Sunday 7 October 2018

Sowing generosity: Harvest Festival




Today’s Gospel story is a strange one – at least it seems so to me because I am a keen gardener. Let me explain. A sower went out to sow, said Jesus. In those days that meant walking up and down with a bag of seed and throwing it out around you.

Some seed fell on the path, where the birds ate it, some fell on rocky ground, where it didn’t have enough soil for its roots so it withered when the sun shone on it. Some seed fell in the midst of thorns, great big thorny thorns – it didn’t stand a chance. But some seed fell on good ground, grew well and produced a good crop.

Now it seems to me, as a gardener, that that sower was pretty rubbish at his job. Why on earth was he scattering seed around in places where it must have been pretty obvious it couldn’t possibly do well. I suppose it is just conceivably possible that he didn’t know about the stony layer under the soil, or that the thorns sprang up after he’d sown the crop – though a good gardener should know their soil before they start sowing – but the path at least must have been obvious, trodden down, leading straight across the land. He can’t have missed that. What did he think he was doing? Farming or feeding the birds? Three quarters of the seed went to waste. There are all sorts of perils a seed faces when you put it in the ground, and you can’t always guard against all of them, but this sower seems to me to have been very careless, scattering his seed in completely hopeless places. And Jesus must have known that, because most people in his society would have had to grow at least some of their own food. They couldn’t just go down to Tescos for it.

But maybe the daftness of the story is the point, because Jesus isn’t telling us about gardening. He’s telling us about God.

No sensible human gardener or farmer would behave like this. Seed is precious. There’s only so much of it.  You sow it in places where you at least think it is likely to have a fighting chance of growing. The only person who can scatter seed around like this sower does is one who has a great deal of it, an unlimited supply in fact. It doesn’t matter to this sower that some seed doesn’t grow, because there is plenty more where it came from.

What’s Jesus talking about here? He’s talking about the unlimited love of God, the love that never gives up, that is given freely and abundantly, that there is no end to. He’s talking about love that is given to us whether we know what to do with it or not, whether we appreciate it and nurture it or not. And when we get it wrong, when we are stony, thorny people, people who are all trodden down, unable to let his love take root and grow in us, like that path, he doesn’t give up. He keeps on sowing and sowing and sowing, until one little seed lodges somewhere in a bit of good ground and puts down its roots and produces a crop.

In the first reading we heard today, we heard that “God loves a cheerful giver”. That’s because God is a cheerful giver. Giving is what he does. It’s in his nature, even if people don’t notice, and don’t thank him.

And of course, Christians believe that every one of us is made in the image of God. We are meant to be like him. If it’s in God’s nature to give generously, then somewhere, however deeply buried, it’s in ours too. Being made in the image of God means that we are truest to ourselves, most like we ought to be when we are living – and giving - as God does.

But sometimes it can feel hard. What will happen if we give away our time and money, or energy and love? Will we have enough for ourselves? Paul says yes. “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.”

We can only give away generously what we have when we have realised that it was never ours in the first place, that it all came from God, and was given to us out of his generosity. Of course, we have to take our financial planning seriously, and honour our commitments to those who depend on us, but we don’t have to cling anxiously to what we have, says God. We can pass it on, let it go. We can learn to live with hands that are open to give by making sure that they are also open to receive.   

That’s why this festival, Harvest Festival, is so important, because it ties together the receiving and the giving. First we recognise all we’ve been given – we’re reminded of God’s generosity to us in the glories of the flowers and the abundance of the fruit, and in each other too and the fun we can have together – the scarecrows, the Harvest Suppers. We recognise our dependence on the earth, the gift of God. We remind ourselves that we didn’t do anything to earn or deserve this gift.  It is a gift, not an entitlement.

And then, when we’ve got that firmly in our heads, Harvest Festival tells us to look around and realise that there are other people in the world, who are no different to us, no more or less deserving, no more or less loved by God, who need us to pass on what we’ve received, to live as generously with them as God does with us.

Some of them are in our Poverty and Hope leaflets today. There’s Moussa, in Burkina Faso. A small gift to him of goats, chickens and sheep from Christian Aid and it has turned his life around. The sheep pay the children’s school fees, and provide his family with a financial cushion if the harvest isn’t good. That means the children don’t have to work underground in dangerous mines – their only other option. They can get an education which will unlock all sorts of opportunities for them, their families and their community. A little bit of generosity, a small seed, landing in the right place in Moussa’s life has transformed not only his life but the lives of many others too. Then there’s Gogo, who is living with HIV. USPG has supported her as she challenges the stigma that diagnosis brings in her community. Because of their help – our help – she’s been able to develop farming skills which others want to learn from her. A seed of dignity has borne a rich fruit for her and those around her. Or there’s Nevedita, in Sri Lanka. She’s working with children who’ve been abused and exploited. Supported by CMS, she is establishing safe houses for children whose childhood has been stolen from them. A seed of hope gives them a future. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Christian Aid is supporting Leonard, as he works to create a peaceful democracy through a grassroots movement in his local area. A seed of justice carries the promise of peace for his land.

Stories like this abound. Often it doesn’t take much to begin to change a life. We know that ourselves. A kind word or a well-timed offer of help can make all the difference to us when we are in need. But for that to happen we have to be living with open hands – open to receive God’s goodness and open to pass it on to others.

So, this harvest, we give thanks for what we have received. It’s not ours. We don’t deserve it. We didn’t earn it. But God, in his ridiculous generosity gave it to us anyway, just because he wanted to see us enjoy it. Like that sower, he throws around his love as if there was no end to it, because there isn’t. And he calls to us to do the same, to trust in his generous love and to pass it on.
Amen

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