Earlier this month I spent two weeks in northern India. I was visiting a program which supports the livelihoods of rural communities in Uttar Pradesh. Like us they are in harvest season, about to harvest a rice crop. They will then plant cereal crops, which they will be harvesting in March.

People in those communities live on £2 per day. Most have tiny landholdings on which they combine subsistence farming with small cash crops. They have limited access to irrigation and crop protection. For them the failure of a harvest is a high risk. If it occurs it is a disaster.

Of course that is not the case for us in Hampshire.  Most of us do not work in agriculture. If local production fails, we have access to food from elsewhere. Even our much valued local farmers have happily been able to develop diversified and resilient forms of agriculture.

Nonetheless this Sunday many churches will celebrate their Harvest Festival. Why is this? Are we just being nostalgic?

Far from it. Spiritually we share much with our brothers and sisters around the world and with previous generations.

The central theme for reflection in scripture is abundance. The Lord our God has brought us into a good land: a land of brooks, fountains and springs that flow through valleys and hills; a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; a land where we eat food without scarcity. So said the Deuteronomist in the 7th century BC. It could be written here today.

The question is how we respond. When we receive in abundance, our fallen humanity tends to congratulate ourselves on our cleverness.

Certainly we are called to use our God-given talents to bring in harvests which all can share. But we also need to know our place in the cosmos.

‘When you eat and are satisfied, you are to bless the Lord for the good land that he has given you,’ say the Deuteronomist.

‘Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses in which to dwell, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase, then your heart will become proud.’

Increasingly we see the physical and economic risks we are running by this kind of pride. If we cease to value and care for the created world, it will no longer bring forth this abundance.

But the spiritual risks are even bigger. We may say in our hearts, that the power and strength of our own hands have made this wealth. But human power has to be seen in relation to God’s infinite  power. We did not create ourselves. We cannot sustain ourselves spiritually. We have not managed to redeem ourselves.

Only an attitude of gratitude for the abundance we enjoy will give us a sense of who we really are: of the rights and responsibilities of our common humanity with people around the world, and of our relationship to that divine power which is so much greater than our own.

 

Rev Philip Krinks