Some of Tim's Sermons

Today we’ve heard tales of two harvests.

The first tale is one related by the prophet Joel, about four to five hundred years before Jesus’ life on earth. It seems that recent harvests have been bad. Locusts of various kinds have come and blighted the crops, the rains have failed, and the harvests have been poor. But the harvest this year is not going to be damaged by these things. The two rainy seasons that are expected in that area of the world have come, and brought the rain that was needed. The locusts have stayed away, and there is an abundant harvest. Grain filling up the threshing floors, oil and wine overflowing from their storage containers. There’s going to be plenty for everyone.

In this tale all this abundance is seen as a sign of God’s blessing and favour on the largely agricultural, subsistence farming, economy of the time.

The second tale is one related by Jesus, whilst he was on earth, here with us as one of us. He told of another abundant harvest. This landowner had such a huge crop that his storage barns weren’t big enough to hold them.
They were so extravagant that he calculated that he could retire on the proceeds. He could just kick back and enjoy the rest of his life. Which didn’t turn out to be very long. He died that very night, and never got to enjoy that retirement.

In this tale all the abundance on the harvest is seen more ambivalently. Was it really a blessing or a favour to that landowner?

It seems to me that we have this tension, that we often see in the Bible between Joel – isn’t it great, God’s given us all this stuff- and Jesus – all this stuff has led someone into trouble.

How are we to understand this tension? How are to live with it? What does it have to teach us about our attitude to stuff, and particularly having a lot?

I wonder if I good place to start is by recognising that it’s not the stuff, it’s the attitude to it, that is the big difference between these two harvest tales. The stuff is the same in both – an abundant harvest of overflowing crops and fruitfulness. But the attitudes, what are the attitudes?

In the first tale there is an overwhelming sense of thankfulness for what God has done. The abundance of the harvest is recognised as a gift from God. That’s not to say that the farmers hadn’t been working, they had. They had done their part – the ploughing and the planting, the weeding and the pruning, the harvesting and the processing. They had worked, but they believed that God had given the conditions for that work to be fruitful and were grateful for that.

That sense of thankfulness doesn’t seem to me to be there in the second tale. There’s no mention of God – it just says the land brought forth plenteously. And then the man says to himself, “What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops.” In summary, “the land produced my crops.” No place for God there. No place either for all the tenant farmers and labourers who would actually have done most of the work. There isn’t much gratitude here, more entitlement perhaps?

Back to the first tale there is a sense of the abundance being widely shared, “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied.” This is addressed to the whole people, to everyone.
This sense continues as the prophet talks about the spiritual blessings that are associated with this abundance which are for all flesh, young and old, men and women. In this harvest everyone has enough and nobody goes without.

Not so much with the second tale. What is the landowner’s reaction to the bumper harvest? Is he going to share out the good fortune? Is he going to send the excess down to the local foodbank? No. He’s going to build bigger barns. He is going to hoard the extra. He’s going to keep it all for himself.

So, looking at these contrasts, and thinking about how what we can take from them when we received blessings and abundance, it seems to me that there are two key attitudes that we would do well to cultivate. Gratitude and generosity. Being thankful for what we have received, and choosing to spread it round rather than pile it up. This is the practical working out of being rich towards God, rather than laying up treasure for ourselves.

I am aware, though, that harvests this year haven’t all been great and abundant, the weird weather has caused a lot of issues, and this has brought a lot of pressure. For those of us who aren’t personally involved in farming, this has knock on effects on the cost of food, that along with other economic pressures can leave us under pressure, and feeling insecure financially. Perhaps it feels like there are locusts having a nibble, or even more than a nibble.

Even in these situations, though, it seems to me that gratitude and generosity can help see us through.

The Bible, especially the Psalms, is full of examples of people and prayers choosing to be grateful and to praise God in faith, even when times are difficult. One of my favourites, which is particularly fitting for today’s them comes from the book of Habakkuk. He was another prophet, whose ministry was probably a couple of centuries before Joel’s. His writing included a prayer, which finishes like this:

“Though the fig tree do not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”

At two different times in Jesus’ life he was faced by a huge crowd that didn’t have anything to eat. His friends and followers, his disciples, were at a loss about what to do. They were miles from anywhere, there wasn’t a Morrisons round the corner to get food for them, and even if there had been they didn’t have enough money to feed them all. What were they going to do?

Jesus asked them what they did have and they managed to scrape together a few rolls and a bit of fish. What did Jesus do with these meagre offerings? He thanked God for them. Then he used them to feed the crowds. Without labouring the point, let’s pay attention to the order. Jesus thanked God for the little before it became a lot.

In the prophet Elijah’s time there was a drought and famine. Elijah went to the village of Zarapheth and met a widow who was out collecting wood to make a fire, on which she planned to bake a last loaf of bread with all the flour and oil she had left. She and her son her going to eat it and then they were expecting to starve. Elijah asked her to share her last bread with him. She did so, and the flour and oil were miraculously replenished. They never ran out as long as Elijah was staying with them, which he did until the drought was over.

On one occasion in Jesus’ life, he was hanging around the Temple in Jerusalem with his friends and followers. By the doors of the temple there were collection boxes. Bigger versions of the little box we have by the door here. Jesus was watching people as they went past, depositing their donations in the box. Some people put in a lot, but one particular woman caught Jesus eye as she put in two little copper coins. He called his friends over and said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

These are just a few examples from the Bible of people who had very little choosing to be grateful for and generous with the little that they had, and being blessed or held up as an example. It’s easy to be generous with the surplus that we have, it’s more difficult when we are giving from what doesn’t seem to be enough in the first place.

Whether we are in a time of plenty, or a time of scarcity, as we celebrate harvest, let us cultivate an inclination towards gratitude and generosity, choosing to be thankful and to give because we refuse to be bound by anxiety, but decide to trust the God who provides for us, both in this world and the next.