We’d driven as far as we could along the deeply rutted track, to where the road petered out into nothing more than a path up the middle of the valley. On either side of us we could see shacks, built of wood, corrugated iron, cardboard - anything that could be scrounged - clinging on precariously. Steps up the hillside had been formed from old tyres hammered into the bank. We parked our car, grabbed some stout sticks to help us climb and ward off any fierce dogs, and began to make our way up the steps towards a slightly larger shack with hardboard walls and a roof of corrugated iron: this was the local Anglican mission church of San Pablo, Saint Paul.
Over on the bare hillside opposite the shacks were more newly built; these were people who hadn’t long arrived; many of the shacks were hardly more than tents. Above them, picked out in white stones laid on the bare and dusty ground, I could see the design of a giant clover leaf. We were in one of the shanty towns of Lima, the capital city of Peru; a community that had named itself el Trebol, the Clover Leaf. El Trebol formed one part of a community of about a million people known as San Juan de Miraflores. These were people living, very literally, on the edge.
Walking through el Trebol felt rather like walking through a sepia tinted photograph - everything was some shade of brown. My black shoes had cleaned only that morning, but within a few moments of stepping from the car they too were brown. There are very few leaves, of clover or anything else, in el Trebol. Lima is a city built in the desert, and rain hardly ever falls there, though the garua, a cold and clammy mist, rolls in from the Pacific Ocean some eight or nine months of the year.
There is water in Lima. The Rimac and other rivers bring cool and refreshing water down from the high Andes mountains. But in a city that has grown from half a million to about nine million in about fifty years, water can’t help but to be a precious and scarce commodity. In smart downtown Lima you see plenty of flowers; water flows in channels down the middle of its wide streets to irrigate the plants that grow there. But in the shanty towns, particularly in this “invasion”, where most of the people had arrived within five years of my visit, there was only dust, and lots of it. But the people still came; there is a worldwide migration from the countryside into the cities, so that over the past twenty years or so the world has passed a threshold, band for the first time in human history more people live in cities than on the land. Why do they come? They come seeking a better life, and the hope for streets paved with gold. The people I met in Lima had found mostly dust.
We’re here this morning to give thanks for harvest; and for all the problems and anxieties of our world, global warming, the price of oil, the squeeze imposed on milk and market prices, for all that, we do possess a rich and pleasant land. Those of us who grow things may well debate how the harvest has been. I’ve seen some pretty good crops of plums and damsons, but not everyone has done so well; it’s been a good year for apples, and my beans and potatoes have done all right. But it’s been a poor year for tomatoes, or was that just me? The usual mixture of things, but mostly good, I think.
But in fact we have a good and secure harvest whatever. What we don't manage to grow we’ll find on the shelves at Tesco. We thank God today for all of that, and that we do have enough and to spare.
The Israelites of old were told by Moses and Aaron never to forget that God had given them the land they held. He’d formed them into a nation, and led them to the land he promised. So they brought a basket of the very first fruits of the harvest to offer to the Lord - offered as a sign that all the harvest would used in a way that would please him and serve him. His desire was for justice and of peace, his special concern was for the poor, the landless, the vulnerable, for the widow and the orphan. As they brought their gifts, the people would recite words given to them by Moses, in which they reminded themselves that (quote) "My father was a wanderer in the desert...."
And those words were in my mind as I made my way up the steep and slippery sand bank to San Pablo Chapel. These people had also wandered in the desert seeking a promised land. They’d fled from poverty, cruelty, and the corrupt officials and lawless terrorists that ruled the roost in places far from Lima. Like the people of Israel, they were dreaming of a Promised Land where they could have a better life.
Some of that flow of people seeking a Promised Land is now crossing the borders of Europe, and it may alarm and worry us. A union that prided itself in open borders is now closing them. And yet, in this unequal world, harvest reminds us of the scripture that says: love your neighbour as yourself. There’s a saying that our neighbour is a holy gift from God. For Mother Theresa every desperate and maybe dying beggar on the streets of Calcutta bore the face of Christ. Harvest should direct our vision outward to those who don’t have a harvest, and who continue to wander in the desert. They are also our neighbours; we share one world, and we share one harvest.
And harvest itself is a holy and blessed thing. Gifts once given become more than just the thing itself, for each gift contains and expresses something of the giver, their nature, their concern, their love. That’s why we treasure gifts and take care how we use them. If we think of the earth’s harvest as God's gracious gift, then it is holy as he is holy, given to be treasured and used in the spirit of the giver.
Here’s a thing: two or three years after my visit to Lima and to el Trebol, someone sent me some photos, newly taken, of the same place I went to. It was just as dusty. But there was now also a garden, a new garden protected from the wind by a fence made mostly out of plastic sheeting, a garden watered and manured to make the thin soil fertile, with the new green of growing crops protected by strings with bits of plastic bags fastened along them to scare off any passing pigeons.
The Diocesan Allotment project was beginning to turn that sepia desert green. People who'd arrived in that barren place with little but hope were being helped to make their hopes become real. Seeds grow quickly in the tropics. The photos had been taken over a period of three weeks, and you could see how productive this garden was going to be. The person who sent me the photos was the vicar of a little parish in the Diocese of Worcester, where they have a diocesan link with Peru like the one Hereford has with Tanzania. His parish had raised some money and sent it across to help make this little miracle happen. And I heard how three lovely Peruvian ladies I'd met while I was out there had worked so hard to turn their vision of gardens in the desert into reality, organising and training the local congregation at San Pablo mission.
There are Christians all over the place, and it's marvellous what we can do if we take an interest in each other, as we should. My brother called to see me the other day, and I gave him some of my potatoes in a bag to take away with him. We like to share what we grow. So what about my brother in Peru, or in Tanzania? How can we share with them? I know that parish in Worcestershire a little bit, that had helped kickstart the allotment project; I preached once at the church there, and it really is set in a green and pleasant land, full of cider orchards and the like. Thank God for that harvest too! But thank God too that he plants in the hearts of people who praise him the desire to share the green of our harvest with others, that their land may be green and pleasant too.
God in his constant love led his people from slavery in Egypt to a land that flowed with milk and honey. And that same love continues today to turn deserts green, and to renew tired hearts and restore withered hope. May that love inspire in us and in all who honour Jesus as Lord a harvest of faith and Christian service.
Above left - an overview of the shanty town; right - San Pablo mission chapel.
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