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Harvest can be a bit of a back slapping exercise. Didn't we do well, we grew all these wonderful things and then we went all around the world and collected the most amazing things produced in other countries. We can refrigerate and freeze, we can put things in cans and ensure that we have as much as we want, almost whenever we want it.

But at what cost? Our farming methods, our industrial progress, our economic systems - all of these have a price. Other people around the world sometimes suffer as a result of our consumption. There is a growing weight of evidence that the activities of human beings are having quite dramatic effects upon our climate as well as the old familiar problems of pollution.

Harvest is a wonderful time of year, but now perhaps more than ever before it is a time when we need to also ask ourselves whether our greed has produced real need. If the cost of world development is global warming and the associated weather problems, then we have to dedicate ourselves to thinking how we are going to help those people who will suffer from the worst effects of flood and famine.

Joel 2:21-27

Be not afraid, O land; be glad and rejoice. Surely the LORD has done great things. Be not afraid, O wild animals, for the open pastures are becoming green. The trees are bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches. Be glad, O people of Zion, rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before. The threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil. 'I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten-- the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm -- my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the LORD your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.

Matthew Chapter 6:25-33

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Post Communion Sentence

The earth is filled with the gifts of the Lord: wine, and oil, and bread, to strengthen and cheer our hearts.   Psalm 104:13,15

Lord of the harvest, with joy we have offered thanksgiving for your love in creation and have shared in the bread and the wine of the kingdom: by your grace plant within us a reverence for all that you give us and make us generous and wise stewards of the good things we enjoy; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Commentary

Harvest can be a bit of a back slapping exercise. Didn't we do well, we grew all these wonderful things and then we went all around the world and collected the most amazing things produced in other countries. We can refrigerate and freeze, we can put things in cans and ensure that we have as much as we want, almost whenever we want it.

Harvest is rightly a time when we thank God for the abundance of the harvest. We should be grateful for all manner of things, from the field and the sea, but also the work of those associated with factory, mine,  school and many other areas of life

But this year I would like us to reflect upon the cost of turning out increased production and greater yields. Harvest is a time for thinking about all that has been produced, but we need to reflect upon the cost of production as well.

When the world was created God gave to us a solemn responsibility to care and he put boundaries upon the actions of the people he created. The story of Adam in a garden is a simple one but it has a powerful message. God gave Adam and Eve much to do, he expected them to work, but he commanded that they should not eat of the tree. There were boundaries placed upon their behaviour. Just because they were able to eat, did not mean that they should.

Today we are faced with the same choices. We are expected by God to work, yet there are restrictions placed upon what we should do. Our farming methods, our industrial progress, our economic systems - all of these have a price. Other people around the world sometimes suffer as a result of our consumption. There is a growing weight of evidence that the activities of human beings are having quite dramatic effects upon our climate as well as the old familiar problems of pollution.

Harvest is a wonderful time of year, but now perhaps more than ever before, it is a time when we need to also ask ourselves whether our greed has produced real need. If the cost of world development is global warming and the associated weather problems, then we have to dedicate ourselves to thinking how we are going to help those people who will suffer from the worst effects of flood and famine.

As Christians we need to understand the terrible cost of our harvesting of the world resources. There has been terrible damage done to the earth over the past years and our capability to do lasting damage increases every year. We have destroyed forests all over the world, and the removal of trees has caused erosion which has washed away topsoil which took thousands of years to form. Many of the worlds rivers and lakes are drying up as we extract water without thought of the consequences for aquatic life or local human need.

Our intensive factory farming methods can cause lasting damage to the environment. Often the damage done by the use of insecticides and chemicals is not properly considered. Our desire for cheap fuel to power our increased production and satisfy consumerism, has produced acid rain and global warming which may have drastic consequences.

It is against this background that we need to be reminded of the cost of the harvest. Christians need to responsibly engage and share in thinking through the potential costs of supposed gains in production.  The answers are as difficult as the questions posed and as Christians we can never jump on bandwagons or suggest simplistic solutions. However what is clear is that just because our technology or science is able to do something, doesn’t mean we should allow it to happen. There are trees with forbidden fruit and the voice of Christian people should be heard whenever it is proposed that society should eat from them. Charles Royden

Meditation

Hymns and Psalms

1. Come, ye thankful people, come 355

2. We eat the plants that grow from the seed,(Tune: Country Garden)

3. Praise and thanksgiving 350 (Tune Bunessan)

4. Praise God for the harvest 351 (Tune: Stowey)

5. We plough the fields, and scatter 352
    

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

"My sisters the birds, much are you beholden to God your Creator, and always and in every place should you praise him. He has given you the freedom to fly wherever you wish and he has clothed you so fully. Moreover he preserved your kind in the ark of Noah so that you might not die out. Again, you are beholden to him for the very air that he has given to you. Furthermore, you do not sow nor reap yet God feeds you and gives you rivers and fountains from which you drink, He gives you mountains and valleys as places of refuge and the tall trees in which to build your nests. Because you do not know how to sew or spin, God clothes you and your young: you can see how much God loves you in that he gives you so much. Guard yourselves therefore my sisters the birds from the sin of ingratitude and be ever mindful to give praise to God." From The Little Flowers of St. Francis.

"For this I thank you, that you have created me in your image, and placed your wonders under my hands, so that I may know them and rejoice in the works of your Creation. I pray to you, eternal God, give me understanding and wisdom, that I might not misuse your creation but make use of it only for my needs, for the good of my neighbour, myself and my family. Give me gratitude for all your gifts, so that my mind does not say: 'This is mine, I have bought it. I will possess it alone. I am noble with it, majestic and beautiful; It belongs to me because of this honour and glory.' All this comes from the devil and the grievous fall of Adam." Jacob Boehme. The Way to Christ.

Lord, may I love all thy creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. May I love the animals: thou hast given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Let me not harass them; let me not deprive them of their happiness; let me not work against thy intent. For I acknowledge unto thee that all is like an ocean - flowing and blending - and that to withhold any measure of from anything in thy universe is to withhold that same measure from thee. (Adapted from The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky.)
 

Praise (Based on psalm 8)

God, when we think about your creation, we’re amazed;
We walk through a masterpiece every day.
Your imagination has created such beauty.
We can never come to the end of your wonders.
How incredible it is that you’ve trusted us to take care
Of your prized possession!
You’ve shown us how to sustain life:
Help us to use this knowledge for the good of your world,
The benefit of your people and the glory of your name.
We praise you, painter of creation’s harvests!  (Christian Aid)

God, you are more generous than the most loving parent; yet we depend on the harvests of other lands, and the labours of people of many races. Make us grateful for what they do for us; help us to trade in such a way that we may not exploit others, and to share our plenty with those in need; that none may go hungry while your earth yields so abundantly. Amen

Father God, give to all who work the land, wisdom to understand your laws, and to co-operate with your wise ordering of the world: and grant that the bountiful fruits of the earth may not be hoarded by the selfish or squandered by the foolish, but that all who work may share abundantly in the harvest of the soil. Amen

Forgive us Lord, for thinking of ourselves more than others; for eating too much without considering those who have nothing at all; for our lack of diligence in searching for ways to share our riches with the hungry and the thirsty. Your Son came to earth that everyone might be blessed and forgiveness offered to the penitent. Amen

May God the Father bless you, who first sowed the seeds of eternal life in your hearts, may God the Son bless you, who nurtures you with the rain and sunshine of love; may God the Holy Spirit bless you, who brings us all to fruition; and may the blessing of God Almighty be among you and remain with you always. Amen

Additional Material

Commentary

Today many of us live in towns and our contacts with the countryside are slight. We do not know much about seasons, farming and the agricultural calendar. Much of our food is processed and packaged, we don’t get it from the field and the farm, instead we get it from Tesco or Sainsbury’s. We can now easily buy imported fruit and vegetables which are not in season in our own country.

However, this doesn’t mean that we cannot celebrate harvest in a meaningful way. Actually we could say that harvest is more important now because we need to be reminded of our dependence on God and our responsibility to treat the world properly. We must not become just indiscriminate consumers, unaware and unconcerned about how our food is produced. We now have the potential to do so much damage to our world so this is very important.

Harvest is a time to focus upon our environment, to thank God for it, and consider our responsibility for our environment. Issues such as genetics, animal husbandry, pollution—all of these are in sharp focus at Harvest. (I was interested to read a paper this week circulated by John Stubbs at St Mark’s, it was from the Methodist Church concerning genetics and it is available for home group study.)

Harvest falls in the time of the Christian calendar with a liturgical colour of green - this is a good colour with all of its ecological and environmental connotations. The message of the ecological movement is that we all have an impact upon the natural world. We are all consumers or producers, so we are all links in a long chain of action which can either protect or destroy our natural environment. God put mankind into the Garden of Eden ‘to till it and keep it’ Genesis 2:15.

With our increasing technology we are able to till the earth more than ever before. With the aid of science we are able to turn waste animal products into food for the same animals, and we are able to change the substance of plants and animals so that they can resist disease or be more productive. The ability to make a crop resist pests might bring food and life to millions. However this same technology also puts us at risk, as never before of being unable to keep the earth and its resources in the condition in which we have inherited it from previous generations.

Harvest festivals, while giving us the chance to thank God for the riches of the natural world, also present us with the more solemn task of contemplating our responsibilities to nature. In more and more Harvest Festival services Christians must give thanks to God but accompany those thanks with promises to keep our environment safe, which is the means of all future harvests. Harvest is about how we use the things which God has given to us. We can use God’s gifts wisely for our benefit and share them with others, or we can abuse them. God gives to us resources which we can do many different things with. Some of those things are worthwhile and some of those things are very destructive. I think especially of the passage in the bible which speaks about a day when we will learn to use resources wisely. Instead of using metal to make swords we would use it to make ploughshares, instead of using it to make knives we would make pruning hooks. ‘Swords into ploughshares, Knives into pruning hooks’ Today this might say ‘Bombs into buckets.’ Today we each need to ask ourselves how we can use the gifts God has given us wisely, for the benefit of all and not just for ourselves.    Charles Royden

Harvest Commentary

Harvest Festival dates from pagan times and gives thanks for a successful harvest. For the Jews feasts were held in celebration of good harvests several times a year. Jesus refers to the grape harvest in today's reading from Matthew.

Jesus uses it to illustrate that the Pharisees had really lost the plot. They were so afraid that the Jews might be exiled to Babylon again, that they thought if they kept every law, both the written laws of Moses and the oral traditional law of their ancestors, that God would keep them safe in Jerusalem. Because it was so difficult to keep all these laws, rather than drawing people to God they had the opposite effect, they began to put barriers in their way. The Pharisees were misusing the gifts and responsibilities which had been entrusted to them and Jesus spoke out against this abuse. 

Rather than preparing the ground and making it fertile and ready for the harvest it was becoming more bleak and barren by the day. Not only had the Pharisees misused the gifts of God, most importantly they did not recognise the greatest gift which God had given the world, His Son. They liked to listen to Jesus, but they thought His ideas were too radical. Jesus told them repeatedly that they kept the letter of the law, but lost the spirit; they made a show of loving God with their public prayers, but they didn't have compassion for people and the harvest was being lost.

God has given us many gifts, some of which we celebrate through the harvest festival. We remember His goodness and provision for us and are challenged to use His gifts wisely. Many people are less fortunate than ourselves and we need to remember God loves them too, and often could use us, and the gifts He has given us (to look after) to demonstrate that love for them, not just at harvest time, but all the year through. Using the gifts He has given us in the service of others is one of the most appropriate ways of demonstrating our gratitude to God for what He has done for us.  Sam Cappleman

Hymns

1. All creatures of our God and King, 7
2. Let us with a gladsome mind
3. Jesus is Lord
4. All people that on earth do dwell
5. Jehovah Jireh, 354
6. We plough the fields and scatter, 732
7. For the beauty of the earth, 152
8. For the fruits of his creation
9. Come ye thankful people come, 106
10. Sing to God new songs of worship (Ode to Joy) 600 Mission praise
11. May the fragrance of Jesus
12. If I were a butterfly
13. All things bright and beautiful 23
14. Who put the colours in the rainbow
15. Praise O praise 359
16. Praise the Lord ye heavens adore Him 12 (Tune Austria)

Thanksgiving Prayer

Father in heaven all good gifts come from you. You send the sunshine and the rain, and it is through your love and care that we enjoy the harvest time. Thank you for providing so richly for our needs and help us to share the good things we have with those who have little or nothing.
Minister: Lord in your mercy
All: Hear our prayer

Minister: Lord we pray for your blessing on every kind of harvest that we enjoy. Thank you for the harvest of the land and the sea. Bless too the harvest of factory, mine and workshop. Bless the harvest of research and of creative art. May we work together with you in every area of life to produce what is worthwhile, good and fruitful. May you be glorified in it all.
Minister: Lord in your mercy
All: Hear our prayer

Bring to fruition Creator God, the work of your kingdom in our lives. Make us part of that joyful harvest in which your loving purpose is completed. Help us to realise how important the smallest words and deeds are. Thank you for others who have set before us an example of true Christian living and who have sown the seeds of faith hope and love in our lives.

Lord we pray for your blessing on every kind of harvest that we enjoy. Thank you for the harvest of the land and the sea. Bless too the harvest of factory and mine and workshop. Bless the harvest of research and of creative art. May we work together with you in every area of life to produce what is worthwhile, good and fruitful. May you be glorified in it all.

Confession

Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and for whom
the whole universe was created,
we mourn with you the death of forests,
fruitful lands that have become deserts,
wild animals left without grass,
plants, insects, birds and animals threatened with extinction,
lands ravaged by war, people left homeless.
As the earth cries out for liberation,
we confess our part in bringing it to the point of disaster.
Through ignorance, often wilfully,
we have thought that we could serve both God and ourselves.
We were unable to resist the temptation
to spend and buy more and more,
with little thought to future generations.
Saviour of the World, you call us to repentance,
so as we confess these sins,
may we be transformed by your love
and play our part in transforming your world.

The minister will proclaim the words of forgiveness.
 

Confession
God forgive us, for the destruction
which we bring upon this world and all who live in it.
You have entrusted this world into our care,
forgive us for the way in which we destroy and pollute,
and fail to protect the precious resources which we have.
Forgive us when the power of the human mind
is used wastefully, and destructively,
whilst millions are in need of skills
to bring them clean water and basic medicine.
Forgive us when we fail to speak out for justice for all people.
Forgive us when we are tempted to despair
at the size of the problems
and the seeming insignificance of our own contribution.
Strengthen our faith, hope and trust
in the miracle of your redeeming love.
This we ask in the name of your Son,
our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The minister will proclaim the words of forgiveness.
 

Prayer

God of love, help us today to watch for you carefully , work for you simply, and rest in you gratefully, through Jesus Christ. Amen. Rev Christian Le Moignan, President Designate of the Methodist Church in Britain for 2001/2

The whole creation is suffering, and cries out with pain. Our sin affects the world of nature and the harvest it yields. Let us confess our sins against God and God's creation. After Michael Counsell

Lord Jesus Christ, the way, the truth and the life; grant us never to stray from you, for you are the way; never to distrust you, for you are the truth; and never to rest in anything except you, for you are the life. Teach us what to believe, what to do and where we should take our rest; and this we ask for your love’s sake. Amen. Desiderus Erasmus 1467-1536

Look upon us in your mercy, O Lord, and take away our sins. Be to us both our reward and our redeemer, and defend us against all adversities that may assault us in body or soul; through Christ our Lord. Amen. St Ireneaus, c.130-200

Ubuntu: a prayer for humanness. Loving God, who in Jesus willingly took on human form, come to us again in the flesh, so that in your humanity we may recognise the humanity of others. In these days, when so many feel rejected because they are HIV or have AIDS, speak to us and assure us of your presence so that we may be there for all who call on us. Lord, who dares to call us your friends, touch us with the hands of friendship so that we may reach out to those who feel untouchable. Touch us with that second touch of healing and wholeness of sight so that we may see others as you see them and offer your healing power to these your sisters and brothers. Spirit of love and life, breathe into us your compassion and care so that we may reach out in this place to touch and to share your love with all. Daphne and Demetris Palos, South Africa

Bible Readings