Rogation Days

Attemper fair with gentle air
the sunshine and the rain,
that kindly earth with timely birth
may yield her fruits again:
(from a Rogation hymn by Edward White Benson – number 292 in the Hymnal 1982)

The weather has lately been unkind in our part of the world and elsewhere. Strange weather it is, intensifying the old patterns of storm and tempest, the extremes of heat and cold. Long-settled patterns of rainfall and temperature are shifting.

We can, and must, seek the blessing of God for this growing season, this summer of 2011 when there are many people around the world for whom the inflation in food prices causes hardship. Rogation Days, which are the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week, are the Church's traditional time for such prayer. But we must petition our Lord God with full awareness that we are reaping what we have sown. Climate change is in part our own doing, and that of our ancestors. The atmosphere can be described as a large heat engine. Through global warming, we have added energy to the engine, and we are seeing the results.

Simultaneously, we have neglected the land and those who live and work in agricultural communities here and around the world. Instead of farming, we have “agribusiness,” which consumes topsoil, ground water, and fossil fuels as “inputs” without regard for the future. Instead of nurturing strong rural communities, agribusiness destroys them, both here in the U.S. and around the world, where many have been driven by poverty from the land into urban slums while the fields are devoted to luxury export crops for the developed world.

We humbly beseech thee, O Father, mercifully to look upon our infirmities; and, for the glory of thy Name, turn from us all those evils that we most justly have deserved; and grant that in all our troubles we may put our whole trust and confidence in thy mercy, and evermore serve thee in holiness and pureness of living, to thy honor and glory; through our only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP p. 155, at the end of the Supplication)

Some repentance and amendment of life would be in order. But even were we all to immediately downscale our lives, respect the environment, and return to sustainable ways of life, we would still reap what we and recent generations have sown; the feedback loops are slow and much damage has been done.

Our one hope is in the LORD, “who gives food to all creatures, for his mercy endures for ever.” (Psalm 136:25)

“Mercy” could here be translated as “love” (NEB), or “steadfast love” (NRSV); it could also be “goodness” (as in Luther's Bible: “Güte”), or “lovingkindness.” It is Chesed, which is one of the Words of the Hebrew language – like Kippur, or Qodesh, or Shalom, or the Names of God – large Words which carry more meaning than any single English equivalent. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon has almost a full page (pp. 338-9) on this root word and its derivatives, which I commend to those who wish to delve further into it. Psalm 136, that great psalm of praise, gives this phrase twenty-six times as a response to the mighty acts of God: “for his mercy endures for ever.” Chesed is at the very heart of God, the Sacred Heart of our Lord.

Though he loves us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3), God is not going to bail us out, no more than he bailed out Israel and Judah when their sins brought captivity and destruction upon them. But, as he was with them, so will he be with us, no matter how dark it may be.

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17-18)