What the sunshine on Leith proclaims

Here's my October article:

Photo by Linda https://occasionalscotland.blogspot.com/2013/12/sunshine-on-leith.html

Traditionally, harvest festivals are celebrated around September or October, although different crops are harvested at different times of the year.   And in a year like the one we've had, some harvests came early and some barely came at all.  Whatever time of year is actually harvest time, our harvest festivals give us the chance to think about where our food comes from and the people that produce our food, and also the beauty of the natural world.

I started thinking about harvest earlier this year, surprisingly whilst writing the June article about football!   Writing of football chants I mentioned the song “Sunshine on Leith” by The Proclaimers, and of course I had to listen to it a few times (as I'm also doing now!)  The song is about heartbreak and finding love again and nothing really to do with harvest.   However, it contains the lyrics “While the Chief puts sunshine on Leith / I'll thank Him for His work / And your birth, and my birth.”

The Proclaimers, Charlie and Craig Reid, acknowledge their Christian roots and so the reference to 'the Chief' is a reference to God and his work includes his creation, in particular human life and the sunshine on Leith.  The reason it made me think of harvest is that the song expresses gratitude to the Chief for his works, and thanking God for his creation is an important part of what we do in our harvest festivals.

We thank God for the world he has made and for all his love and care expressed in the world, and what a world that is!  Because God doesn't just provide us with a place to exist in – he has made it beautiful as well.  Mountains, oceans, forests and deserts are not necessary for our existence, but God has given them to us to delight in.   Indeed the rest of the universe is not necessary for our survival, but it shows God's abundant love for us.  What's more, he could have designed us to be able to survive on one plant and water, but instead he gives us a huge variety of things to eat and drink which doesn't just provide our bodies with necessary nutrition - it tastes good too!

The pinnacle of his creation is humanity, made in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:27), and turning a 'good' world into a 'very good' world (compare what God 'sees' at the end of the sixth day [Genesis 1:31] with all the other days.)  We can celebrate all our complexity, and especially our capacity for love.  However, as we also acknowledge in our harvest festivals, our sinfulness leads us to misuse all of creation, including each other.  But the abundant love of God is shown not just in creation but in Jesus dying so we can be forgiven (Romans 5:8).

So while God continues to put sunshine (and all weathers) on his creation, whilst he sustains it by his powerful word (Hebrews 1:3), let it remind us to thank him for all his works, including you and me.

Harvest Sacrifices

Here's my article for the October magazines:

Harvest time often brings back fond memories, including memories of the hymns and songs sung at this time, many of which are well-loved favourites. Although not strictly a harvest hymn, I have fond memories of being in the school choir singing John Rutter's setting of “For the beauty of the earth”, and it's always a sadness when it's sung to a different tune!

The words were written by Folliott S. Pierpoint (great name!) in the spring of 1863 as he sat on a hilltop outside his native city of Bath mesmerized by the beauty of the countryside that surrounded him. As we now sing Pierpoint's words, in response to the wonderful things around us; in nature, in human relationships, and other blessings from God, we raise a joyful or grateful hymn of praise, or in Pierpoint's original lyrics, a sacrifice of praise.

The idea of a sacrifice brings us around again to the harvest theme. Although the Harvest Festival as we know it only developed in the mid nineteenth century, many cultures have rituals around the agricultural year stretching back to the beginnings of human history. A lot of these rituals involved making sacrifices to the deities they thought responsible for the weather and the growth of crops. Sacrifices of food, drink, animals and even humans were made to curry favour with these deities or to appease them when their displeasure was shown through things like adverse weather or crop failure.

The harvest rituals in the Jewish tradition, however, were of a different kind. There was an acknowledgement that “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1) and therefore “Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand” (1 Chronicles 29:14). We cannot give sacrifices to God because he owns them all already! Instead, the harvest sacrifices were demonstrations of faith and trust in God – they were to give the firstfruits of the crops (Exodus 23:16) trusting God that he would provide the rest of the crop. They weren't to give the surplus or the left-overs but what, at the time it was given, was the only crops they had.

Our Harvest Festivals give us a chance to raise a sacrifice of praise to the God who continues to provide for us through the labours of others and the wonders of creation – not in order to appease or pacify God but in response to his generosity to us. This generosity is seen most of all in Jesus who on the cross offered for all time one sacrifice for sins (Hebrews 10:12) so our sins could be forgiven. The proper response to that generosity is praise, repentance and faith in Jesus.

What do we give?

OIKOS is a fantastic ecumenical initiative in Brigg, that run a Christian shop, a Food Bank, a Community Pantry and more!  I was asked to write some short 'thoughts to start your week' for October 2023 for their Facebook page. This is an expanded version of the thought for 15th October.

Harvest Festivals are a chance for us to thank God for the food that we have. As we think about the world we cannot help but be struck by the over-abundance of food that we can have. We are not limited to one type of food but can eat many different types of plants, animals, fish, fruit, vegetables, seeds and so on. And that's just the food that naturally occurs: as we exercise our God-given and God-reflecting creativity we can create other foodstuffs by cooking, mixing and processing natural ingredients. As in last week's reflection, we should remember that this is not the necessary way that God had to create the world. Koalas only eat eucalyptus and blue whales only eat krill, so there's no reason why humans had to be able to have a varied diet. Even less was it necessary for us to be able to eat so many different foods. The super-abundance of food and drink that can sustain us is testament to God's super-generosity towards us.

As we reflect on God's generosity towards us, exemplified by harvest, we should also feel an urge to imitate God's generosity ourselves. As we look at the variety of, for example, bread or baked beans that we can choose between we should praise God for his wondrous provision, but it should also make us feel chastened that 10% of the world's population regularly go to bed hungry. And the problem is not just global: 7% of the UK population live in food poverty. Therefore harvest is a time (though it shouldn't be the only time!) when we think of those who don't have as much as we do. So it's great that many churches and schools have taken donations for Brigg Food Bank at their Harvest celebrations.

When we announce that we'll be taking donations for the Food Bank the first question is usually “What do we give?” and food banks usually give a general list of things they want, and sometimes give 'live' updates on what specifically they are short of at that moment. But there is a perhaps a deeper meaning to the question “what do we give?” that we need to ask ourselves, and it is linked in some way with the variety that we've just been thinking about.

The anecdotal, but possibly common, experience of Harvest Festivals is of waking up on the morning of the festival, be-it school or church; remembering with horror that you've forgotten to get something to donate; then desperately rummaging around in cupboards trying to find something! What you end up with is usually the tins that are nearly at their best-before date, or strange jams that have been given as presents or won on tombolas. Alternatively, if you have remembered about Harvest whilst at the shops (and I am guilty of doing this) you buy your own shopping and then get extra of some of the products to donate, but you buy your usual brands for yourself but what you donate is from the value range. We justify this second-best giving because of the cost to our own budgets and perhaps also (and again I own up to this myself) with the thought that those in need will be grateful for whatever they get. This way we can feel good about ourselves for being charitable, without it costing us too much.

Our generosity is measured not just in how much we give but on what we give; remember Jesus' commendation of the widow who gave all she had, even though it amounted to a tiny amount of money (Luke 21:1-4). Monetarily she didn't give very much but sacrificially she did. Paul reminds us that God loves a cheerful giver, whilst also telling us to sow generously (2 Corinthians 9:5-11). Giving cheerfully and sacrificially not only expresses gratitude for God's generosity to us; and not only reflects Jesus' self-giving (Philippians 2:6-8); it also honours the people that receive. In this way we love others in the same way we love ourselves.

Perhaps you're not as selfish as I am, in which case please pray for me! But those of us who are tempted to give second-best, maybe we should meditate more on God's super-abundant generosity to us, and also on the God-given dignity of those to whom we give.

Photo from: https://www.churchofengland.org/news-and-media/stories-and-features/how-harvest-festival-services-are-supplying-food-banks

Harvest: a created illustration

OIKOS is a fantastic ecumenical initiative in Brigg, that run a Christian shop, a Food Bank, a Community Pantry and more!  I was asked to write some short 'thoughts to start your week' for October 2023 for their Facebook page. This is an expanded version of the thought for 8th October.

 

As you read through the Gospels you may notice how many times Jesus uses images from the natural world or agriculture: parables set in fields and vineyards; lilies and sparrows to teach us about God's provision for us; trees to warn us of coming judgement; and famously he calls himself the Good Shepherd. In some ways this is no surprise; Jesus lived and taught in an agricultural society so like any good teacher he would have used illustrations that his audience were familiar with, and you can imagine him standing in the countryside pointing to what's around him as he talks.

But perhaps there's more to it than that. This possibility arises when we consider that the Jesus who tells these stories and uses theses illustrations is the same Jesus who made that creation in the first place! This then raises the possibility that he designed and created them in order that he could then use them to teach us something when he came to earth. Therefore creation itself becomes a way in which God communicates to us.

We see this in Psalm 19:1 when Psalmist exclaims “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” And Paul also teaches us that “what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20). So the natural world isn't just a convenient illustration, but it is designed to be an illustration.

So what then might harvest teach us? We take for granted that harvest is part of the natural agricultural cycle of preparation, planting, tending and harvesting, but it is not a necessity that nature works in this way. God could have created a world where all foods were available all year round but instead he created one that involves this cycle. And perhaps he did that so that we have a part to play in the process - as the great harvest hymn reminds us: “We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land, but it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand.” In co-operating with God in the tending and production of food we exercise the likeness of God in which we were made. We are co-creators with him – not, of course, in the original creation but in the ongoing creation.

Harvest itself, as Jesus highlighted, primarily teaches us about a time of judgment (for example Matthew 13). The crop is gathered in and the wheat is sorted from the chaff, the good and the bad are separated with the good going to the owner's barn and the bad being destroyed. Jesus says that on the Day of Judgement the 'good' will be the people of the kingdom who have heard his word and obey it, who repent and turn to him as their Saviour and Lord.

Image contributed by Good News Productions Int. to www.freebibleimages.org

Left-overs or harvest?

Here's my magazine article for October:

In our BASE (Broughton At Seven in the Evening) services this year, we've been looking at the Old Testament story of Ruth. Ruth was not an Israelite but was from Moab one of Israel's enemies. She married an Israelite whose family had moved to Moab because there was a famine in Israel, due to the Israelites disobeying God's commandments. However her husband, and his brother and father all died, causing Ruth's mother-in-law, Naomi, to return to Israel. Despite Naomi trying to dissuade her, Ruth insists on going with her. They arrived in Naomi's home town of Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning, so Ruth unknowingly goes to glean in a field belonging to Boaz, a relative of her late father-in-law.

The whole story is an amazing one about loyalty to family, God and his laws, but this detail about Ruth gleaning is one that often gets overlooked by the grander narrative, particularly as it's a practice that is strange to us. We usually use the word 'glean' to mean learning or finding something out little by little, but it actually has agricultural origins, and a particular significance in the Old Testament.

In Leviticus 19:9-10, God commands the Israelites to not completely harvest their fields. They were to “cut corners” in harvesting, and always leave some behind for the poor and the foreigner. This was a great form of welfare: it commanded the farmers to have a generous heart, and it commanded the poor to be active and work for their food so they could provide for their own needs with dignity. And this generosity was also extended to foreigners because the Israelites had once been mistreated foreign slaves in Egypt, so they were not to do the same to foreigners in their land (Deuteronomy 24:22).

Boaz however notices Ruth and, finding out that she had been working diligently all day and was also a relative, he ensures her safety by warning his young men not to touch her and telling her not to go to anyone else's field. He even commands his men to take out some of the stalks from the sheaves for her to pick up. There is another Old Testament law that plays an important rôle in Ruth's story and that is that Boaz, being a close relative, is a 'Kinsman-redeemer': a man required to help a weaker relative in need or danger, including sometimes marrying a widow. So Boaz marries Ruth and they become the great-grandparents of King David, and ancestors of Jesus.

This is a great story in itself but it foreshadows an even greater story. Because of our sin we are enemies of God and not part of his people (Colossians 1:21) but even in that state we can still 'glean' from God's blessings (Matthew 5:45) and some are content with these 'spiritual leftovers'. However God wants more for us than that – he wants us to accept Jesus as our Kinsman-redeemer through his death (Titus 2:13-14), and become part of his Bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:31-32). He doesn't want us living on spiritual scraps – he wants to give us the whole field!

Image: Ruth gleaning. Contributed to freebibleimages.org by Sweet Publishing

Harvest Thanksgivings - not just for food

Here's my article for October:

Harvest is a time for thanksgiving - across the country churches and schools will gather for services which focus on being thankful for the world, and especially for the food we eat, those who produce it and also God who is ultimately responsible for it. It is quite right to give thanks to God for the gift of creation and all the ways he blesses us through the natural world. But it's not just the created world that we need to remember to be thankful for, we also need to be thankful for each other.

During the worst months of the pandemic we got used to being thankful for the NHS and other 'key workers' but this year our thankfulness has mainly been focused on one person: Her Late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. Earlier in the year we joyfully celebrated her Platinum Jubilee and there were many books, speeches, articles, videos and programmes talking about 'Our Faithful Queen' and giving thanks for her 70 year reign. In our Jubilee celebration service we thanked God “for the example of loving and faithful service which she has shown among us” and prayed that he would help us to “follow her example of dedication and to commit our lives to you and to one another.” We also observed that she herself “follows the example set for her, reminding us that 'God sent his only Son “to serve, not to be served”. He restored love and service to the centre of our lives in the person of Jesus Christ.' ” Then, last month, we recalled with thanksgiving her life of dedication and service as we mourned her death.

An important part of many funerals is the eulogy where the life of the deceased is recalled, and there is often a time of reflection where all those present can silently recall their own memories. I usually introduce this time of reflection by suggesting that the congregation thank God for the person who has died and also thank God for the way that God has blessed us through that person. As we mourned the death of Queen Elizabeth, so much was said about the effect that she had, not only on those who met her, but also on the course of world events. An unlike a lot of her predecessors and some world leaders today, she did this not through revolutions, battles and invasions but often with a simple gesture: a handshake, a nod of the head, a laugh.

The simple gestures we make may not have historic, world-changing effects, but they can change the lives of those around us, even in ways we cannot see. The song “Thank You” by Ray Boltz imagines a scene in heaven where someone is shown the effect their life has. Some of the lyrics are: “One by one they came, far as the eyes could see. Each life somehow touched by your generosity. Little things that you had done, sacrifices made, unnoticed on the earth, in heaven now proclaimed.” It's sometimes said that it's a shame we don't hear our eulogies before we die, so perhaps this harvest time we could say thank you to someone who's touched our lives.

Harvest or hubris?

Here's my magazine article for September:




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.

Have we angered Mother Earth?

Here's my magazine article for October:

October is often a month when we think about Harvest Festivals and the natural world.  The year started (though it seems a lifetime ago!) with rallies and protests about climate change, and the rise of Extinction Rebellion, and the reminder again of humanity's rôle in looking after the world in which we live.

This has deep biblical roots which go back to the first book of the Bible in the creation story in Genesis 1 and 2.  There we learn that God is the Creator “of all that is, seen and unseen” (as we say in the Creed), and that it was good.  We also learn that after the creation of humanity, in the image and likeness of God, it became very good.  However humanity's position as the pinnacle of creation comes with responsibilities: to rule over the natural world (Genesis 1:26) and to work the ground (Genesis 2:5).  The responsibility to work the ground helps define what is meant by 'ruling over' the natural world: we're to work in harmony with it; to look after it; for the good of us and it. Thus we sometimes talk of being 'stewards' rather than 'rulers' of the world.  Unfortunately, due to the sinfulness of humanity, described in Genesis 3, we have taken that responsibility to rule over the natural world and turned it into an excuse to exploit the world's resources for our own selfish needs.  

The environmental situation was then displaced in the news by the COVID-19 pandemic, but some made a link between the two.  The need to reduce carbon emissions which was said to be impossible at the beginning of the year, suddenly became a reality as airports were shut and only essential travel in cars was allowed.  Some claimed that the world was fighting back, and that Mother Nature had created the virus in order to heal herself.  Whilst a lot of this talk was metaphorical, it shows that you only need to scratch the surface to find pagan ideas latent in our folk memory.  In many ancient belief systems the natural world was controlled by (often capricious) gods who needed to be placated otherwise they would send punishments of plague or disasters such as droughts or floods.  Supreme amongst these nature gods was the Earth goddess, and 'Mother Earth' often played the key rôle in creating the universe through intercourse with the 'Father Sky' god.

Amidst these ideas the biblical creation narrative stands out as unique.  God alone creates all that is and amongst the things it specifies that he creates are sky, water, earth, sun, moon and stars.  In ancient beliefs these were often said to be the most powerful of the 'nature gods', but the Bible tells us they are not divine at all, indeed humanity is greater than all of them.  Therefore there is no Mother Earth that we have angered and need to placate by our environmentally friendly actions.  However there is a Father God, whose love we have rejected by disobeying his commands, including to be stewards of the world.  The problem of environmental damage is ultimately a problem of human sin, not just because of our exploitation of it but because our rebellion also cursed creation (Genesis 3:17-18).  Therefore the remedy for environmental damage is a Saviour: not in the form of a Mother goddess nor an environmental activist, but in Jesus who invites us to repent of our sins and promises us his Spirit to help us to change; and at whose return all creation will be renewed.

Thanking God for The Wurzels and Autumn Days

Here's my article for the Septmber magazine:

One of my earworms this summer has been The Combine Harvester Song (Brand New Key) by the Wurzels, which has to be one of the oddest proposals in history! Another, more traditional harvest song that you may hear over the coming months is one of my favourites from school, 'Autumn Days'.

'Autumn Days' like many harvest songs lists things that we like or enjoy (although some of them, like 'jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled' and 'the song the milkman sings' are rather quaint nowadays!) and says “thank you” for them. Thanksgiving is of course one of the main themes of harvest time, and gratitude is a very important habit to cultivate, but it only recently occurred to me that 'Autumn Days' doesn't actually say who we're thanking for these things! This of course makes it an almost perfect song for a multi-cultural, multi-faith society as everyone can sing it together and the singer decides for themselves who they're thanking. For religious people it will be their particular deity, for non-religious people it will be other people.

This non-committal thanksgiving is in contrast with the common exclamation “Thank God!” which is used by those who say they are atheists almost as much as by those who do believe in God. It is often used in situations where the outcome has been something which is beyond human control, or has been unlikely, or as an expression of relief. Militant atheists would no doubt claim that such exclamations are a cultural hangover from the time when most people believed in God, and there is no doubt that often the phrase is used unconsciously, but I think there is a deeper explanation.

Our inclination to be thankful is a deeply ingrained realisation that we cannot do everything by ourselves, that we rely on other people for our continued existence. Being grateful and showing our appreciation to others may be evolutionarily beneficial to us (if we don't say thank you we might not get that help again) but it also satisfies our longing to treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated. It recognises that other people are not a random collection of atoms whose only use is to be of benefit to us, but that they are fellow humans and therefore worthy of respect.

But there is also a recognition that there are things which are out of human control. Psalm 19:1 says “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” And Paul writes in Romans 1:20 “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” He says that this knowledge should remind us to thank him for his love for us. We enjoy the fruits of the harvest, but sometimes forget that he has given them to us.

Harvest is a time to thank those, near and far, who help to make our lives better, but most importantly it is a time to think about all the things God blesses us with and to say a heartfelt “Thank God!”