Harvest Festival 2018

Harvest Festival 2018

Joel 2:21-27 and 1 Timothy 6:6-10 and Matthew 6:25-33

Today we mark our Harvest Festival. Within the Church of England this can be marked on any Sunday in the autumn, to fit with local variation in the bringing-in of the harvest. Being set in an urban centre, we are a step removed from combine harvesters; yet today is an appropriate day to focus on the land, given the key report delivered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change six days ago. The report urges deep rapid change, involving all of us, and empowering all of us to make a difference. That is fitting for a faith community, who occupy the territory between cosmos and ethos, between the world as it is and the world as it could be, the world we shape into being by our customs. But in order to step into the unknown, we need to recall from where we have come.

Those of you who were here last Sunday will recall that as we considered passages relating to marriage and divorce I spoke about the ancient Jewish wedding vows. These were rooted in the law of Moses; and are known to us from archaeological records. Husbands promised to provide their wives with food and cloth; and wives promised to turn these into meals and clothes. Each promised to give and receive conjugal love, which includes but is more than sexual intercourse. And wives promised to be sexually faithful to their husbands, though men were permitted to take more than one wife.

As chance would have it (‘chance’ because Harvest, with its set readings, can be marked on any Sunday in the autumn) our readings today are all concerned with food and clothing. Jesus taught that we should not worry about what we shall eat or what we shall wear, but trust God to provide. Paul wrote to Timothy about the benefits of an economics of contentment concerning food and clothing, and the dangers of an economics of greed. Joel explicitly addresses food; and implicitly addresses clothing in declaring, and re-stating for emphasis, that never again will the people be put to shame; shame, for the Israelites, relating to public nakedness, that which is good in intimate privacy being exposed before strangers.

In other words, all three of our readings today take up the image of marriage as one of the key ways Scripture speaks of the relationship between God and his people (and while God is neither male nor female; yet is presented to us in both male and female terms; in this context God is ‘he’ and his people, both men and women, are ‘she’).

Let’s take a closer look at Joel. After eighty years as a united kingdom under David and Solomon, things fell apart. The northern tribes, henceforth known as Israel, made their capital at Samaria; while Jerusalem continued as the capital of Judah. From this point on, God is described as the husband of two sisters, drawing on the personal history of the patriarch Jacob who loved Rachel but first found himself married, not by his will or intent, to her sister Leah. ‘Sister’ Israel is depicted as being serially unfaithful, taking other gods as lovers. Yahweh repeatedly sends prophets to broker a reconciliation; but eventually divorces Israel, setting her free to be united to some other god.

‘Sister’ Judah is almost as unfaithful; she does, on occasion, respond to Yahweh’s overtures of reconciliation, but it never seems to last. They are a couple estranged, and the prophetic marriage counsellors warn Judah that, unless she abandons her lovers, she will find herself, like her sister to the north, divorced by Yahweh and sent away from the land. Joel writes to the community centred on Jerusalem, though we really aren’t sure where in that sorry sequence of events to locate him. To a people who are wondering whether they are an abandoned wife, wondering whether they should divorce Yahweh for failing to provide food and cloth for their bodies, Joel writes, you have not been abandoned. Centuries later, with the land occupied by the Romans and their pantheon of gods, Jesus declares the same thing.

Why were the people in Joel’s day thinking that Yahweh had abandoned them? Well, they were experiencing an environmental catastrophe. Already impacted by a long drought, they had yet again experienced the meagre crop that had grown stripped bare by locust swarms. The very land itself left naked, paraded naked before the surrounding nations, and their gods. A matter of national shame, as well as of hunger. Insult added to injury.

Joel sees environmental catastrophe as a wake-up call, that exposes not God’s failing but the unfaithfulness of God’s people. It is the cry of the land, crying out to God, a deep longing for the people to repent and return.

Environmental catastrophe has always been part of human experience, the experience of not being in control, not masters of our own destiny. But in our day, the level of catastrophe, its global scope and sustained nature, clearly brought about by (global and sustained) human action, is of a scale unprecedented in human history. It is a wake-up call not simply for a community and a region, but for humanity, for each and every one of us.

We need to embrace a culture change; and this is where Christians of all people ought to be a prophetic voice in our communities, embodying an alternative model of lifestyle. I want to focus on those ancient marriage vows relating to food and clothing, because all three of our readings today do so. As our husband, God has promised to provide us with the food and the cloth we need. As God’s wife, we are responsible for how we use those resources, for how we create meals and clothes.

These are hugely important environmental factors. In relation to our food practices, large-scale deforestation in order to clear land for cattle (and, vegans note, water-hungry avocadoes), and the extensive use of grain for beef rather than for direct consumption; along with air miles connected to our rejection of seasonal harvests; contribute to soil erosion, air pollution, plastic waste, and the unsustainability of feeding the world’s growing population. In relation to our clothing practices, the disposability of the fashion industry, and the demand for the water-hungry crop cotton, consumes vast amounts of water and energy; and, moreover, keeps women and children in the slavery of sweatshops. You may have seen that in a relatively short span of years, the Aral Sea has been all-but drained dry; the Caspian Sea also shrinking dramatically.

But what can we do!? In fact, both as consumers in a materialistic culture and as the bride of Christ, we are more empowered than we imagine. As a body, Jesus has given us everything we need to respond faithfully. There are particular members of our congregation who are real assets to us and to the wider community in this regard. There’s Jim, with his expertise in growing vegetables on his allotment. There’s Angela, and Kath, with their expertise as seamstresses, making, and indeed repairing, clothes. I can’t think of a better-fitting visual-aid than Angela currently making what will soon be unveiled as Vicki’s wedding dress. But these are just the tip of the iceberg (lettuce). And then there is our monthly Craft and Vintage Fair, organised by Heather, providing space for sellers of locally produced foods, of rolls of cotton, of vintage pre-loved coats and accessories, of beautiful gifts made from found objects. There is something far more missional to those Saturdays than we might realise.

To be clear: I am not talking about becoming an apocalyptic cult, keeping the long-life food we have gathered today for the food banks so that we can hunker in a bunker and sit out the coming Armageddon. I am not even talking about projects we might do collectively: of turning the Minster grounds over to bee hives and vegetable beds; or filling the vestry with sewing machines. There is no end to the ideas of things we could do together; and we need to be both pragmatic and content with our lot, seeing things through well before chasing shiny new possibilities.

No, what I hope that I am doing is to highlight some of the ways in which some of us are already living out that faithfulness to God, to the world God loves, and to our neighbours — things we might not even think of as being faith-full. Honouring unsung heroes. What I hope that I am doing is helping us think about the other ways we are living prophetically, and, perhaps, kickstarting lots of conversations. What I hope that I am doing is weaving together stories, ancient and new — no, not new: now — that help us to live from the cosmos that is vanishing to the ethos of the kingdom of God that Jesus tells us to strive for, and specifically as it relates to food and clothing.

The world as we know it is passing. This is a hopeful thing, not because the earth does not matter but because it matters so very much. We are called to take Jesus’ outstretched hand, and step into the future together, without fear, without shame. So, let us celebrate together, with gladness and rejoicing. And, though we have known what it is to be in need as well as in plenty, may we yet bring in a great harvest, to the glory of God.