Harvest Thanksgiving and The Season of Creation
Collect
Eternal God,
you crown the year with your goodness
and give us fruits of the earth in their season.
Grant that we may use them to your glory,
for the relief of those in need and for our own well-being:
HARVEST
Harvest Festival has its origins in the Jewish Feast of gathering. The word is from the Anglo-Saxon word hærfest, meaning "autumn." From medieval times it came to refer to the season for reaping and gathering grain and other grown products. An early Harvest Festival used to be celebrated at the beginning of the Harvest season on 1st August and was called Lammas, meaning 'loaf Mass'. Farmers made loaves of bread from the fresh wheat crop and these were given to the local church as the Communion bread during a special service thanking God for the harvest.
Harvest Festival continues to be a thanksgiving for Creation and the Creator’s care all people and creatures, for the gifts of sun and rain, soil and seeds, plants and animals, and for God’s human partners in the harvest: farmers, gardeners and producers. At harvest time we give thanks also for the industrial harvest that turns the earth’s minerals into energy and materials for human use – all of this while being cognisant of the associated environmental concerns
Harvest is an important season for Christians also because within it is so much meaning beyond the fruit and flowers that decorate our churches, as we look to the harvest of our inner spiritual life and of our shared lives as God’s children, and ask ourselves, ‘How fruitful am I as a Christian?’ and ‘How is our care for Creation?’
The Readings
First reading: Genesis 1: 26-31a
A reading from the Book ‘Genesis’, chapter 1:
Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Second reading: Luke 12: 16-30
Then he [Jesus] told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced
abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’
He said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.
The hymns
366 Praise, my soul, the king of heaven
25 All things bright and beautiful
47 We plough the fields and scatter
494 Beauty for brokenness
39 For the fruits of his creation
“Keep me as the apple of Your eye;
Hide me under the shadow of Your wings”. (Psalm 17:8)
Photo thanks to Jessica Priddy
Guest speaker, Alan Cousins from SAT 7,
an Approved Mission Society of the Church of Ireland ('AMSI')
Photo thanks to Jessica Priddy
Photo thanks to Jessica Priddy
