What do Superman, the Addams Family and 'Wir pflügen' all have in common? Answer: they are all tunes that my family uses to sing a 'grace' before a meal. 'Wir pflügen' is better known as the tune to 'We plough the fields and scatter' but you'll have to ask me the lyrics to the other two next time you see me!
As things slowly start to return to normal, so does the regular cycle of special services, the first major one being Harvest. Despite living in a rural area surrounded by people whose living depends on farming, we, like our more urban neighbours, have largely lost a sense of how dependant we are on the natural processes of food production, and in particular on the importance of the harvest. So a bad harvest will affect the livelihood of agricultural workers but rarely affects consumers. I would guess it is also fairly rare for people to start their meals with a 'grace' – thanking God for the food they are about to eat and those who had any part in producing it.
This can lead to an unconscious hubris that we as humans are no longer subject to the vagaries of nature; that we can control nature to produce what we want, whenever we want it. This arrogance also extends beyond food to everything we have – we have gained or earned it and it is ours to do with as we please. Perhaps this is why natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes shock us so much – they remind us that the natural world is actually beyond our control.
So the dwindling importance of harvest celebrations may not be just because we've lost the connection between what we eat and how it is produced, but because harvest itself is a reminder that we are not in control, that we are dependant upon God's provision through nature. Harvest is an affront to humanity's sense of self-sufficiency.
But harvest is also a reminder of God's generosity to us: he didn't have to create us, but he did; he didn't have to give us a world with all its variety for us to enjoy, but he did; he didn't have to send his Son to die so we could be forgiven, but he did. Our response should be thanksgiving but also a desire to be generous as God is generous. One of the prayers we use in church when we receive the collection is “everything in heaven and on earth is yours. All things come from you, and of your own do we give you.” We need to go along a journey that starts with ‘how much of my money do I give away?’ to ‘how much of God’s money do I keep?’
It’s not an easy or straightforward journey – but this harvest is a good time to start.
