Keasden Harvest Festival
16 September 2018
Who does the earth belong to? It may seem like an odd question but it's very important. You could say that most of the troubles in the world are caused by this question. People fight over the ownership of land - sometimes that¹s next-door neighbours arguing over a tree that¹s overhanging a fence, sometimes it¹s a war over who should control the world¹s oil supplies.
Who does the earth belong to? - is an important question to ask because the answer will determine how the earth will be treated.
If we think the earth belongs to us - and so exploit it to make ourselves richer and richer - then the earth will suffer. As the forests fall in Kenya so the waters which depend on them fall. The logging companies make bigger and bigger profits as the people become thirstier and thirstier.
If we think the earth belongs to us - but that we are partners with other people, animals and other members of nature - then the earth will be treated with kindness. The Ba-aka, or 'Pygmy' tribe move quietly through the forests of Congo when they are hunting and gathering, taking only what they need, enjoying a varied diet of meat, fish, honey, nuts and various fruit, which they share responsibly together, allowing for all the other creatures to get their share.
If we think the earth belongs to God - who has given it to us in all its beauty and wonder, to look after it and celebrate it - then we will treat the earth with reverence.
A gathering of young Christians and Jews got together to look at the scriptures to see how they addressed the ecological issues of today. As a result they rewrote the Ten Commandments, beginning:
I am the Lord your God who have created heavens and earth. Know that you are my partner in creation; therefore, take care of the air, water, earth, plants and animals, as if they were your brothers and sisters.
It’s astonishing to think of ourselves as partners with God in the work of tending creation, and to think of ourselves as being blood-relatives to all the other creatures. Astonishing: and humbling too.
But God’s own words, from scripture, go even further than that, even deeper, when Jesus says, ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower, and you … you are the branches.’
Our relationship with God is organic. Our connection with Christ is physical. And he can only be seen at work in the world through us, as we are the means through which he bears fruit. You might like to spend some time contemplating that thought. You may like to spend a lifetime contemplating that thought…
For the work we do - on our farms, with our hands, in our homes, at our workstations, is nothing less than us, taking part in God’s endless work of creation. If this is God’s world we’re in, then our faithful daily activity is us, working out our God-given ‘vocation’.
Harvest-time invites us to rejoice in that ‘old and honourable idea (of vocation)… that we each are called, by God, or by our gifts, or by our preference, to a kind of good work for which we are particularly fitted.’ [2]
Harvest worship invites us to see the world as belonging to God… and ourselves as being deeply embedded in all the goodness that implies.
Notes
[1] This Harvest Festival sermon is based on a talk given at Liverpool Bluecoat School in 2002.
[2] Kenyan forests reference from The Ecologist, March 2002.
[3] Ba-aka reference from 'We the World' activity pack, Survival International.
[4] Ten Commandments reference by Barbara Wood, in Geoffrey Duncan (ed), Dare to Dream: Prayer and Worship Anthology from Around the World.
[5] Wendell Berry at Brainyquote.
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