A Harvest Sermon

 

Readings: Psalm 67; Joel 2.21-27; Matthew 6.25-33

 

Harvest Festival each year gives us the chance to say thank you to God as the great giver of life, and to praise him for his gifts. The harvest we bring in from our fields and gardens, and even from our supermarket shelves, is something for which we should always be thankful. In our first reading, from the prophet Joel in the Old Testament, we’re reminded that we’re richly blessed by God. “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God,” says the prophet. “You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other.” God is with those who honour his name; God is with those who seek to do his will, who fix their hearts on him.

And in our Gospel reading Jesus talks about the need for those who follow him to turn away from petty anxieties and worries. He tells us, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.”

Earlier in that chapter, verse  24, Jesus has already told his listeners that no one can serve two masters. “You can’t serve both God and Mammon,” he tells them; Mammon is money and earthly possessions, and it’s also earthly popularity and status. If what we’re mostly thinking about is how much we can earn, and if our hearts are full of greed, then the imperative of faith - “Love the Lord your God, and your neighbour as yourself” - goes begging.

Those words about not loving both God and Mammon are a comment on how life is for us human beings. Because we have free will, we can choose where our loyalties lie. I believe God made us; you don’t have to. The Bible instructs us that loyalty to God should be our choice, and that those who give to God what he asks of us - loyalty, praise, kindness and care for our neighbour - will receive his blessing. We don’t have to follow that instruction. But if our first love is for earthly possessions, then that will get in the way of our loving God. We may not want it to or mean it to, but it will. That’s just how life is. No-one can serve two masters.

The current aim of our government is wealth creation, they tell us. We need a growth rate of at least 2½% in order to get the economy going as it should, and pay for the services we need. I’m not an economist, so I’ll not comment on either figures or theory, other than to say that we live on a planet of finite resources, so we can’t all go on growing for ever. And that the flip side of a focus on creating wealth is that not everyone gets it. For many it may mean opportunity being reduced, or wiped away altogether.

Just at the moment there’s some very real anxiety and fear around, people worried about how to meet daily needs; and not only in our urban areas, though maybe it’s more noticeable there, but even in small rural communities. We’re told by our Lord not to be anxious, or, more strictly, not to be distracted by cares. But we also have to live with the fact that standards of living aren’t guaranteed.

Though in some ways anxiety can be a good thing. It reminds us we can’t deal with all that life throws at us just on our own. We need help, and we need to be help. Jesus said, “Whenever two or three gather together in my name, there am I in your midst.” Our experience of Church, week by week anyway, is very often of being just two or three gathered together. We can be anxious about that, too. We may want to be help, but what can we do, small as we are?

But small can be beautiful. Jesus spoke to huge crowds, but he began his Church with a dozen disciples and a few friends. The Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke of happens if just one person looks to her neighbour and not only to herself, and whenever anyone acts with a kindness that says to the other person, “You’re important too.” So, for me, every harvest festival is a celebration not only of God’s goodness in giving us the fruits of the earth in their season, but also of human kindness. 

Yesterday I was talking to the children in school about friends, and asking them what the most important things were about having friends and being friends. A hand went up right in the front row, class 1, tiny tots. Class 1 children often don’t answer the question you’ve asked, and instead tell you about their cat, or what they had for breakfast, or where they like to go on holiday. But I thought I’d better ask, anyway. And this little lass just said, “Sharing.” What a simple and brilliant answer! Harvest celebrates God’s good gifts - and the human graft and effort that turns those gifts into a harvest safely gathered in; but it also reminds to share them.

“Look at the birds of the air,” said Jesus: “they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” And it’s when we remember God as creator, as the author of all things, as the Lord of the Harvest - who gives us what we need to grow and thrive - that we’re inspired and led to use that harvest well, to use it kindly, to share.

And it doesn’t take a big church, or a lot of people, or even a youthful age-range, to start that ball rolling. Two or three gathered together can do it, for when we work for the values of the Kingdom, when we’re loving God and loving our neighbour as ourselves, then it’s not just us, for God is with us too.

A small church I know was mentioned to me as “punching above its weight”, in terms of the pastoral work it offered. I mentioned that comment to its Rector when I happened to meet him. He shook his head. “No,” he said, “we’re just travelling with Jesus where he’s told us to go.”

At our Harvest Festival, let’s thank God for the land, for those who farm it, and for all the myriad people whose hard work keeps us fed and housed and comfy. And let’s thank God for his love, shown to the world in Jesus Christ. And then may that thankfulness lead us to individual and collective acts of love and service that bring relief and help and love to where we are, and help make our world a bright place. Finally, know that God will bless us all as we journey together, and as we journey with him.