Harvest -wonder. (Psalm 8 & Mark 10: 13-16)

 This week I am going "off lectionary" and exploring harvest through Psalm 8 and Mark 10: 13-16   

However many harvest festivals we have celebrated in our lives, I hope we never lose a sense of how amazing and beautiful our world is. I love to see and smell all the wonders of harvest-time: the decoration of a chapel at harvest festival, the harvested fields around us, the trees laden with fruit, and the gathering of people to celebrate.

 

If you need a bit more wonder in your life – I want to share with you a bit of the story of the golden mole, which I heard about on Radio 4 this week, on a short programme called ‘a carnival of animals’.

 

Golden moles are found in sub-Saharan Africa, so we don’t need to worry about them digging up Pembrokeshire! Their kidneys are so efficient that many species never need to drink water. Their hearing is so sensitive that they can detect the vibrations of insects moving above them, and distinguish between the ones they want to hunt and others. Perhaps the greatest mystery is why they shine.

 

 

Their name is ‘Golden mole’ because their fur is iridescent, shifting through black, silver, turquoise and gold. But unlike butterflies or hummingbirds, which use their colouring to communicate or attract mates, the golden mole is blind and lives almost entirely underground. Scientists believe its shimmering fur evolved for low-friction burrowing - the glow is a by-product, not a signal.

So deep below the soil and sand of countries including Somalia, Cameroon and Kenya, the golden moles burrow, breed and hunt, unaware of their brilliance - unknowingly shining.

 

What an amazing creation we inhabit. Whether we look at the harvest around us, the lives of tiny animals we have never actually seen, or the mysteries of the universe around us, we gaze in wonder and give thanks to our creator.

 

The psalmist, as we’ve heard in Psalm 8, looks up in wonder at the night sky God made. Then, looking at the amazing mysteries of creation, the psalmist asks a really interesting question:

“what are human beings that you care for them” or

“why do you bother with us?”.

 

In the face of all the love and grace and provision, the wonders of creation which surround us, the psalmist realises that at the heart of our thanksgiving for creation is our relationship to the creator.

 

We are not just vaguely thankful for these gifts and rather worried about taking care of the planet…we are in relationship with the God who created all this, and us, and who does indeed want to ‘bother with us’ – to relates to us and to love us and wants us to love and care in return.

 

God made us to love the earth, our home, the complex biosphere we are part of, to love one another and to learn to live in love and relationship with God.

If all that seems a bit much.. the scale just too large to grasp..God comes to us in Jesus – a human-sized version of the love of God made flesh.

 

And Jesus talks about this interlocking of love and relationship of all of us and God and all that is created as the ‘kingdom of God’.

 

We heard from the gospel of Mark about a time when people were bringing little children to Jesus for him to touch and bless them. This was fairly standard practice for any rabbi of Jesus’ day. But the disciples want them to clear off and leave Jesus alone. Jesus, as we well know, is indignant and tells the disciples to let the children come to him.

 

He could have referred the disciples to Psalm 8 ‘why do you bother with us?’ – and said that these children are ‘bright with Eden’s light’.

Jesus chooses instead to say something really important about the kingdom of God:

“it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” .

 

What does it mean to receive the kingdom of God as a little child?

 

A few years ago I was fortunate to be at an induction of a minister in the North East of England. After the service the pastorate wanted to give gift to the minister’s son, Floyd, who was about 6 at the time. He was tracked down (he’d found his way to the ‘messy corner’ in the church!) and given a large carrier bag. As he looked in, he gave a completely unscripted ‘Wow!’.

 

It was a football. He was absolutely overjoyed with his gift and I saw him over the next hour or so kicking and bouncing his gift and even just carrying it around.

 

That is how to receive something as a child – joyfully, whole-heartedly, with a cry of ‘wow!’.

Jesus calls us to receive the gift of the kingdom – and our deepest, most joyful reaction should be ‘wow!’.

When I look up at the stars…wow.

When I take stock of all the gifts of the harvest…wow

When I remember that Jesus calls me to be part of the kingdom..wow.

 

So there’s one more gift of harvest that I want you to remember to give thanks to God for – you.

There’s an anonymous quote which pops up on Facebook from time to time:

“How cool is it that the same God who created mountains and oceans and galaxies looked at you and thought the world needed one of you, too?”

 

God made you.. wow.

Can you say to yourself: God made me…wow.

 

May we all be blessed with the gifts that make us say ‘wow’ – may we respond with loving care  - and may God be praised in each of our lives. Amen.