Joel 2.21-27; Matthew 6.25-33

The Rev’d Sarah Hillman 

Remember the poor when you look out on the fields you own,
on your plump cows grazing.
Remember the poor when you look into your barn,
at the abundance of your harvest.
Remember the poor when the wind howls and the rain falls,
as you sit warm and dry in your house.
Remember the poor when you eat fine meat
and drink fine ale at your fine carved table.
The cows have grass to eat;
the rabbits have burrows for shelter;
the birds have warm nests;
but the poor have no food except what you feed them,
no shelter except you house where you welcome them,
no warmth except your glowing fire.

That reading comes from a book called Seasonal Worship from the Countryside, though the book’s compiler has had to label it “author unknown”.

Harvest Festival has changed over the years. Its importance and relevance has had to evolve as life has changed from an agricultural through an industrial and into a service culture. When Robert Hawker re-instated a church festival connected to the produce of land and sea, many people were directly connected with it, and the poor they would have known would have been from within their own communities. To invite them in by your fire as the reading suggested and give the shelter and food was something that could be done.

But life changed and rural communities and their importance decreased with the rise of industry. In villages Harvest Festival didn’t change much but in towns it was forgotten.

In recent years many town and city churches have tried to think of ways in which they can continue to honour the reasons for celebrating Harvest Festival – to thank God for all that we have – while being far removed from where our food is grown. Harvest Festivals have taken place in McDonalds, Tescos, pubs and so on, in an attempt to re-connect the feast with people who rarely, if ever, go out into the fields, and who certainly have never worked in them.

But the other big change that has come about since the 19th century is our awareness of who the poor are. Back then, they would be in your own community. Today poverty has different degrees – hence the idea of relative poverty that some have introduced, which rates poor families within a country to the average wage. This is different to the absolute poverty that many in our world suffer – now defined as people who have less than $2 a day.

Our world has shrunk which means the limits of our Christian care have to grow. We know about people living in absolute poverty in a way that people in 19th century and well into the 20th didn’t.

Harvest Festival is a time of thanking God for the Harvest – for all the provisions we have. It is a time of thanking God for those who provide our food – and thanking them directly, if they are with us. Farmers and food providers are very much taken for granted. It’s usually only when we can’t get things that we stop to think about them.

We are dependent on those who grow and harvest the food we eat, but an important part of Harvest Festival has also been an acknowledgement of our dependence on God: the God who created the universe and gave us plants for food. And, we will soon realise, if we read our Bibles closely, that we cannot truly celebrate Harvest festival without a recognition of the poor.

The Old Testament prophets have extremely stern words for those who live well while others suffer with not enough with which to feed themselves.

And that message remains important for us today. We are part of an interconnected world, and we should not ignore the fact that there are people in the world who have nothing while we live in luxury. And, yes, we do – we may think our house is too small; we may have to count our pennies; but in this country our children have access to education, to health care, clothing can be bought cheaply, food is easily available, and no one lacks access to clean water.

Our New Testament reading came from the Sermon on the Mount, and some of the people to whom Jesus was speaking would have known what it was to worry about food, drink and clothing, in a way that we cannot imagine. Just reflect on the power of those words to people who do not know where the next meal is coming from.

Today in Ethiopia, there are many who are starving. It’s one of the countries that comes in and out of our consciousness as the media remind us of it and then go quiet again. Ethiopia is a country with a population of 70 million; 80% of whom work on the land. Life expectancy is low – at 47.8 years; and 169 out of every 1000 children die in infancy. At least 11 million people there are facing, not just poverty, but starvation at the moment, because the rains failed and the harvest in July was very poor.

Only 22% of the country has a proper water supply, and just 13% have access to proper sanitation. When I see those figures, I well up inside with outrage and anger, that out modern world, so advanced in so many ways, still allows people to live in such difficult conditions.

My anger and outrage is a good thing if it leads me to wanting to change this situation. And so often I fail. I am not generous enough in my support of people who are remedying this situation – or trying to. It’s all too easy to forget their poverty when it’s out of the news and my mind and energies are taken up with other things.

So often I forget too to pray for these people. I becomes concerned about my own needs and ignore the needs of others. It’s not good enough, and yet, I carry on in the same way, giving money to charity each month as if that is enough.

One of the things that will enable people to have a better food supply is access to a reliable water supply. The Bishop’s Appeal this year is supporting Water Action in Ethiopia, an NGO set up in conjunction with Water Aid and now supported through Christian Aid, Oxfam and others.

The money that we give today to this appeal will go directly towards water projects in Ethiopia, which will make a massive difference to people’s lives.

Collecting water is a girl’s and woman’s job. Sometimes they have to spend as much as 12 hours days journeying to accessible water and back home. It prevents girls from getting an education, and horrendously they face rape. Young men know the water routes and lie in wait for victims, knowing that there is little they will be able to do resist.

Without water, people cannot live; these girls have no option. So this is why Water Action is working on brining water into communities. It will be clean – thus ensuring that people’s health improves; it will be nearby – thus allowing girls and women to be safer, and will give more time so girls won’t so easily miss out on education; it will be easily accessible.

They are also introducing irrigation systems, so that the rain that does fall can be used in the best way to enable crops to grow, thus providing food.

Without water, no one can live; with water, lives can be transformed.

We cannot detach our thanksgiving to God for his provision from those who do not have what we have. That is thoroughly unscriptural. Our blessings and our generosity must go hand in hand; that’s why at Harvest time it is appropriate to consider both.

Jesus told people to strive for God’s kingdom first – in God’s kingdom there is no poverty, so in being generous with what we have, we are helping to build that kingdom.

Harvest is about thanksgiving – it is about our dependence on God – but it is also about justice and about God’s kingdom. We cannot separate the two.