Thought for the week: Marking harvestime - the timely season of giving
This weekend sees the end of the important harvest season in most of our churches. Many congregations have continued to decorate their buildings with fruit and vegetables, whilst others have changed their approach and bring in the end-products of harvest from the supermarket so that they can be distributed to food banks and in other ways.
Yet, behind the thanksgiving we are seeing the harvests themselves changing, often as a result of climate change.
The yields of wheat in the United Kingdom are down by around 14 per cent this year, and the crops of potatoes, carrots and onions are also much lower. Even milk production has fallen since there has been so little grass.
Alongside this is the fact that new research is showing that the nutritional value of fruit and vegetables has fallen by up to 50 per cent since the 1960s because of declining soil quality. We have been quietly "hollowing out what’s inside our food", as one commentator has described it.
In a word – we are very vulnerable to what is happening in God’s creation. And even the largest supermarkets can’t stop it. Yes, we can get much of what we need, even want, but that comes with higher prices that so many struggle to afford. We may be a bit insulated from the harsh realities, but realities they most certainly are.
The Bible gives us God’s clear perspectives on our food and harvests. In Genesis 2 we read that "the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it". We were given a huge responsibility to care for the land; not to ravage it or exploit it or in any way abuse it because God created it as very "good".
Psalm 24 tells us that "the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it".
This means that we are to manage a world that ultimately belongs to God rather than think we own it outright. And the detail of God’s personal commitment to the earth is beautifully summed up in Psalm 50.
"Every animal of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the insects in the fields are Mine".
The scriptures could not be clearer. Our food and our harvests are precious gifts from God Himself to us all, and must not be taken for granted. For me there is one really important implication of this. We really should be making a daily practice of giving thanks to God for our food, our meals, our water, all that we consume.
The season of giving thanks to God at harvest services for our food may be at an end, but surely it is both our privilege and our responsibility to give thanks for our food at every meal we eat every day of the year.