THE PARISH CHURCH FOR LYTHAM

Last Updated 01/05/2010 17:55:26

Homily at Evensong, St Cuthbert’s, 30^th September, 2007.

[The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity; Harvest Festival]

The final sentence of our New Testament reading: “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift !”

The Harvest is a very ancient festival of gratitude and thanksgiving, though the modern style of its celebration is attributed to a Cornish clergyman. It is to the Rev Robert Hawker of Morwenstow that we owe the tradition which is now an integral part of the Church’s year.

It is easy to appreciate that the popularity of Harvest Festival should have been at its highest when many members of local communities worked on the land. In his novel Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy describes agricultural life in Dorset about 130 years ago. Picture the men from the village moving in a line across the fields, scything the ripe wheat as they went. Behind them followed the women and older men, who would gather and bind the crop as it lay in swathes. After it had been stacked and dried, it would be made into ricks or taken back into the barns to be stored.

People who work out-of-doors know that there are forces and natural phenomena which no human skill or knowledge can conquer. Those who work on land or sea acknowledge their dependence on the weather. A harvest can be devastated by a freak hailstorm in August; a drought can signal a poor yield. It is not surprising, then, that our familiar harvest hymns contain the words ‘thank’ and ‘thankful’. It is a time for being thankful – for farmers, for the food we enjoy, and for the benefits of modern agriculture.

But our context is surely rather different. The vast majority of us don’t watch crops grow, or worry unduly about the consequences of a bad harvest. We venture to the brand-new Booth’s, Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s or Tesco, where the shelves are always well stocked. It hasn’t always been like that. Perhaps we need to be reminded – and forcibly – that food supplies are a gift from God, a product of his Creation.

The Psalmist tells us: “The earth and all that is within it is the Lord’s; let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad.” Jesus spoke of God as the Lord of the Harvest. The Harvest is His, whilst it is also a co-operative effort. Without the fruits and riches of the created Earth – crude oil, natural gas, certain of the chemical elements, nuclear power based on the nature of matter itself – we would not have life as we know it. And without the labours and skills of human hands and minds, on the land and at sea, we would not be able to enjoy it as we do. There is a great deal for which we must give thanks – the Harvest is an ideal time for clarifying the distinction between our real needs and an acquisitiveness that is unhealthy.

I thought some more on Creation; conservation and our duty as stewards; sustainability; the right Christian response. It is important to ensure that the actions of today do not jeopardise the livelihoods of generations to come. Even in Old Testament times, the ancient Israelites tried to ensure that their agriculture was sustainable by giving land a rest every seven years and every fiftieth. Today, there are different methods by which the same end may be achieved: a better balance between large-scale and small-scale farming; more support for those farmers who wish to go organic; and fewer subsidies for those farmers in the United States, Japan and the European Union who produce crops on such a massive scale that vast food surpluses result. When these are sold at below cost price in developing countries, the farmers are undermined and rural poverty sets in.

One of the difficulties that we labour under as human beings is that we are so inclined to get priorities in the wrong order. From Luke’s Gospel, we can read of a gang of ten men, lepers, clinging together in such a way that the deficiencies of one might be compensated by the faculties of another. The lepers, we are told, met with Jesus who referred them to the priests. Subsequently their leprous limbs were healed, the torpor and the numbness of the disease having been swept away. One man, one man from ten, returned to render thanks. Perhaps the others thought that good health was their right; perhaps they thought that God ought never to have let them be in trouble. There are times for all of us, when things have not quite been going our way, that we think we have but little for which to thank God. Deep down, we know that can’t be right. The Harvest is a good time to thank God for simple, everyday things; for the wise use of the earth’s resources and a sharing of its fruits. [Crossword people would see immediately that the word HARVEST contains all the letters of SAVE and SHARE.]

We still haven’t addressed the Harvest theme in its fullness. “Life means more than food, ..” Luke’s Gospel tells us. From the Second Book of the Kings, we learn of the prophet Elisha, hunted by the King of Syria and seeking overnight rest in the town of Dothan. In the morning, his young servant got up first and went outside. He was terrified because the small town was surrounded by the Syrian army. In panic, he asked Elisha, “Master, what shall we do ?”  Elisha’s answer was surprising to say the least: he said, “Don’t be afraid, we have more on our side than they have on theirs.” Elisha prayed that the boy’s eyes would be opened – and they were. The Syrian army was still there, but around and beyond and above was the vast army of the living God, horses and chariots of fire. The story illustrates that the real world is not the world as it appears to be; faith sees the world differently, but correctly.

The same point confronts us. We see the church of the present day surrounded by feelings of indifference and unbelief. Only a minority of us behave as though we believe that God is the provider of the food that we eat and all else that sustains body and soul. The development of farming methods and the skills used in the production, packaging and transport of food lead people to believe only in man and the supermarket. That is the way it seems, as it was to Elisha’s servant. We can become so accustomed to accepting things at face value that we lose the perception to see the mystery that lies below the surface. Through the eyes of faith, the world is just the same. Riches, famines, wars, are still there, but we are different. Ours is the privilege to know that life is stronger than death, that beauty surpasses ugliness, that kindness and love will overcome evil.

Harvest is also a time for remembering that God sows spiritual seeds in our hearts. He turns our thoughts towards the needs of others, inspiring us to help, leading us to genuine concern for the world of suffering, poverty and lack of hope. Do be thankful for God’s bounty to us, and praise him for his indescribable gift. One leper returned to give thanks: does he represent you and I ?

Amen.