheep” pushing around the lean ones.  In the book of Ezekiel God looks down with pity on the scattered Israelites who, following defeat and exile, find themselves all over the known world far away from the Promised Land.  God intends to gather them up and bring them back.  Throughout the Old Testament there is reference after reference to God’s impatience with those who have all the benefits and leave out those who are not so fortunate.  They are never left out if God has anything to say about it.  

They are never left out because God always provides enough.  God takes this very personally.  God says,
          I myself will seek them out.
In contrast to the fat sheep, those in creation who only look out for themselves who “push and butt” against all those weaker than they, God (listen to these verbs):  will seek, rescue, gather, feed, bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, strengthen the weak.  God is so very active in this.  God wants to make sure that nobody is left out.  

If that’s what God does; if that’s what this display of harvest plenty is about, then we ought to do it too.

What is it that Jesus says to those who provided food, water, clothing, and community to those who were down and out?  Jesus says to them,
          Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom
          prepared for you from the foundation of the world!  Mt. 25:34b

God takes this so personally.  So personally in fact that Jesus believed that  
          every time you provide food, clothing, and shelter to one in need,
                       you give it to him;
          every time you visit those who are sick or in prison, you visit him.
Old Testament and New Testament come together very clearly on this one.  God takes this very personally.  God goes out of the way search for and find and help those who are left out.  Jesus so identifies himself with those who are left out that he becomes them in our mission and ministry.  He suffered and died and rose again so that they are never left out.  Just as you knew in your heart that you are never left out when you first gave yourself to him, so those who call themselves by his name, Christians, give of themselves, live their lives and organize their churches, their homes and their world so that they are never left out.  

That’s what God does.  That’s what we do.  

Somebody somewhere said the definition of a Christian is this:  

     Christian:  one beggar showing another where to find food  

Jesus is very clear today.  The Son of Man comes in his glory and sits on the throne.  He is describing the Kingdom of God .  He states very clearly how things go in eternity.  He is telling us how things are run around here when he is in charge.  It is up to us to decide
         whether we are citizens of that kingdom or just here to set up a little                         one of our own;
         whether we minister to Jesus right here in our midst or just can’t
                         seem to find him anywhere;
          whether we prepare for eternity by living the life right now or just                             may not find ourselves suited for it at all.  

As we give thanks this week for the provision that God has so generously given us, commit yourself again to make sure that nobody is ever left out again.  God takes this very personally.  God will seek, rescue, gather, feed, bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, strengthen the weak.  If God takes this this personally, if God works this hard to find and save, then God will surely bless those who want to help, who reach out in love, who seek to live the life.  If you give yourself to God in this great enterprise, God will give you just the right words, the proper resources, the personal skill, and depth of heart to respond to the need to which you are called.  

God makes sure, Christians make sure, they are never left out.