Harvest 2022
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Is there anything more wrought with contradiction than the Church of England? There can be no doubt that the God revealed in the New Testament sits awkwardly with the State. Paul directly contrasts the power of the cross with human power; The wisdom of the cross, with human understanding; For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. 1Cor 1.25 Moreover, Jesus is the victim of capital punishment – he is executed by the state. And all the demands of the Gospel are extreme – Jesus’ and the Apostles’ teaching on wealth, ownership, violence – all uncompromising – politics, as we know, is always about compromise.
But the Book of Common Prayer has one foot in politics and one in religion. One certainly couldn’t be a prayer book republican; Until recently a service was required to be held annually every 5th November giving thanks for our deliverance from the: ‘ſecret contrivance and helliſh malice of Popiſh conſpirators’. The prayerbook is not a great advertisement for ecumenism or interfaith relationships; it knows little of multiculturalism.
And in every place that the Church tries to marry the business of State, nation and worldly concern, there’s a clang of awkwardness. So in recent weeks we’ve confronted Scripture’s discomfort with monarchs. Mr Johnson, then Prime Minister, was booed entering St Paul’s for the Jubilee service and eyebrows were raised mid-scandal as he proclaimed from the lectern today’s epistle: “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
Today one might wonder what was on the mind of those compiling the lectionary in choosing today’s Gospel for Harvest. ‘Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life’; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; Jesus is directly contrasting the meat – the food – of the harvest, with the spiritual food of himself. I am the bread of life. But one thinks of all those farmers come in for their harvest festival to hear: ‘Labour not for that which perishes’.
So, again, the Church seems to be gathering us to give thanks for food and drink – while the Gospel is telling us that we should not worry about such things, but strive for the food (metaphorically) which endureth to eternal life.
At the heart of the issue, is a question about the relationship of grace to the world. We may disagree about this. Elements within the New Testament – perhaps most strongly heard in the Gospel of John – draw a very strong line between the church and the world; The spiritual and the profane; There is within this reading, a sense that the Christian is called to retreat from the world. There are churches which discourage forming friendships with people who aren’t Christian. There are theologians who disparage those who draw on other fields – the sciences and social sciences perhaps especially – to help us understand better how to live and understand life. There are those who mortify the flesh in order to advance spiritually. Heaven is to be found at the expense of the body.
But the Church has also advanced a doctrine that bears reflecting on: Gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit. Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it. Those were the words of Thomas Aquinas, but they resound down the ages and chime strongly with the ethos of the Church of England. So in this view the ordering of this world may reflect something of the divine order, and grace operates alongside us elevating those parts of nature which direct us towards eternal truths and virtues. Harvest – the seasons of life, and death, and renewal, may itself be shaped by grace.
It is, I fear, complicated. Christianity has been quite forceful in denigrating the physical. It has censured our culture with a doctrine of Original Sin – that has at times tried to convince of the absolute separation of creator and created.
And yet. Unlike some Platonic escape from the cave, Christianity holds to a creation made good. The central doctrine of Christianity remains the Incarnation. We believe that God is with us – God is a body among us – God is bread and wine, ingested, incorporated. God does not destroy nature, but perfects it.
These movements have a sense of fashion about them – In times of great anger and great pain I can see that the Kingdom of God must require a total transformation. It must wipe clear – like the rain of Noah, the crackling sin of nuclear terror, of environmental abuse, of slavery and murder; When our world turns very dark – we may feel the same – What is there to redeem here – Who are those 10 souls for whom we might forego the destruction of the city? What is there within my failing mind and body that might be carried through – might be retained as worthy to praise God in eternity? What here might be redeemed, rather than recreated?
Every year – from our first few months, we have as a family – and Oberon was born just as we moved in – We have taken a photo in front of the Virginia Creeper as it burns red in the Autumn. It’s how we mark our time in this parish. And isn’t it strange that this season – in which everything changes – The colours, the light, the weather, the landscape, the emotional adjustment to a new year, endings and beginnings – That perhaps eternity feels closer? Not because it has all stayed the same – But the repetition of years pointing to something greater. There is a difference between eternity as permanence – as sameness – Which seems naïve – And eternity as an evenness of movement – as in the circling of seasons The crescendos and diminuendos of nature as its praises its creator in the instant, brief, elongated shapes that form the pattern of this world.
There is to me something in that Virginia Creeper – which isn’t ours – it creeps over the fence from next door – But something in its seasonal changes that speaks of eternity – especially when it blushes like Pentecost in Autumn. I cannot think that a creator would not sow in his work the seeds of eternity. At Harvest we bring ‘the first fruits of the land, which thou, O Lord, hast given me.’ We bring the good things of the world to the Lord to bless and fulfil their purpose in praise, thanksgiving and service. I cannot look on this world – for all the grim reality that is the Today programme – I cannot look on this world and not see much I would hold tight forever – That has given me glimpses of eternity – Not in permanence but fleeting beauty. Nature is not something to be destroyed – As much as men have tried. Nature is to be perfected, and in the movement of seasons, in the work of the harvest – we may still see the colours and fruits of the Spirit at play. Amen.