Harvest - giving thanks for small things

 Matthew 13: 31-33  Psalm 146 

At harvest time we pause to thank God for everything God has done for us.

 

Psalm 146 talks about praising the God who made absolutely everything – it is a huge thing to think of all that God has made. We praise God not just for our harvest here in Pembrokeshire or even here in Wales – but across the whole world. Everything that grows is a gift from god and so we thank God for everything we have. And we remember to thank God for the people who make it their life’s work to grow and produce our food – we thank God for the farmers who make the harvest possible and bring the harvest in.

 

Jesus was good at thanking God for all that was – and often reminded his followers to pause and give thanks to God for their food.

The Lord’s prayer contains the request to God ‘give us this day our daily bread’; 

and at the last supper with his followers Jesus gave thanks to God the Father for bread and wine – before giving it to his disciples as a sign of his life given for them (and for us).

 

But in our parable Jesus teaches about the importance of small things, too.

 

The yeast in the parable is tiny, but it makes all the difference. 

 

I love watching the Great British Bake Off and the amazing cakes, biscuits and breads that the competitors make. But every now and again there is a mistake – someone leaves out a vital ingredient – with disastrous consequences.

If you leave the yeast out of the mix when you’re trying to make bread you get something flat and rock hard and more like a biscuit. But when the yeast is added in and mixed right through, the whole mixture rises and makes delicious, fluffy bread.

Jesus says ‘the kingdom of God is like this’. In other words,

the things in our world which teach us about God’s love are like this.

They may be small, but they make a difference.

 

When we give thanks to God for the harvest, we might want to remember the small things as well as the large things.

We might want to give thanks to God for yeast – bringing fluffiness to our bread. Or for salt – which can bring out flavours so well. Or for herbs, and spices.

 

We might also want to give thanks to God for hope.

Hope can seem like a small thing, but, like yeast, it makes a huge difference. Christian Aidwork with some of the world’s poorest people, where harvests can be very small, but Christian Aid are asking us this harvest to give thanks for a harvest of hope.

 

In 2017 I was lucky enough to travel to Zimbabwe to see Christian Aid projects at work. 

In a very rural area called Gwanda I met Mrs Ndlovu, a farmer who was learning to grow millet as it’s much more drought-resistant than maize. Some of the fields of the farm were on quite a steep slope and Mrs Ndlovu had struggled with the rain washing away the rich top soil. Thanks to a Christian Aid funded project ‘rural technologies’, she had been encouraged to experiment with potholes – digging a hole, about the size of a dustbin, at regular intervals in the fields, especially where the water tended to run off. This meant the water was held up in its journey and it gave a pause so that the water tended to seep back into the soil around, watering the crops. The teachers from rural technologies had also encouraged Mrs Ndlovu to throw the weeds she pulled up into the potholes, so that what was being spread across the field was not just water, but a liquid compost. The crop yield had increased – it was twice what it was before – and the soil was not being depleted by the rains, when they came. A small change had produced a big result.

But the miracle didn’t end there.

 

Mrs Ndlovu was so thrilled with what she had learned that she invited all her neighbours to come from their farms to see what she was doing – and so right across that area people had more food, better fields and huge joy – all thanks to potholes!

 

Like a small amount of yeast making a huge fluffy loaf, a small amount of knowledge and hope had produced a huge change for the better.

 

Jesus says that God’s world can be like this. Small things, tiny hopes, shared with others can bring great joy.

 

So this harvest I encourage you to be grateful to God for gifts large and small – and to show other people how grateful you are, so that the gratitude to God and the hope in a good earth can grow.

And pray that God, who is the Lord of the harvest, will use even the small things in our lives to bless others; so that love and hope can be known by all God’s children. Amen.