Thought for the week: Earliest memories of church are of harvest thanksgiving
Among my earliest memories of being brought to church in Co Armagh are those around harvest thanksgiving services.
I still recall the familiar sights and smells of harvest: the sheaves of corn, the vegetables, the flowers, the bread and the grapes, and on it goes. Harvest can be a powerful reminder of our dependence on the natural world and cycles of planting, growth and gathering, with each stage involving its particular combinations of human endeavour, patience and dependence on conditions outside of our control.
Theologically we are reminded that nothing grows without the seed that falls into the earth and dies so that it might yield a rich harvest. In later life, and certainly following ordination, I began to think of harvest in an additional way. In the different settings in which I found myself ministering, harvest services, while reflecting some of the above dimensions, began to focus on what was the connection and way of life specific to that area.
For example, in Co Donegal, in the parish of Dunfanaghy, where I was invited to preach at harvest a few times over the years, there was an emphasis on its location by the sea. In addition to the harvest of the land, there were also lobster pots and fishing nets on display, and beautiful illustrations by children in the local national school of the harvest of the sea.
Similarly, on moving to Londonderry, there was an emphasis on industry and commerce, about manufacture, and factories, and the employment created for local people. With the passing years, I reckon I have come to recognise a "here and now" element of an urban harvest that relates more particularly to our experience and context. Harvest can be a festival of place, connecting us with where we live and the people who live and work in our place: in other words, work of human hands and hearts as well as the fruits of the earth.
What this, in essence, amounts to is this: harvest can also connect us with the Lord who is here, whose spirit is with us. It is really a case of beginning to discover the fruits of wherever one is, and where one is glad to be. Thomas Merton, who was an American monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion, said this: “It is essential to experience all the times and moods of one good place.”
Harvest, in fact like any other time in the church’s year, or in the calendar, is about gratitude, celebration, and enjoyment of encounter with God, His presence, and His gifts. Let us thank God for all his bounty, and in the hope of utilising His gifts to the full for His greater glory.