ࡱ> FHEq` ,bjbjqPqP 8@::{$%TTTTTTThl l l 8 4 h" "      $hvT  TT  T T TT D>l 0">>>T t t    ^   "hhhl hhhl hhhTTTTTT Harvest Sermon 2007 Thank you, Lord, for our food Deuteronomy 26.1-11 John 6.25-35 Is there anybody out there who doesnt realise that our vicar is on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic? I dont know how many of you have been following the whole thing on the web site, but if you read the diaries of all the boats in the race you soon realise that the issue of food is an important one. All sorts of things are happening on the boats, but its clear that the real heroes of the hour are not the helmsmen or the winchmen or the bloke up the mast, but the ones whove managed to bake bread or produce fresh cakes from the galley. Food matters. An army marches on its stomach, dont they say, and obviously transatlantic yacht crews do too. In fact its probably the same for all of us. Which brings me on to a story about a boy who went to Sunday School, and his teacher was talking about prayer, and she said to him, Do you say a prayer when you get up in the morning? And he answered, Yes. Then she said, and do you say a prayer when you go to bed at night? And he answered, Yes. Then she said, And do you say a prayer when you sit down to meals? To which he said, No, I dont have to. My Mums a good cook. Well, I hope Im not that bad a cook, but one thing we do do in our house as a family is to say grace when we eat together. We do it very simply, we all say together, Thank you Lord for our food Amen. But implied in those 7 words is a lot more. Thank you for this meal time. Thank you that we can eat it safe and sound in a warm and comfortable house. And above all thank you for each other and for all that we mean to each other. Its a real family moment. So those few words of thank you for our food are a recognition of all that we are blessed with. And today we say the same thing, just on a bigger scale. Were saying grace together. Thank you, Lord, for the food of the harvest. Thank you for the peace and security we enjoy here, knowing that many dont. Thank you for each other. And thank you especially for the farmers among us, who work so hard, and in some years with quite a bit of difficulty, thinking particularly of livestock farmers at this moment, to put food on our plates. Harvest Festival is all about thank you, its all about saying grace, its all about remembering how blessed we are. In our Old Testament reading this morning, from Deuteronomy, God is pretty much telling his people to have a harvest festival. To paraphrase, God is saying: Take the first fruits of what you produce, put them in a basket, and take them to the temple, and then declare what God has done for you. Declare that he has saved you from slavery and oppression, and declare that he has brought you to a land of his own. So a tick for us today then for following the Lords commandments. Except that those who distrust religious faith would probably say this sort of instruction just confirms what they always thought, that this God who we believe in is no better than any other God who wants to be worshipped for his power, a God who requires our sacrifice, our offering, to keep on the right side of him. But the thing is that this request from God is made for our good, not his. A few weeks ago I was talking about keeping the Sabbath, and made exactly the same point well, in fact Jesus made it, so its not original. He said the Sabbath is for your benefit, not for Gods. The reason for that is that every time we remember what God has done, we reinforce our trust in him. And so it is with Harvest. Every time we remember what we have reaped, even in difficulty, our confidence in God grows. And its the same with Communion too. Its another act of remembrance and thanksgiving that we are instructed by God to keep. New instructions, given in a small upper room in Jerusalem, but in a way very similar. Bring to the table gifts of bread and wine. Give thanks and declare what God has done for you. Declare that he has saved you from slavery and oppression on the cross. Declare that he has brought you to a land of his own by his resurrection. And again I dont think its because God wants our adulation. But because in continually remembering what Jesus won for us on the cross, in continually remembering his gift of grace our confidence and trust cant help but increase. Our gospel reading this morning shows us a people have not yet grasped quite what Jesus is going to do for them, but who have started to realise that he offers quite a few possibilities. They have followed him for healing and teaching, and he has healed them, and taught them, and even, when they found themselves far from home with nothing to eat, he has fed them, 5000 of them. And guess what, they want more, they want more bread, they want more signs, more than that, as were told earlier in the chapter, they want a king, they want their land, they want a better life here and now. They wantthey wantthey wantthey want miracles on their terms. What will you do, so that we may believe you? they say to Jesus. Its such an arrogant question following on from the feeding of the 5000 the previous day. They have had signs in abundance, and they still cant see that the real miracle is who he is. Who he isthe present tense is important. And it still is. For me, there is a key moment in the gospel reading today when the people focus on what God has done in the past, and they say, our forefathers ate the manna in the deserthe gave them bread from heaven to eat. And Jesus reply is this, I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. Again there is that change of tense. No longer was but is. The people know what God has done. They have a longing for what they believe he will do. What they dont see is what he is doing. We risk falling into the same trap. We know and remember what God did 2000 years ago. We live in expectation that he will come again. But sometimes we act as if theres a black hole between those two things. God is at work among us now, and thats what we really need to remember. I believe that when God asks us to come to the temple in remembrance and thanksgiving, when Jesus asks us to break bread in remembrance and thanksgiving, the idea is that we should do so not just as people who look to the past, and have hope for the future, but who also have expectancy for the present. God is working, God gives, God is. To look at the farming analogy that we celebrate today, we could say that this years harvest has been brought in, but farmers are not sitting still, and nature is not sitting still. There is work to be done to prepare for next year, and deep under the earth, unseen things are happening which are a miracle in themselves. Farmers dont stop, nature doesnt stop, creation doesnt stop, and most importantly of all God doesnt stop. When Jesus says I am the bread of life, hes making a connection with one of the oldest names for God, Yahweh, or Jehovah we might say, literally means I am. Not I was, not I will be, although we believe that too. But I am. And the challenge for us I think is not only to be expectant, but also to let God be God. When we acknowledge that God is with us we sometimes respond by setting out our agenda for the miracles we want him to perform. We wantwe wantwe want. Im not for one minute saying dont pray for things we want - its important. And as a church weve seen some wonderful harvests as a result of action and prayer, not least the money we have been able to raise to build the Friendship Church in Bulgaria which happened largely at a harvest festival just like this four years ago. But its the signs that were not anticipating that most show us God at work in our midst unforeseen harvests. Those of you who were here in Bures for the morning service 2 weeks ago will remember that Murray interviewed Alison from the choir. She has recently retired from special needs teaching, and was about to go Im assuming she has gone to South Africa, to Johannesburg to work with special needs children out there. She said she was going with a charity, and that they didnt have much by way of resources, but she was giving what she could which was her time. And we prayed for her. The amazing thing is that someone in the congregation came up afterwards, and said that he had money in South Africa, and he wanted Alison to have it for this work. Thats just one example of God at work in ways we hadnt even thought of or asked for. God with us. God giving us living bread from heaven. So as we worship today, and as we give thanks today, and as we come up to the communion table today, lets do so expectantly. For Jesus is not only our Lord who died and rose 2000 years ago, and gave us a church with a deep and long tradition, but he is our Lord now, and he challenges us to trust him and see him at work in our lives. So as we worship today, lets say grace lets say thank you not just for all that he has given, but all that he gives. Thank you for his grace that that surrounds us today, and every day, for God at work in ways we cant imagine, thank you for the living bread from heaven.     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