Harvest 2020
Sermon by Reverend Matt Harbage
Readings: Deuteronomy 8.7-18; Psalm 65; Luke 17.11-19
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
There is hope. Don’t forget. There is hope.
As I begin my sermon this morning, I want to thank Kim and Wendy and Chris for the wonderful displays of Harvest flowers around the church today. In this upside down COVID-world we’re living through, it’s a joy to see the old familiar sights of Harvest displays with wheat and pumpkins.
Collections of Harvest Gifts are wonderful snapshots: They capture an image of health, and abundance, stirring memories of childhood, and speaking of rich hope for the future.
After the service; you might like to come up to the front of church and meditate for a moment on the display.
Because in the world we’re living in, I think we need to set images of hope before our eyes. I think it’s vital. Finding signs of hope, and being hopeful, is nothing short of engaging in a battle between life and death: It’s a war between different imaginations:
One imagination, pictures a better future. Freedom, and flourishing.
Another imagination is full only of catastrophes, of fear and death.
Or perhaps, we try to hide in a bit of escapism to numb the pain. I know I do sometimes.
Let’s pause: let’s dig deep into the visions of hope we have in Christian tradition through looking at our two Bible readings this morning.
Because – There is hope. Don’t forget. There is hope.
So let’s start with the encounter Jesus had with the lepers.
10 is a good round number and these 10 people were all healed from a painful, and usually long-term disease. Leprosy could come upon anyone, and if you got leprosy, you would immediately be cut out from your community and isolated.
So Jesus’ act of healing, like so many miracles in the Bible, are not just about restoring someone’s physical health, but also their standing in the community. Their deeper need for love and connection was being met as well as their physical need.
That explains why Jesus tells the 10 lepers to go “show yourselves to the priest” – so that the priest could verify their restoration to good health, so they could re-join society.
This in itself is a sign of hope. But here’s where the story gets interesting:
Only 1 of those 10, the Samaritan, turned back to thank Jesus.
You have to wonder, why did only one of the 10 turn back to thank him? Would you have turned back?
Maybe being a ‘foreigner’ as Jesus notes, the Samaritan wasn’t quite so eager to present himself before the local priest. Maybe he slowed down his walk, knowing that he would still face discrimination and social isolation even with the leprosy gone.
But he conquers his worries. The man’s gratefulness starts bubbling up, as he discovers the miracle. His hope is… unstoppable.
The man’s joy bubbles over in generous thanksgiving. He runs back, shouting praise to God, and throws himself at Jesus’ feet, repeating his praise and thanksgiving.
What a historic day that must have been for him. Like him, many of us this morning have known God’s blessing in our lives. I have: I’ve experienced some astonishing grace in my life.
I know there’s hope.
Maybe we have experienced other blessings – getting married, our first successful job interview, the birth of our first child. In all these moments it’s natural for gratefulness to bubble up.
As gratefulness grows we are often moved to share our joy with others, and Harvest is a great occasion when we can celebrate all the gifts we have been given in life and to do something for those who are in need.
I’ve got a video message to play in a moment from Joe Lee, at Homeless Action in Barnet thanking us for our Harvest gifts – but first I want to remind us of a very human tendency.
The tendency to forget our reasons for hope.
It’s like those two imaginations at war I mentioned earlier: one which takes us down, driven by fear and often fuelled by the media as the TV shows us wave after wave of sadness and pain. The hope for the future fades quickly.
Sometimes I can’t even put the news on. I hit the button for Netflix instead. Or perhaps some of us get browsing Amazon for something, anything, to give us some peace.
But this isn’t new. If you recall the first reading from the Bible we heard this morning, X read from the book of Deuteronomy – written well over a thousand years before Jesus.
The Israelites, freed from slavery, still faced dangers and had to fight to hold on to their hope as they travelled through the desert, looking for a home:
“the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions”
God didn’t leave the Israelites to face the dangers alone, and he doesn’t leave us to face things alone either.
There is hope. Don’t forget. There is hope.
In the pain of the desert the Israelites were reminded: “[God] made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna [food]”
There is great love in God, and we can discover his gifts even amidst the pain and difficulties of our current situation. That’s the Good News: We aren’t alone. God is with us. And he is always finding ways to bless us and give us good gifts.
Doctor Martin Luther King once said, “Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
There is hope. Don’t forget. There is hope.
So as we celebrate God’s gifts to us this Harvest Festival – let’s hold our ground and hold on to hope this week. Let’s support one another, and let’s allow our hopeful imaginations to grow. — Because we need to. Because God give us hope. Because there are so many gifts around us to be thankful for.
Amen.
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