YOU WILL BE GRATEFUL.

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Genesis 1:9-13, 2 Corinthians 9.6-15, Luke 12.22-30

Thankfulness is something we ingrain into children.  Saying “thank you”, writing thank-you letters, forced phone calls to Grandma on Christmas day, YOU WILL BE GRATEFUL.

For adults, though, some of those practices seem to be on the way out. The rather chivalric practice of sending physical notes after dinner, parties and presents are more clearly a habit of a particular generation; and while a hasty email might have the same wording, I suspect that it’s immaterial nature, makes it a practice that isn’t sustainable. For one or two years I know people who would send electronic Christmas cards – my parents actually did it for at least a decade – but it never really took off.

I think it has mixed results with children.  A lot of children epically resent writing all those letters; the queuing to speak to an ancient relation when all you want is to be left alone with your lego and transformers; but those hard-wired habits can also flourish, once in a while, into good manners and thoughtfulness. 

We might worry then as adults we’re becoming less mindful of thankfulness. And this is probably also true at a national level. You may well feel that there is little to be thankful for at present, but consider Remembrance Sunday – Thanksgiving for our national survival, for what was not destroyed, and for those who came back, 100 years on it remains a national milestone. 

But for centuries, thanksgiving would be a foremost theme at harvest. I suspect few would know today, year on year, the good and bad harvests. The blackberries being poor this year, is my only indication that it may have been disappointing. but I spent my holiday on a farm and it was a little bleak to watch them gathering the hay in the rain. We teach it at school, then, but most people have no sense any longer of thankfulness at harvest.

And to my mind it is the great lie of our time, that the modern world tells, that is mostly to blame for our lack of thankfulness. This lie is that we are each of us independent human beings.

The lie that we need rely on no one and nothing but a full bank account to live the life we choose. Because, of course, now you can go down to the shop and get everything you need without any human interaction – though if you can process your shopping with one of those machines without it complaining about some ‘unrecognised item in the bagging area’, you’re a better man than I. Or you could do your shopping online and have it left on your doorstep.

We have eliminated the need for human contact, but we are still completely dependent on our connection to a whole range of species, not least other humans, to make things happen. So it might seem like all we need is the pounds in our account, but our connectedness is greater than ever.

I suspect if we do have a no-deal Brexit that will become immediately clear very quickly.

And I wonder, again, if children grasp this more intuitively. I took an assembly at Granard last week and they did get that our food comes from animals and plants. That we need farmers and factory-workers and delivery-people, and store-managers and till-attendants. And that our food is all dependent on the seasons and the sun, the wind and the rain, in our fragile environment. Because children are dependent, and know it, I think they’re always aware of the importance of connection, and at least until they’re teenagers children don’t have that same desire to be independent.

Now when Jesus in today’s Gospel is pointing our attention towards the simplicity of the flowers and the birds, it is I would suggest a reminder to re-engage with the world as fellow-animals. We have all our sophistication, our buildings, our fashion, our internet, but ultimately we need feeding and clothing like everything else. That means using what’s at hand in God’s creation to serve our needs. Which means being reminded of our connection to all creation through the complex inter-relations of the environment. And it means being thankful for what we have received and taking a moment to consider its path. From the parts of creation that we receive in unrecognisable forms and for the hundreds of invisible hands that have joined to bring this produce to our door.

The first service we were invited to at St Margaret’s was Harvest. It was also the first time Rhiannon and Oberon had left the house since hospital when he was a mere 11 days old. He turned up in an enormous fluffy suit and was passed round, much as he still is today. Harvest here, then, which seems so appropriate to be made the most of in this green and pleasant parish, will always stick in my mind – with these themes of connection and thankfulness. And when the gifts are brought up in the next service and the children sing their songs, and we hear about those who do not have enough from the food bank and we join together for a simple lunch, I think we’ll have moved for a short while beyond that sense of humans as independent beings.

And it will be seen that we have a lot for which to be thankful.  Amen.