Harvest home!

 Once again, we decorate our churches with produce and flowers, give some traditional hymns their annual outing and thank God for the Harvest and for his provision to us.
 Those traditional hymns and the colourful displays not only trigger our collective memory of times past - when many more of us would have actually 'ploughed the fields and scattered the good seed on the land' or have physically been 'Bringing in the Sheaves' - but it also makes us feel comfortable to think that other people are going to benefit from the distribution of the Harvest gifts that have been brought to church.
 But things are changing - particularly in urban areas and in industrialised societies such as our own.  The notion that 'All is safely gathered in, 'ere the winter storms begin' has weakened now that our supermarkets can provide us with almost every type of food we can desire at any time of the year.
 So we can be excused for thinking that, perhaps, the time has come to replace Harvest with something else.  Or can we?
 Special times of the year enable us to focus on one of the many facets of the nature of God.  At Christmas, we focus on ‘God made flesh’, sharing in the human experience in the birth of Jesus.  At Easter, we focus on the sacrificial love of God for his people shown in the Cross.  At Pentecost, we focus on the indwelling power of God through his Holy Spirit.  Harvest makes us to focus on God the creator and provider of all that we have.
 Harvest challenges our complacency arising from living in a world where food comes ready washed and shrink-wrapped; where finding a meal involves opening a cupboard or fridge door and choosing what to eat.
 Harvest reminds us that every day is a blessing from God. All that we have is entirely due to his creative power and generous provision.
 Harvest also reminds us that, for us to enjoy this provision, we are dependent on others.  Those who grow, wrap and deliver these items often do so in conditions, and for pay, that most of us would never accept.  They, too, are easily forgotten in our dash to the cupboard.
 Enjoying God's gifts also brings with it a responsibility to enable others to share God's provision.  Just as Boaz had to leave enough crops at the edges of his field for the poor to gather the food they needed (Ruth 2:3), God does not provide for us so that others may suffer.  His gifts are for all.  We need to act responsibly in the way in which we obtain and use God's provision for us.
That is why, at Harvest, we encourage the support of Operation Agri and why, this year, we are launching a FairTrade stall.  They are both ways of ensuring that God’s provision and love is shared by us all. And that's why we need to keep Harvest!

by Graham Clarke.