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.

Thank God for the 'little people'

Here's my sermon from Broughton Town Council's Civic Service earlier this month.  The readings were Galatians 6:7-10 and Matthew 25:31-40:


My wife and I share a common interest in History although we don't tend to like the same periods, nor do we agree on the type of history we're interested in.  For me the best history is about kings and battles – geopolitical history, but Mags is much more interested in people and the way they lived – social history.  So I was in my element last year when we stood on the fields of Waterloo, whereas Mags much preferred it in Beamish a few years earlier.

It's easy to think that the course of history is driven by those kings and battles, by the big people, but as Gavroche reminds us in Les Miserables “the world is big but little people turn it around”.  This song is about how children especially can make a big difference, and it's great to have representatives of the the Rainbows, Brownies and Guides here with us today, reminding us of the many great children and young people that we have in Broughton.  But the meaning of the song is also extended to the 'little people' in the world - those seemingly without power and influence, because 'little people' do turn this big world around.  Those battles wouldn't have happened without the 'little people' fighting in them, and we all know the history of revolutions where the 'little people' can overthrow even the most omnipotent ruler.  Of course the most influential 'little person' ever was Jesus himself: the son of a carpenter, who spent only three years travelling around an obscure outpost of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago.  Yet everything that we can see around us stems from him and the work of his followers – not just the church building but the technology we use, the clothes we wear, the medicines that have kept us alive, the music we sing, the society we live in, the art and literature and sport we enjoy.  Nobody, whether a 'big person' or a 'little person', has done more to shape and influence the world than the 'little person' Jesus Christ.

Of course, God Almighty could have made all those things happen merely by ordering it to be so.  We see in the book of Genesis that that whole universe only exists because God willed it into existence.  But instead he chose to come to earth, to become a 'little person' and change the world through his teaching, and through his life, death and resurrection.  And one of the reasons he did that was to show how important each one of us is. Whether we consider ourselves to be 'big' or 'little' each one of us has a dignity.  And contrary to the ruling of a British court this week that Genesis 1 is “incompatible with human dignity”, in fact Genesis 1 is the only firm foundation for human dignity.  Our human dignity cannot be based on our beauty, or our intelligence, or our skills, or our usefulness to others, or on the 4% of our genes that distinguish us from chimps.  Our human dignity can only be based on the belief that we are made in the image and likeness of God – that is the only thing we cannot lose, that is the only thing that gives us all equal worth, that is the only thing that means that 'little people' count as much as 'big people'.

And because we all have human dignity, the actions we do to and for each other matter enormously.  Our Civic Service gives us the opportunity to recognise the huge amount of work that is done by those who might think of themselves as 'little people' and to say 'thank you' to them.  They are the people who turn this world around and who do so much good for this community of Broughton.  St Paul reminds us in his letter to the Galatian church “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up”.  We are in the middle of Harvest season, when we think about the little seeds which were planted earlier in the year that we are now able to harvest and enjoy.  St Paul uses that to illustrate the benefits that result from the 'little' actions of 'little' people.  We have so many people who give their time and energy to help this community and the result is a community that we can be proud of.  The hard work and preparation that go into a lot of community events and projects, and community life itself, is often unseen, but the results, like the harvest, often can.   There are too many people to name individually and there are also many different areas and aspects of the life of this community in which they work.  It would be wrong to start giving examples because either I would miss people out, or because the tea will go cold in the Village Hall!

But there are are also thousands of tiny actions we can do each day that make the world a better place: a smile, a kind word, a prayer.  Most of these will go unnoticed and uncelebrated.  However, Jesus' parable in our reading from Matthew assures us that on Judgement Day, each and every good thing we have done will be noticed and celebrated, and we will see the full effect of them.  And that's an amazing thought!  The same is true of our bad deeds, and that is a more frightening prospect, but the promise of Jesus is that the slate will be wiped clean for those who repent of their sins.

So today we gather to celebrate all those people whose actions both small and large make this community a better place.  Thank you, but most of all thank God for you!