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

Songs of September and Song of Songs

Here's my magazine article for September:

By September the football season is well underway - although some would say the football season never really stops! The number of players changing teams during the summer means that though the names of the clubs stay the same, the actual teams can be quite different. If you follow a club on social media you will get updates on the latest signings, and following my team, Tranmere Rovers, on Facebook I saw the familiar name of a former player who is now returning.

Though I'm not a good enough fan to know all of the players, Connor Jennings, who has also played for both Scunthorpe United and Grimsby Town, sticks out in my mind mainly for a couple of reasons: firstly he was a great player who contributed lots to three consecutive play-off finals, including the winning goal in the 2019 League Two final. But secondly, he has a great fan song!

Sporting chants usually take their inspiration from popular or well-known songs. So we have the general purpose: “You're not singing any more” to the tune of “Guide me O thou great Redeemer”; “There's only one...” to “Winter Wonderland”; and “You only sing when you're winning / fishing / insert other regional stereotype here” to “Guantanamera.” Connor's song is to “September” by “Earth, Wind and Fire” but when I first heard the chant I recognised the tune but didn't know the original song, until it was on the radio a few weeks later.

One of the writers said about it “never let the lyric get in the way of the groove”, meaning that it's a song to dance to not think deeply about, but it does have a general message. Unsurprisingly, it is not about a footballer who “never gives the ball away”. The singer asks his partner “do you remember...dancing in September...never was a cloudy day...Remember how we knew love was here to stay?” Unlike many songs that speak of this first flush of love, the song doesn't then say that this love was great but never lasted. Instead, now in December they still share true love.

These months could be literal months, saying that this was not just a summer fling, or they could be metaphorical months (like they are in Sinatra's “September Song”) describing the human lifespan as a calendar year. But whichever way it's read this is a song about a love that has lasted. Some have suggested that the reference to bells indicates that this is a song about a marriage (possibly on 21st September) that has lasted.

Sometimes the Bible reading at a wedding service sometimes comes from Song of Songs, where all eight chapters are a poetic celebration of the love between a man and a woman, often using spring as a metaphor for young love. I often then say that the 'springtime' of love makes everything seem easy, but the challenge of the marriage vows is to keep that love going through the difficult autumn and winter seasons. A difficult if not impossible promise to keep, unless we have the God who is love (1 John 4:8) filling us with his love. And his love is is a true everlasting love, not just for those in love, but for everyone.

Not so silly season

Here's my August article:

In the media, August is in 'silly season' - the time of year when the news is full of frivolous stories because Parliament is not sitting, and so there is not as much 'important' news. Inexplicably in many other languages 'silly season' is called 'cucumber season'!

However, for thousands of young people August is not silly at all but very serious, because it is when GCSE, T Level, BTec and A level results are released. This is the time when future dreams can be dashed or come one step closer: apprenticeships, university places and job offers can all hinge on what is written on the result papers. It is no wonder that this can be a very stressful time for our young people. When as adults we try to help our young people at this time we can sometimes either make the mistake of minimising how important it is to them or make the opposite mistake of placing too much importance on them.

On the one hand, we can treat results day as just another part of 'silly season' – a chance for the media to be filled with claims that the exams are much too easy now or that no-one really cares about what qualifications you have. On the other hand, we can act as if failing to get the desired results means an end to any future prosperity and happiness. To get the balance right requires wisdom and a sense of perspective, and it is our job as adults of the community to help our young people to have that sense of perspective too.

It is hard to know how to shepherd our young people through this time, so we should to turn to God in prayer to ask him for wisdom and the right words to say, and also to ask him, as the Good Shepherd, to lead and guide our young people's thinking too. But one thing we should be reminding them is that, contrary to what the education system might suggest, our identity and our value is not dictated by those results.

So, a prayer for young people receiving results, from Liverpool Diocese, contains these words “May they know their worth and value is not based on academic achievement but on your great love for us.” And one from the Methodist church, to be said by the young person themselves: “Help me to remember that in your eyes, I am worth more than grades on a piece of paper.” These contain the wisdom that we all need to hear, that our value is not based on our achievements, whether they are academic, personal, or related to our employment or recreation. We are valuable because we are made in God's image and he loves each and every one of us equally and regardless of our achievements.

Psalm 23 reminds us that God, as our Good Shepherd, is with us through all our joys and our sorrows; rejoicing with us and comforting us as necessary. And so a prayer from the Church of England to be said by the young people says: “Help me to stay calm as I wait for news. Whatever happens, be with me, and help me to know the wisdom that comes from heaven.” Maybe that's a prayer you can say whatever your situation.

I'm dreaming of...

Here's my July magazine article:

This month the first live-action film based on the Barbie doll will be released.  From what we know about it already, Barbieland is a perfect place for perfect beings but Barbie starts to question it and becomes imperfect.  So she goes to the real world to search for happiness.  The film plays on the concept of Barbie's world being a dream or fantasy world, not necessarily in the sense of it being a fictional world, but in the sense that it is a world we'd dream about living in.  This of course is part of the appeal of the Barbie range of toys – through playing with the toys, children escape into an imaginary world where life is perfect and dreams can come true: Barbie lives in a dream house with her dream vehicles in a dream world.

Having dreams and aspirations are part of a child's development, helping them to shape their future life choices.  But because children can imagine a perfect world they are often more able to see the imperfections in our world, and want to do something about it.  As adults we often resign ourselves to an imperfect world (“that's just the way life is”) and lose the will to try to make things better.  Sometimes however people's dreams and lives are crushed by circumstances.

In a very different picture to Barbieland, at her lowest point the character of Fantine in the musical Les Miserables sings “I had a dream my life would be / So different from this hell I'm living / So different now from what it seemed / Now life has killed the dream / I dreamed.”  As she discovered, and as we all discover, the perfect world and the perfect life cannot exist, because all of us make mistakes which hurt and damage ourselves and others.  The Christian world view names this as sin: our rejection of God and his ways in order to make ourselves the god of our lives – and tragically we are naturally inclined to put our own needs above others.  The Genesis creation story tells us that the consequence of this sin is death: human sin spoiled the perfect world God created thus allowing death into it.

The trailer for the Barbie movie shows one of the moments where Barbie spoils the perfect Barbieland by asking “Do you guys ever think about dying?”  Even in Barbie's world the thought of death spoils the dream.  We don't know from the trailers how Barbie's situation will be resolved: whether she will have to choose between the imperfect real world and the perfect fake world; or whether she brings the imperfection of the real world into the perfection of the fake world and this somehow improves the perfect world.  Or will none of these questions be answered, making way for a sequel!!

What we do know is the Christian good news: that Jesus came from his perfect realm into our imperfect world, so that he could take our sins onto himself on the cross, that through his death we might be forgiven, and through his resurrection death might no longer reign thus opening the way to a perfect everlasting life.  Our dream world becomes reality through Jesus.

Our imaginary God?

Here's my June magazine article:

What do you imagine when you hear the word 'God'?  Even if you don't believe in God, you will have an idea of who the God is that you don't believe in (and perhaps as Pastor Timothy Keller wrote “Describe the God you’ve rejected. Describe the God you don’t believe in. Maybe I don’t believe in that God either.” !)  This is not an academic question because our image of God (or our non-belief in God) is a major influence on the way we live our lives and the way we view ourselves, others and the world.

Having realised what our image of God is, the next question is where we get that image from.  For example the Greeks and Romans imagined their gods to be just super versions of humans, thus sharing our characteristics of selfishness, pride and ambition.  And different cultures have come up with different representations of the divine leading to different moral teachings. So if God does exist, is there any way of knowing what he is like?

If we try to imagine what God is like by ourselves we will inevitably create a God that is in our own image: venerating the things we like, and denouncing the things we dislike.  As Christians we believe that we can know what God is like but only because God has chosen to reveal himself to us.  He has done this through his Word, the Bible.  The Creation account in Genesis shows us a God who wants to be known by humanity and wants a personal relationship with humanity, even walking with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3).  The Old Testament is full of accounts of God revealing his character and his will to people, but it is in the New Testament that God's self-revelation finds its apex.

There we find that Jesus is the image of the invisible God in whom all the fulness of God dwells (Colossians  1:15,19) and that he is the exact representation of God (Hebrews 1:3).  Jesus himself said that anyone who sees him has seen the Father (John 14:9).  So if we want to know what God is like, we need to look at Jesus.  The disciples' experience of the divinity of Jesus, distinct from both the divinity of the Father and the divinity of the Holy Spirit, lead them to the doctrine that is known as the Trinity: “God is one divine Being eternally existing in three divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (“To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism” Qu. 38). This doctrine is particularly recalled on Trinity Sunday, which this year is 4th June.

This complicated doctrine is not one that would be invented, but could only come in response to God revealing himself to us.  And it is no surprise that our finite minds struggle to comprehend an infinite being – as St Augustine said “If you understood him, it would not be God”!  But if we look at Jesus we will get a glimpse of the God who longs for us to know him.

Kings and Coronations

Here's my May magazine article:

Perhaps the key event this month is the Coronation of King Charles III, and whether you're a monarchist or not, it will be an historic event full of pomp and circumstance.  On the website of the Archbishop of Canterbury it says “At [the Coronation's] centre is a Christian service in which His Majesty will be anointed as King. It will be rooted in longstanding tradition and Christian symbolism.” If you want an in-depth look at the traditions and symbolisms in the Coronation service, I would recommend the YouTube channel of my friend Dr Allan Barton ( @allanbarton ).

As we watch the Coronation we may miss the symbolism unless the commentators point it out.  Though even the Teachers' notes on “Coronation: Values and Symbols” produced by the Historic Royal Palaces says very little about the actual symbolism!!  Some of the symbolism will be referred to in the words spoken, but other symbols will just be visual – for example the cross will be a very common symbol seen on the orb, sceptre and crown, and also as King Charles is anointed (which we may not see) a cross will be draw with the oil on his hands, chest and head.

The Coronation could be seen as a projection of the power of the monarchy (though these days that power is itself more symbolic than actual), but the prevalence of the Christian symbolism in the service helps to put that power into context.  When Queen Elizabeth II was anointed the following words were said “And as Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so be thou anointed, blessed and consecrated Queen over the peoples, whom the Lord thy God hath given thee to rule and govern, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”  The Coronation is not a civic ceremony, but rather a religious service for setting apart a person for a holy office – a divinely appointed position.  The monarch is therefore accountable to God for the way they rule and govern.

And so the symbolism is often reminding the monarch of their duty to God and also of their need for his help.  When the robe is given these words are said “Receive this imperial robe, and the Lord your God endue you with knowledge and wisdom, with majesty and with power from on high: the Lord clothe you with the robe of righteousness and with garments of salvation. Amen.” The Orb set under the cross is a reminder that the whole world is subject to the power and empire of Jesus our Redeemer and the sceptres represent kingly power and justice through Christ, and equity and mercy through the Holy Spirit (symbolised by the dove).  And amidst all the gold and precious stones, King Charles will be given the Bible as his guide and “the most valuable thing that this world affords.”

Another special day this month is Ascension Day when we remember Jesus returning to be with his Father after his death and Resurrection, and receiving all authority in heaven and on earth as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  It is under Jesus' kingship that King Charles rules, and Jesus' kingship is supremely demonstrated in the cross: a life laid down for others.

You can listen to the sermon I preached at our Group Service for the Coronation on Sunday 30th April 2023 here: