Sermon for Harvest

Sunday 12th October 2008

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt

Harvest Thanksgiving is really quite a serious time of the year. There aren’t really any amusing quips or stories that make fun out of harvest. Being thankful is a serious business. I think it is mainly because, however grateful we may be for everything we have, in abundance, we know that there is a much larger world out there that exists on a fraction of what we receive. So our thanksgiving is often mixed with guilt. We have so much, when everywhere else seems to have so little. Things may be changing, however, because the land of plenty (and I don’t just mean the USA) seems to be becoming the land of less plenty. The harvest we take for granted, whatever it may be, is becoming a harvest of less and less return.

Every time you pick up a newspaper or listen to the news, the state of the world’s economy seems to worsen. I have even heard it said that we are looking at days and months ahead which can be compared to the years following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the ‘The Great Depression’ which affected the world’s economy for many years. It was the first “Black Tuesday” of 29^th October, 1929, although it wasn’t just a one day affair! (Would you believe that my mother, as a young girl of six years of age, moved with her family from Dublin to the United States in 1928? They even had to go through the infamous Ellis Island. But wasn’t that amazing timing?

They sailed over to North America the year before there began the greatest Depression the world has ever known; and yet in the six years that they lived in Providence, Rhode Island, they lived in six different houses, each one better than the one before. So maybe there is hope for us even in a Depression!)

There’s no doubt that these are terribly worrying times financially, and, as always, the greatest fear is that the poorest and the most vulnerable are the ones who are going to suffer most. In these times, we can find ourselves worrying more about our own financial stability, both individually and as a society, than worrying about those who practically have nothing to begin with in the first place.

We have all been living in a land of plenty for a very long time.

You may know that we are now living away from the Vicarage across the road, which is just as well, because it is now just a pile of bricks. In fact, we moved away over a year ago.

Over the years we (all of us) accumulate ‘stuff’, and the more room you have, the more ‘stuff’ you accumulate! When we were moving, we just had to get rid of a lot of ‘stuff’. For ages, we have been at pains to simply give it away. St. Vincent de Paul, East Belfast Mission; the list went on. One organisation said they couldn’t go upstairs. What? They couldn’t go upstairs because of the potential of causing damage to a property when moving furniture, and being sued by the owners. I said the property is going to be demolished! It made no difference.

So that meant wardrobes etc. in the upstairs’ bedrooms couldn’t be taken down; and, of course, you already know, that electrical equipment couldn’t be given in to charity shops, and so it went on and on. A mahogany sideboard, not the type you might buy now, but perfectly alright for a young married couple as we were when we had first bought it, along with a perfectly good fridge, and a list of other items of household items, had to be literally dumped! Whatever about flogging a couple of things for a few quid, we couldn’t even give them away.

The land of plenty has just so much, that when we have no need of it anymore we have to simply just throw it away!

I worry that when the land of plenty becomes the land of the less plenty, the first people to suffer will be those who have so little to begin with in the first place.

Whatever about the cost of living, there is such a thing as the cost of discipleship.

At a point in Jesus’ ministry, it’s recorded that Jesus had more than five thousand followers. However, after one particular sermon, he alienated all but twelve of them! It was the sermon in which he spelled out the cost of discipleship. More accurately, I have to say, it is at the end of this Bread of Life discourse, of which we read a part this evening. (If you have your Bibles open, it’s on the opposite page, John 6, verse 68.) After his followers heard what was expected of them, and what it would cost them, most of them left! Only the twelve remained and Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Are you going to leave me also?” It was then that Peter replied, and perhaps only someone like Tony Campolo could paraphrase it quite like this, but Peter said, “Lord, we’ve nowhere else to go!” (Look at verse 68!)

One time Campolo was in Haiti with his son, Bart, when he was only about seven years old. And they were walking down one of the main streets of Port-au-Prince; they were surrounded by impoverished, raggedy children.

They were begging for pennies, and Campolo said to his son, “Bart, don’t give them anything! If you do, they won’t give up until they’ve got every dime we have.”

His son looked at his father quizzically and answered, “So?”

How many of the things that we surround ourselves with day and daily, could we, if they were taken away from us, we could turn round and just say, “So?”

If we surround ourselves with possessions that we cannot even give away, when we want to, then, even in a land of less plenty, we still have far too much stuff!

If ever there’s a time to prioritise our giving and our responsibilities as Church people, it has to be now.