Harvest
A SERMON BY REV LINDA A HART
Over the summer, a woman I know complained about not being able to get connected to the internet in the small home she was living in. An American accustomed to a different level of service and in unknown territory, she wanted the comfort of sitting on her sofa and using her iPad to get connected to the world that was familiar. She moaned that whilst her iPhone was perfectly able to connect her iPad wasn’t, and so she was left frustrated and on the edge of becoming angry. Somewhat later, in reporting how her time visiting London had been, she was bitter about being expected to take a train out to Kent for a professional event that she had committed to leading. ‘Can no one offer me a lift in their car?’ she groaned.
As an American myself, I understand the frustration of being in an unknown place where things work differently than you had anticipated, and how it can make it feel that you’re so very far from home when you can’t do the things that you usually do. As well, having lived in a culture where it was unthinkable to not have a car to get you around, reliance on public transport for even a month can seem a great imposition if you’re not prepared for the adventure of it.
But honestly, even with all the sympathy I can muster, these are the complaints of a privileged person. Can’t connect your very expensive device by which you connect to the internet even though your equally expensive phone which has greater computing capacity than the computers that put a man on the moon? (A quip I heard a while ago suggested that we have that kind of computing power in our phones, with it NASA put a man on the moon, we throw birds at pigs in a game called ‘Angry Birds’.) But back to this woman I know: Sorry, I would have to say, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for you. In fairness, she did note that she recognised that this was a first world problem, and while frustrating, she did understand that it was because she was in a position of relative wealth and plenty that she could even feel frustrated by such events.
And I wonder what are our first world frustrations that we allow to make our lives feel miserable for even a moment. Delays on trains, long queues to get our triple skinny half-caf mocha with whip cream on the side, busy grocery stores, too many too-wide 4 x 4s crowding the roads? Slow internet service, so you have to wait 25 seconds for something to load? 843 stations to scroll through and still nothing on that you want to see on the telly?
What are our first world frustrations that we allow to make our lives feel miserable? And why do we grant these frustrations time and energy in our lives?
I think one of the ways we can use the time of harvest, this autumn opportunity of acknowledging what has grown and arisen from the summer’s work, is to step back from the routine of our lives. Where have we lost our perspective on what we have in the world and what is possible for us? What are we allowing to control our lives that we have granted power to? I offer you a few moments to consider where in your life this is happening.
~~Silence~~
A time for the congregation to share
We can so easily forget the privileged place we inhabit, though with the economy shifting around wildly, upswings and depressions and recessions, the tenuousness of our situation in life can become more obvious. There are reports in the news last few days that suggest that there is a sharp increase in the requests made to social service agencies for free food for those who are unable to meet their own needs. But even in the worst of that, there is food to be had, unlike the condition for thousands of people across Africa.
Our first world problems can become so diminished when we can take the time to remember the position we occupy in the world.
Harvest is about gratitude. Gratitude for what we receive that we cannot command or control, gratitude for the amazing cycles of growth, the miracle of plants, the pleasures of what can be gained by the work of our hands, the astonishment of growth, the goodness of the flavour of what has been brought from the garden. Like those first world frustrations, the reasons for gratitude are all around us.
‘We drink from wells we did not dig, we eat from trees we did not plant,’ starts an affirmation said in many churches when the collection is taken. Our harvest is also that which is given to us that we had no hand in making, but can nurture and carry forward. Like this gorgeous church, the people who have sustained it for more than 100 years so that we can enter it this morning. How much in your life do you get without having had to dig the well, plant the tree? What has come to you?
What is the bounty of your life that you can lift up in gratitude? It needn’t be anything grand and majestic – maybe it’s only opening your eyes this morning, maybe it’s only being able to savour your morning cuppa, maybe it’s only finding the strength to climb the stairs.
A rabbi whose blog I read has committed himself to noting in his diary every day something he’s grateful for that he hasn’t noticed before. He says that he is amazed by the number of things that he hadn’t noticed before he began the practice. We can all count up gratitude for the expected things: for our family, our health, for the food on our tables, but once past those, what emerges? What do you notice that you have neglected to be thankful for?
What is the bounty of your life that you can lift up in gratitude?
~~Silence~~
A time of sharing from the congregation
Prayer
Let us gather ourselves in a time of prayer, of meditation, or reflection.
Spirit of love and life,
so much resides within us.
We carry within us a wealth of experiences:
love and hope, peace and blessing,
terror and grief, loss and injury.
We carry within us
promise that beckons,
fear that holds us back,
confusion,
clarity,
purposes and plans
done and undone.
We carry within us
this buzzing confusion
that is the truth of our humanity.
In these moments of quiet and calm,
let us affirm
the wholeness of our selves.
All the noise that goes on in our heads,
all the tugs to our hearts.
It is all ours.
May we know that there resides within us,
no matter the confusion or the trouble,
no matter the coursing joys,
within us in the quietness of love,
there is a song.
The rhythm of our hearts beating,
The hum of our blood flowing,
The rasp of a breath,
The electric buzz of nerves.
It is you, Spirit of Life
ever with us,
always singing.
among all that we bear within.
Let us pause in these moments,
in gratitude for that song,
that life,
this gift.