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The Rural Dean Writes…

As the weather finally begins to change and the trees start to dress for Autumn, it’s time for me to dig out the Harvest Thanksgiving Services.

I love Harvest, and I love the great traditional Harvest hymns too –

Come, Ye Thankful People Come, Praise, O Praise Our God and King,

To Thee, O Lord, Our Hearts We Raise, We Plough the Fields and Scatter.

But in recent years a newer, gentler, Harvest hymn has taken its place alongside these great old “tub-thumpers”. We often sing it to the old tune of Ar hyd y nos – All Through the Night - but the words were written in 1970 by a hymn writer for whom I have a great admiration called Fred Pratt Green. The first verse sounds a fairly traditional Harvest Thanksgiving note, but the second verse brings a pointed new theme to our Harvest observance.

In the just reward of labour, God’s will is done;

In the help we give our neighbour, God’s will is done;

In our world-wide task of caring

For the hungry and despairing,

In the harvests we are sharing,

God’s will is done.

Here Fred gently reminds us that the Harvest God gives us is ours to share, and that we all have a responsibility to care and provide for those less fortunate than ourselves. Of course, this injunction is nothing new. We can trace it way back to the Old Testament where, under the Law of Moses, aliens, strangers, travellers, sojourners - modern versions call them refugees – were to be made welcome, given help and hospitality, cared for and provided for, afforded respect and justice by God’s people. This was so all the time, but especially so, in that agrarian society, at Harvest time.

The Harvest was to be shared – partly as an expression of gratitude to God for his generous provision, but also in recognition of the fact that God’s people the Hebrews were themselves once aliens, strangers, refugees in foreign lands.

Every time we turn on the TV or radio or read the newspapers at the moment, we are bombarded with pictures and articles about hungry, homeless, despairing refugees seeking safety and a better life in Britain. Are we ready and willing to share our harvest – to share all the good things we enjoy - with them?

If so, how? Well, we can give food, clothing, money – but that’s the easy bit. The hard bit is holding out the hand of welcome and of generous hospitality. The hard bit is pressing for justice for those refugees. The hard bit is changing our own attitudes and challenging the attitudes of those around us when they say that these people are someone else’s problem - that they should go back home, and that we shouldn’t let them in to Britain. The hard bit is daring to be obedient to God’s continuing command to care for the alien, the stranger, the refugee and to love them as we love ourselves. Those are the hard yards. That’s the toughest challenge…

Stephen

Sunday 4th October                                                                                      Matthew 21.33-end, NIV

33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

35 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.

38 “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the  people held that he was a prophet.

Sunday 11th October                                            Matthew 22. 1-14, NIV      

1Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have  prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the  servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”