Sermon Notes Harvest 2017 These sermon notes for a Harvest thanksgiving service are based on John 10:1-10 and include the story of Frank Zulu and Christian Aid partner Evangelical Association of Malawi who are working to ensure abundant life for everyone living at the sharp end of climate change. Share photos of your service on social media using #PeasBeWithYou! Introduction At Harvest time we give thanks for the abundance of God s provision. For crops harvested, for healthy livestock, and for the food available to us from all over the world. Whether we live close to the land and grow our own crops or live at a distance, we all depend on the provision of food from farms across the world. We gather today to give thanks for the harvest of food for the world. In particular, we give thanks for the changing harvest in Malawi and for the profit that comes from peas. Abundant life John 10:10 is a popular and often quoted verse. And the word abundant resonates strongly at harvest time when we hope for abundant yields so that all may have enough to thrive and not just survive. It is a verse that lies very much at the heart of Christian Aid s work across the world and particularly at this time of harvest, echoing our strapline we believe in life before death. The figure of speech of the sheepfold provides an agricultural connection to harvest beyond the traditional sowing and reaping when we also give thanks for healthy livestock including sheep. We believe in life before death These words of Jesus are spoken as part of a longer exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees. In chapter 9 we see Jesus had healed a man who was born blind and he did it on the Sabbath. This healing challenged at least two long-held laws and caused so much confusion among the Pharisees that the healed man himself was finally driven out, excluded once again. By his healing action and by his words of restoration, Jesus demonstrates how abundant life is available through him here and now and is particularly available to the marginalised and excluded. Following Jesus to enable abundant life for all is at the heart of Christian Aid s ministry. Frank s story For Frank Zulu of Chithumbwi village, Malawi, abundant life is in part denied because the rain is no longer reliable: Sometimes it rains heavily and washes seeds away and then it suddenly stops; sometimes it rains very late so our seeds die in the ground; sometimes it doesn t rain at all. The consequences for the maize harvest, and therefore communities, is devastating. Frank says: In Malawi, when we say somebody is hungry, we mean they don t have maize. When the maize is not in harvest or there are shortages, people starve. With support from Christian Aid partner Evangelical Association of Malawi (EAM), Frank has diversified his crops to include sweet potatoes and pigeon peas, which are better able to survive low rainfalls.
However, even with a successful harvest of pigeon peas, the poor market prices for individual farmers prevent Frank and his family from getting a good price for his crops and they are thereby denied abundant life. I AM the gate Jesus does go on to identify himself as the good shepherd in John 10:11 but it is the gate to the sheepfold that he first identifies with. Many of us may be more familiar with airport gates than sheepfold gates. This sheepfold gate is a source of protection from thieves, bandits and corrupt shepherds. And it is a portal for good shepherds to enter and to lead the sheep to pasture, to the food and nourishment needed for abundant life. In contemporary society, gate is a word often associated with bad leadership, as an indication of corruption or scandal. Rev Francis Mkandawire, Head of Evangelical Association Malawi, has spoken out about the cashgate, tractor gate, maize-gate, and all other gates that may have happened or are happening behind the public eye in Malawi. 1 And at a recent gathering of faith leaders, he emphasised the need for faith leaders to put love in all issues because God is love. For Frank and his community, this experience of corruption often happens at the farm gate where he sells the pigeon pea crop to traders. Often, these middlemen use illegal buying scales and exploit individual farmers. These ruthless tactics have the effect of driving prices right down. For Frank, this is a disaster: Even though I am growing more pigeon peas than ever, my life is miserable because of the low prices offered by the traders. The money is not enough to feed my family or pay school fees for my four children. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. How then can we enable abundant life for Frank and his community? Evangelical Association of Malawi (EAM) Christian Aid in partnership with EAM has been working with local farmers like Frank to make sure they have the business training and resources they need to change their lives. The result is that many families have already seen a huge turnaround in their fortunes. It starts with making sure farmers are using the most productive seeds possible. Pigeon peas are wonderfully resilient to the flash flooding and droughts that have destroyed so many farmers crops in Malawi. Just as the sheepfold was a place where the farmers gathered their sheep for safe keeping as a cooperative, the farmers of Malawi have come together in cooperatives. Working as a group, they can negotiate with professional buyers to get better prices for their crops. The shepherding work of EAM and Christian Aid colleagues in Malawi are ensuring Frank and his community are being led to realise not only an abundant harvest but also abundant life. Conclusion As followers of the good shepherd we are led to life in abundance, perissos in Greek, which in this context means superior, extraordinary, surpassing, uncommon life. This harvest may we live out of such abundance rather than out of any fear of scarcity. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann encourages us to resist the voice of scarcity in society: It is our propensity, in society and in church, to trust the narrative of scarcity. That s what makes us so greedy, and exclusive, and selfish, and coercive. But the narrative of abundance persists among us. Those who sign up and depart the system of anxious scarcity become the history makers in the neighbourhood. May we live out a narrative of abundance this harvest, and be the much-needed history makers in this changing world. Endnotes 1 nyasatimes.com/woe-sinful-nation-malawi-churches-bemoan-corrupt-leadership-seed-evil-organise-nationalprayers/#sthash.eikajncl.dpuf
Creation Time Lectionary reflections Information about Creation Time can be found here. The following reflections for Harvest thanksgiving are based on an Old and New Testament passage from each week of the Creation Time Lectionary for year A. Year A Week 1 Job 37:14-24 Do you know how he controls the clouds? Do you understand how he makes his lightning flash? Do you know how the clouds stay up in the sky? Do you understand the wonders of the God who has perfect knowledge? For those in Malawi watching the clouds gather but not receiving the necessary rain due to persistent droughts, these verses offer a greater poignancy than those of us in northern and western societies could hope to understand. In Job we find one not suffering because of judgement but when judged is found faithful in his suffering. Job finally encounters God s presence but rather than receiving any answers he is met with God s questions: ones that evoke the mystery and wonder of God. For those crying out for God s presence and provision in Malawi and in East Africa may the wonder of God, always present even in absence be a source of comfort and strength. And through Christian Aid we will continue to work with partners on the ground to help them to find a way through the struggle. Matthew 8:23-27 Even the wind and waves obey him. In Matthew 8, we may find the faith that with God it is possible for storms to cease. We also find the reality that even with God we do not avoid the struggles or storms of life. Jesus response calls us to live with hope and not to be so afraid in these times of trial. We work and pray with Christian Aid partners to provide that peace of mind for those living at the sharp end of poverty and with the insecurity of not knowing when the next meal might be or where it might come from. Week 2 Psalm 139:13-14 For you created my inmost being: you knit me together in my mother s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. At Harvest time we give thanks for the provision of God, not only for creating us but also sustaining us and being with us through life s journey. It is this dignity inherent in all of humanity, created and loved inescapably by God that inspires the work of Christian Aid. The relentless pursuit of God inspires and sustains the relentless pursuit of a day when all are valued and loved into fullness of life. And that God may be glorified since, as St. Irenaeus reminds us, the glory of God is a human being fully alive. Matthew 5:13-16 You are the salt of the earth. The phrase the salt of the earth is one of those complements that says so much in so few words. The reliable and authentic work done not for acclaim or complement but because it needs to be done. The salt of the earth are the humble ones, the ones who mourn, the meek ones, and those who thirst after the right that we have just heard about in this first part of the sermon on the mount. Frank and his community grafting for a better living for themselves and those around them. The work of Evangelical Association Malawi comes to mind. And so do the millions of grains of salt scattered across the UK and Ireland this Harvest, the ones who give and act and pray so that others can reap an abundant harvest. You are the salt of the earth!
Week 3 Psalm 65 You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with richness. Psalm 65 depicts a world alive with the bounty and glory of God. Many scholars believe that its original use was for thanksgiving celebrations at Harvest time, which makes it particularly appropriate to include in Harvest celebrations now. Not only celebrating with the brothers and sisters in Malawi now but remembering the generations who have gone before, and how the land has continued to provide food for humanity for centuries. It paints a beautiful and abundant picture of a joyful and untainted creation, along with people living in peace and praising God. May this picture provide a vision that inspires us to believe and work for another possible world. Luke 12:16-30 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? The rich fool is a story that emphasises the importance of Harvest thanksgiving services. Giving thanks to God reminds us not to take the harvest for granted and that everything we have comes from God. Harvest thanksgiving also provides a moment to consider those who have not had an abundant harvest, and gives us an opportunity to share from our abundance rather than storing it up for ourselves. Something the rich fool and the self-centred society he represents does not often take time to do. Jesus invitation to not worry, contrasts with the rich man fear of scarcity. The more he had, the more afraid he was of losing it. Jesus s challenge to not worry is an invitation to live from abundance with an attitude of generosity. Both parts of the story are very counter-cultural. To not worry in the current political turbulence, to not worry if the rains are not coming and the seeds have been planted is a challenge indeed. And so we are invited to appreciate the order of nature, the lilies of the field and the flowers of the air and allow the beauty and wonder to calm our anxious souls. And to see not only the lilies of the field and the birds of the air but also how the pigeon peas can grow in dry conditions in Malawi. Thanks be to God. Week 4 Leviticus 25:1-7 It shall be a year of complete rest. The wisdom of Sabbath rest for the land is demonstrated in the diversification rather than dominance by farmers in Malawi. The sustainable and necessary diversification practices of Malawi because of the changing climate are a contrast to the relationship of dominance often practised by intensive agriculture. The choice of Frank and his community to diversify from monoculture of maize to grow sweet potato and pigeon peas is a contrast to those farming practices that would change the nature of the soil itself rather than what they would plant. There is a wisdom to be learned from sustainable Sabbath principles that will ensure the world can be fed in a sustainable and ecologically sensitive way, in relationship with rather than in exploitation of the land. John 6:1-15 The feeding of the five thousand. They were always fed the 5,000 on the hill, the 12 in the upper room, his friends on the beach. Fed to bursting and there were leftovers besides. No skimping anywhere to be seen. And he was always sitting at the table with people he claimed as his own the tax collectors and sinners, Mary and Martha, little Zacchaeus and his friends on the Emmaus road. Wherever he was, people were fed. Wherever you found him, he was sharing bread. What a model for us today. When we share together, all sorts of feeding takes place: minds open, hearts and spirits sit down together, the present is sated and the future is nourished. When we share like family at God s table, we meet and remember who Jesus was and who he calls us to be. Communion, eating together; sharing with unconstrained generosity and justice: that is the harvest that feeds the divine vision. 1
Week 5 Leviticus 25:8-19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live on it securely. The Jubilee year was to have occurred every 50 years in Israel when the land was to lay fallow, all debts forgiven, and all slaves freed. However, Jeremiah 34:14 suggests that the Jubilee year had not been followed and that when King Zedekiah did try to institute the practice, it was circumvented by the people. Confusion abounds as to whether or not the practice was ever truly instituted. 2 But there was no confusion over the condemnation of cheating each other and this was not limited to the year of Jubilee or to the levitical law. Yet today cheating is often used by the middlemen buying pigeon peas from individual farmers in Malawi. That is why Frank and his community have formed a cooperative so they can negotiate a good and fair price for the pigeon peas they are growing in Malawi. Christian Aid partner Evangelical Association of Malawi assists them to organise and to access good and fair prices. Luke 17:11-19 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. Luke again amplifies Jesus love and care for the marginalised. It is the one who is doubly marginalised, the Samaritan, the outsider and foreigner with leprosy, who returns to praise God. His gratitude brings him back to the source of his healing, not taking it for granted. And as we reflect on the provision of God for the nourishment and sustenance that we need, provided by the harvest of the world on this Harvest thanksgiving, we join in the thanks and praise of our sisters and brothers in Malawi. Perhaps given even more loudly and exuberantly by those most grateful for it; those who have lived with the fear of not having enough. And may we always follow Jesus s example and love those who have found themselves on the margins and excluded by unjust social, economic and ecological practices of our day. Endnotes 1 Reflection from Christian Aid Scotland, Food for the Future Malawi Harvest Service, https://medium.com/ christian-aid-scotland/food-for-the-future-malawi-harvest-service-1456a2c7dc5b 2 workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=502 We believe in life before death Eng and Wales charity no. 1105851 Scot charity no. SC039150 Company no. 5171525 Christian Aid Ireland: NI charity no. NIC101631 Company no. NI059154 and ROI charity no. 20014162 Company no. 426928. The Christian Aid name and logo are trademarks of Christian Aid. Christian Aid is a key member of ACT Alliance. Christian Aid May 2017 J30915