Dear All,

What words do you associate with Harvest?

Gift, generosity and thankfulness might be a start. Gathering, community, fulfilment and gratitude could follow. We might then throw into the mix seasonal words: autumn and fruitfulness. To these we could add words associated with creation: earth and land, ploughing and reaping, tending and nurturing. Thinking wider we might consider fairness and justice, stewardship and husbandry.

This month sees our churches and schools celebrate Harvest, reconnecting once more with God in creation and His commission to tend the earth. Gifts will be offered and generosity encouraged (dried and tinned goods will be collected and sent on to local FoodBanks, produce will be auctioned at Whorlton and donations made to charity).

We will give thanks for ‘all good gifts around us’ and celebrate the abundance of creation whilst recognising that not all the world’s peoples enjoy the gifts that we enjoy. We will honour those who produce our food: those who farm the land and fish the seas; those whose work supports the food chain through the development of crops and the care of stock; pickers and packers, drivers, buyers and sellers, shopkeepers and company boards – all of whom play their part in bringing food to our tables.

And then, mindful of all that we have received from the hand of God, we will reminded that we are all invited to join in this great movement of sharing, and interdependence.  No one is excluded from Harvest in the scriptures. All have a part to play: all are welcome to celebrate. This time of the year is ideal for considering how we might best use our gifts of time and talent, where our energies might best be spent.  And then we gather everything together in worship: recognising God in the ordinary (yet somehow also ‘extraordinary’) things of life: a loaf of bread, a basket of fruit and veg – simple things we take for granted, yet miracles in their own right.

Wonderful.

Gift.

Alec