Harvest
1993 (Year A), 24 October / Pentecost 21
We take an awful lot for granted. Our manners are dreadful. We’re constantly forgetting to say thank you. Just once a year, at Harvest, the church reminds us of ourselves and our manners and calls us to come and give thanks to God for the joy, the wonder and the gift of creation. That gift which has been entrusted to our stewardship and with which we are allowed to participate in and enjoy.
Harvest, for us, is about revelling in the marvel and the glory of God’s creation. It’s a truly wonderful time and it’s tempting once we’ve said our thank yous, to relax into the colours and the sentiment of it all. Yet to do that is to forget that stewardship is actually basic to our existence. It reaches deep inside us and touches that part of us where words cease to be. It has to do with creation and how we exist within it and as a part of it. At the very bottom it has to do with our survival. Whether we live of whether we die.
Of course in this part of the world we’ve built barriers around ourselves to protect and help us forget just how fragile creation is. Seasons matter little when we can buy strawberries in December and green beans are flown in from Africa. But we all know of areas where harvest really is a matter of life and death.
But that’s not the end of it. Harvest has to do with generosity. God’s abundant generosity. There is enough for all and we’re grateful. I started to write this sermon on the banks of the Thames at Windsor where the trees were the most amazing colours, the sky incredibly blue and the boats pottered up and down. It seemed to me that there was enough and it was all lovely. But you and I both know another side. We see it on our televisions; we live it in our streets and estates. We know there’s not enough. And so Harvest has to do with contradictions.
In all this glory and beauty there are those who can enjoy it and there are those who can’t. That fact alone can only make us feel uneasy in our celebrations. We live in a world where there is enough for everyone yet there isn’t the political or moral will to share it out. Today is a time for commitment and renewing our stewardship to ensure that contradictions disappear and that all God’s creatures can enjoy the majesty of creation.
God’s generosity and our stewardship of that gift are the heart of Harvest. Stewardship not only of creation but of that dreadful word that all clergy hate to mention. Stewardship of money.
Money is incredibly important. You hardly need me to stand up here and tell you that. It’s one of the few things we never waste. It’s an incredibly accurate measure of what we think is of value. We all need it to survive, even the church. Now there’s been lots of talkrecently about the Church Commissioners behaving as if money didn’t matter. They’ve lost £800 million, and they’re the people who pay the clergy. You must’ve read about in the papers. The Church, so we’re told, is going bankrupt and soon there won’t be any money to pay us. Well the Commissioners have got back about half of what they lost. That means that they’ve only lost £400 million. We should be grateful for that I suppose.
But the Commissioners are only a part of the church. We, here at St. Peter’s need to balance our books and so we have to pay the insurance on the church. Each year that costs £2000. That’s the bad news. Now here’s the good. I can tell you that the church has got absolutely heaps of money, mountains of the stuff. There’s only one minor problem – it’s all in the wrong place. It’s in our pockets instead of on the plate.
I’m not encouraging us to be reckless and give what we’ve not got. We can only give from what we’ve already been given ourselves. But we need to look again at what we do give – to make a reassessment. Nor am I suggesting that we give all of our giving to the church – that would be crazy. What I am encouraging us to do is think about committing ourselves again to ensuring there is enough to go round in the whole of creation and at the same time I hope we can think about what we give to the church.
Traditionally church members were encouraged to tithe – that means give away 10% of our money after tax. That figure would focus every one of our minds rather sharply. But if all Christians did do that there would be enough for the whole of creation – including the church.
If all this talk about giving to the church is new to you and you want to talk about it some more then for heaven’s sake tell the clergy and we’ll be very happy to talk about it. If you can sort it all out for yourselves but haven’t got envelopes like the rest of us have then there’s a list on the notice board at the back of church to sign up and a new box will appear as if by magic in a couple of weeks. If you want to make a new deed of covenant then there’s a separate list to sign.
There is one more truth in all this. Giving is not dreadful; something to be feared and avoided at all costs. Giving is like this, ‘Bring your whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this’, says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast there fruit’, says the Lord Almighty. ‘then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,’ says the Lord Almighty. AMEN