Harvest 2005
Bringing in the Firstfruits
Do you have a good memory? How easy do you find it to remember things?
I think I have a pretty good memory: for example can you remember what you were doing on Sat 17th September 1988? I can – getting married. Who can remember what they were doing on 22 November 1990? I can - I was driving down the ramp of Sainsbury’s car park in West Ealing. It was the day Margaret Thatcher quit as prime minister.
Significant dates and events are easy to remember. Did you remember that it was Harvest Festival today? It is a significant event in our church calendar, and usually takes place, in this church, on the first Sunday in October. Having things at regular times helps us to remember them
Repeating things helps us to remember as well.
We have a mantra as the children leave for school in the morning, ‘bus pass, keys, lunch’. Of course, this doesn’t actually put the bus pass and keys into the pocket, or the lunch into the school bag, but it acts as an aide to memory, as a prompt to take action. Our Harvest Festival acts as a prompt to take action – to remember something.
What sort of things do we remember in our Harvest Festival? To give thanks to God for all the good food we have; to help and pray for those who have less that we have; to ask for forgiveness for the abuse and misuse of the planet; (who can remember last year’s theme for Harvest?); to bring things so we can sell them to raise money for some worthy cause – this year we are raising money to buy mosquito nets to send to Uganda.
So our Harvest Festival is held regularly to help us remember, it acts as a prompt to take action. But why Harvest? Why was harvest significant to the Israelites, and why do we continue the tradition today. By the way, did you know that our modern harvest festivals are actually not that old? They were apparently started in 1843, by a Rev Robert Hawker in a church in Cornwall. But we do read in the Old Testament about the celebration of harvests, the spring harvest, or barley harvest which was the harvest of firstfruits. There were other harvests as well, the grain harvest, and the wheat harvest came later.
So, what was it about the harvest, or the offering of firstfruits that was significant to the Israelites in our reading?
The firstfruits were the beginning of the harvest, not the end; it was a spring festival for the first harvest of the barley crop. It acted as a reminder to the Israelites that God was supplying their needs, it was a gift, or a thank you back to God, but it was given in faith that the harvest would follow.
How many of us have ever grown our own fruit or vegetables? Or looked forward to the first new produce in the shops? Have you ever looked forward to picking the first strawberry or tomato off the plant? My grandma used to really look forward to the first new Jersey potatoes arriving in the shops, she didn’t mind that the very first ones were really, really expensive, she so looked forward to the first taste. She said it was a sign of spring.
The harvest wasn’t eaten until the firstfruits had been offered to God in the Temple. They were offered in faith for the harvest to come.
But these days, not many of us grow our own food, or are even very aware of the seasonal variation in foods, so has harvest become irrelevant?
I don’t think so, if we view it as a reminder, a prompt to take action. I think I am right in saying that is one of the reasons why harvest was reintroduced into the church calendar. Many people during Victorian times had moved away from working on the land, and were losing the memory of where their food came from, and with it forgetting to thank God for it as well. In Bible times, most people did work on the land, so it was natural for them to offer their work back to God, as a thank offering, in faith that their work will continue, and God will provide a harvest for them.
We can still do the same today; we can offer our work back to God for the well being of His church. Even if we are not in paid employment, we all have skills and abilities which can be used in our service to God, as a thank offering, and in faith that God will provide a harvest, this time not of food, but of people.
There is an instruction about the offerings in Exodus 23, which says no one is to come before God empty handed, everyone is to bring something. For me harvest is not just about remembering to say thank you for our food and those who work to bring it to us, which is right and good and important, but also to consider what I can offer out of my own life as a firstfruits offering. So the challenge for us this harvest, is to bring something to God – something out of our own lives that we can offer as the firstfruits.
How can we do that? Let me just suggest a few ways:
And of course, our work for God’s church is not confined to just this church community, but for the world as well. If you can, please stay behind for coffee and to take part in our auction to sell off the produce you have brought in order to turn it into money to buy those mosquito nets. It would be a wonderful use of our gifts to be able to send as many nets as we possibly can to Uganda, to bless and possibly save the lives of others.
Let us use our Harvest Festival today to give thanks for all God’s goodness to us, and as a reminder, a prompt to action to give of the firstfruits of our own lives.