On Sunday 7th October we will be celebrating Harvest Festival and many of us think of tins of beans and packets of cereal and the wonderful display of produce: cauliflowers, ripe tomatoes, stripy marrows and the rest – not forgetting the Harvest Supper to remind us of a time before Supermarkets and on line shopping
Harvest Festival may seem like a thing of yester year but celebrating God’s goodness to us and the work of our farmers and gardeners still needs to be done. In this country we are well fed because of the AMAZING work of our farmers and horticulturalists, our retailers and dieticians, our agronomists and our distributors – they do a wonderful job on our behalf and in partnership with God Almighty.
Over this last year, at both happy and sad occasions we have used the modern version of the much loved hymn: We plough the fields and scatter… Frank Low’s words hold together both the ancient and the modern, the technical and the ethical. But fundamentally, the hymn reminds us of our everyday blessings and the source of our nourishment:
We plough the fields with tractors
With drills we sow the land
But growth is still the wondrous gift
Of God’s almighty hand.
We add our fertilizers
To help the growing grain,
But for its full fruition
It needs God’s sun and rain.
All good gifts around us
Are sent from heaven above
Then thank the Lord,
O thank the Lord,
For all His love.
With many new machines now
We do the work each day.
We reap the fields with combines
We bale the new-mown hay.
But still ’tis God who gives us
Inventive sills and drive
Which lightens labour’s drudgery
And gives them fuller lives.
He only is the maker
Of galaxies and stars;
Of birds and beasts and flowers,
And any life on Mars.
Atomic powers obey him,
Yet still the birds are fed;
By him our prayer is answered:
Give us our daily bread
We thank Thee then O Father
For life so rich and good
For seed time and the harvest
The wealth of daily food
No gifts have we to offer
Such as thy love imparts
But what thou most desirest
Our humble thankful hearts.
Can I invite you to join us for worship and come and sing the hymn for yourself and let’s praise God together.
Peter Chantry
