Harvest Thanksgiving
Ordinary Sunday 5: 6th February, 2005
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
Last Sunday the gospel was the Beatitudes. A whole series of categories of people were declared to be blessed: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the gentle, those who morn, those who hunger and thirst for what is right, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers...and also those who are persecuted in the cause of right. And what are they? What are we, if we too are people of the Beatitudes? Today's gospel follows immediately on: "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world". And we note with humility that there is nothing conditional or provisional here. Though salt can lose its savour and lights can be shielded. And all those powerful associations with the images of salt and light come tumbling out. Salt and light make all the difference.
And the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah says it how it is, and on a day when we here are asking ourselves to reflect on just how good things are, we are immediately reminded of a few very basic social imperatives:
"Share your bread with the hungry and shelter the homeless poor".
But if we fulfil these obligations
"Our light will rise in the darkness, our shadows will become like noon".
What a promise!
And so we start. What better time than the Sunday before Lent begins, to indeed reflect on how things are in our relationship with God, or, to put it more intimately, how things are between us and Jesus, whose teachings we try to follow, whose life we receive in this mass, whose death has given us new life. How are things?
Lent is traditionally the time to renew these considerations. By prayer, by fasting, by giving to those in need, Christians have for centuries renewed their relationship of thankful response to the Lord during the Lenten season. The ultimate day of thanksgiving is of course Easter Day.
Gratitude can comes as a sudden shock. You suddenly realise how much you owe to someone else, how much you have been given. What if we really are 'salt' and 'light' in the world, in our families, in our communities? Once this question, this possibility arises, we cannot but look again to our relationship with God. On a day like today, we see that personal challenge unfolding. So, we look beyond ourselves, we look for role models and others in the Church community, to others beyond. We look for ways of bringing all this truly alive.
We began with a harvest hymn and we sang it well:
All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above.
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
For all his love.
That is our theme for the day: grateful recognition of what God has done for us, and a thankful response. That therefore does not let us off the hook too easily, those of us who have been called to be salt and light; people living out of the Beatitudes.
Every time we gather around the table of the Lord we have this to say at the Sursum Corda:
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
That classic exchange between priest and people is central to our understanding of what we are actually doing when we meet to worship. We offer our thanks to God as best we can, we look to ways of responding more completely. "O give thanks to the Lord for he is good" the psalmist reminds us, "and his mercy endures forever".
There are other approaches to God, other than thanksgiving and gratitude: awe, fear. Wonder, disbelief – true, but thanksgiving is certainly a living option. It can be for each of us.
We of course do this in a context. Thanksgiving to God for the new life that is already within us is the key. Thanksgiving too is not so much a specific and particular response as a continuing attitude and reaction, something that continues to be and that continues to have results. This then means continuing responses in the areas of faith, of compassionate service, of commitment. All of this demands of us openness and a generosity of spirit. This is indeed the language of vocation and call that we were considering last Sunday.
Always, every year, every week, this means the careful reconsideration of our priorities: how do we live? What is truly important? How are we to respond to the call of God that has found us here? Where do we find those who will encourage and support us in this search, in this response?
None of us is at the same place. No one has arrived at perfection, but together, through a community like this we can encourage and support each other. We can all seek to grow in faith and service and commitment. How good it would be if we could all share that type of thanksgiving that is actually contagious; that would in turn bring others to join us. This does in fact happen. Many of us here have come and have stayed because of that. And it remains a good question to ask ourselves on a regular basis: just how whole-hearted is our own thanksgiving to God? Does it really show? Does it make a difference?
Our thanksgiving theme today has a focus on the beauty and the abundance of what is around us in nature: the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands. Towards the end of summer, these are indeed evident, even in the middle of a large city.
But we are also being encouraged to remember those who cannot see the beauty and who have little sense of a sharing in a great bounty. So it is that any food and goods donated and offered here today will be used in our daily breakfast program, or go to our emergency food cupboard. Every day therefore, dozens of people are part of this sharing. It is a very small step towards that time and place where there is no shortage of food and services. So, in our thanksgiving though, we immediately seek to share.
Harvest hymns and anthems are a reminder of simpler, earlier times back through all the generations when for all our forebears the continuing rhythm of the seasons and the need for hard physical work on the land just to survive, was always very apparent. We think of them. And we think of those around the world today who still share that pattern of living.
In all these weeks before Lent begins the gospel this year has been from Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount. We have had put before us the most central of the Lord's teachings, those understandings and attitudes that provide both the superstructure and the basis for our lives as Christians.
On this day of thanksgiving, surrounded by the reminders of the rich natural provision for us, let us also give even more heartfelt thanks for the inner provision that is made for each one of us, flowing from the love of God in Jesus Christ. We have been offered whole-hearted love. Let our own response be clear.
You are the salt of the earth.
You are the light of the world.
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