The Rt Rev Dr Derek Browning reflects on the gifts of Harvest.

MODERATOR

IN my previous parish in Cupar, on Harvest Sunday, we used to receive wonderful gifts of flowers and produce in the Church to decorate the building for the Harvest Thanksgiving service.

I remember fondly not only the colours and textures of the gifts on that day, but the incredible fragrance as I came into Church on the Sunday morning. I also remember on one occasion, when we were sending out the gifts to share around the community after the service, one distressed elder returned holding in his hands half a cabbage. A rather forthright parishioner had looked at it and had said: “And exactly what am I to do with half a cabbage?”

Harvest Thanksgiving means different things to different people.

“I have seen wonderful ‘Harvest of the Sea’ celebrations (slightly different odours admittedly). There is also the challenge of when to celebrate this festival. Can we really sing with gusto: All is safely gathered in, when we know full well that crops still lie in fields, un-harvested, and the whole pattern of 21st century agriculture and food consumerism has changed in many ways from the seasonal rhythms of yesteryear?

It is hard, however, to get away from the celebration of the abundance of God’s earth, and the imperative we as Christians have of sharing that abundance whenever and wherever we can. In recent years there has also been the helpful rise of a deeper understanding of our duties and privileges in caring for Creation in its widest possible sense.

Eco-Congregation Scotland has produced material, which can be used at different times of the year but is particularly helpful around the season of harvest. This year’s theme looks at ideas of pilgrimage and journey and how we accompany each other as we travel across the earth, accepting or resisting God’s invitation to us to get moving and to look at how we are guided by God’s commandments, gifted by God’s companionship and provided for by God’s generosity as we travel along the way.

I recently met the writer Alistair McIntosh, and am enjoying his book Poacher’s Pilgrimagewhere he seeks to engage us in reconsidering how we find our place on earth and how we relate to the spinning globe upon which we live.

In a sometimes rootless-feeling world, where do we connect with Creation and find the ‘hospitality for the soul’ that links us to God, each other, and the created order?

Not all parishes are set in an agricultural idyll, or have church members who cultivate their gardens, if they even have them, for produce. An imaginative interpretation of what harvest might be can be a wonderful opportunity. Some have found the ‘harvest of human talent’ is the route to thanksgiving.

Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh are going to be hosting an event on November 21 called HeartEdge that will challenge believers to review the harvest of skills, talents, experience and commitment that we have and how we use these things to work alongside God as the Kingdom is grown. How do we reach out with compassion to those on the edges of faith and life, and what do we learn from them when we get alongside them?

The Psalmist tells us: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”

Harvest continues to provide a contemporary way to celebrate the richness of Creation in all its diversity: the orchards and fields, the rivers and sea, and the people.

In the sowing, tending, reaping and gathering lie times of nurturing and blessing. Ours to enjoy, and ours to share as we recognise God’s continuing and almost reckless generosity towards us. Give thanks.