The Harvest
Thanksgiving
11th
October 2009 9:00am & 11:45am
Preacher:
The Dean
The Christian and Food
Paul said in the Epistle
reading of today, ‘But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with
these’.
In the Gospel reading this
morning, Jesus said, ‘Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what
you will drink.’
Both the Epistle and gospel readings
on this Harvest Sunday talk about ‘food’. The words of
Today is our Harvest Festival,
so you may see that the altar and sedilia are decorated with berries, crops and
loaves. In some other churches, special tables are set up to hold the offerings
that people bring. There are pumpkins, cabbages, baskets of fruit and vegetables
of all kinds. A lot of families and parish churches, like us, have big meal
after the services.
Indeed, many of the most
prominent events in our life are marked by a meal. For example, the Christening
is often followed by a reception, when the christening cake is eaten. The
wedding is followed by a wedding reception, and even funerals were in the old
days – and still are, in Chinese culture – marked by funeral feast with 7
courses. It is known as ‘comforting dinner’.
Likewise, if we have a friend
coming whom we haven’t met for a while, then it is natural to suggest having a
cup of tea or a meal together. Food in fact helps to make all these occasions
pleasant. The sharing of a meal together adds joy and pleasure to an important occasion.
Yes, food is pleasant and also
necessary to our keeping alive. What then should be our attitude to it? Is
there any distinctive Christian attitude to food?
Christianity is in fact deeply
concerned with the down-to-earth matter of food, as we see from the phrase in
the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ which Jesus teaches us
to pray. This petition at once confirms the necessary part of food in keeping
us alive. It also recognizes the part of God in controlling those forces which
ultimately make food production possible; in asking God to ‘give us this day
our daily bread,’ we are in fact recognizing that God is ultimately the giver
of food to us.
But, this being so, we should
remember to thank God for the food that keeps us alive. Harvest thanksgiving gives
us a special opportunity for this. We can thank God for all that he has given
us :
‘Come, ye thankful people come;
Raise the song of harvest-home.’
In our prayers at home, too, it
is right to thank God for our food and all that makes possible its growth, and
mealtimes can be very suitable occasions for such prayers of thanksgiving.
Moreover, we need to share the
food God gives among the people of the world fairly, so that all have enough to
eat. There is, in fact, enough food in the world for everyone to have
sufficient to eat, but it is not distributed fairly. We are lucky that in
However, we have also that
other saying of Jesus, ‘Man does not live by bread alone.’ Indeed, a person
just living and thinking about what the next meal was going to be would not be
exercising his full human capabilities, but acting as an animal. We need other
influences to make us grow into full and mature personalities.
For example, we speak of ‘food
for thought’, we need this to learn and to develop. In various ways, from
teachers, parents, friends, through reading novels and newspapers, by watching
television and plays at the theatre, as well as from the Church’s life, we need
‘food for thought’ to draw us from self-absorption towards the world around us,
to enliven our minds and develop our interests.
Yet again, we need food beyond
this. Jesus speaks of us as needing spiritual food : ‘Blessed are those who
hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.’ The food we
should be hungry for is righteousness, justice and truth – everything, in fact,
that helps to set forward God’s rule over the world.
But have we the reserves of
strength within ourselves to do this? We need in fact spiritual food to give us
strength; we need to feed on Christ himself, the source of righteousness and
holiness. So it is that Christ offers us himself in the Holy Communion. A
famous hymn written by Philip Doddridge puts it well :
Hail, sacred feast which Jesus
makes,
Rich banquet of his flesh and
blood!
Thrice happy he who here
partakes
That sacred stream, that
heavenly food.
Here spiritual food is offered
to us; we need to receive it regularly to receive lasting spiritual strength,
as we need regular food to give continuous energy to our mortal bodies.
We do not in fact live by bread
alone, but all mankind in every part of the world needs other food as well –
food for thought, the goal of harmony and the spiritual food of the Word of the
Lord.
In both types of food – the
earthly and the spiritual – a balanced and regular diet is needed. If people’s
food intake varies considerably, between different seasons of the year, as
happens in the third world, then their health suffers. Similarly, if we do not
have the right balance of food and do not have regular meals, our strength and
health are affected. For example, if we have cream cakes, that is delicious to
start off with. But we could not live on them continuously. We need also basic
foods like bread, vegetables, meat and fruit. Moreover, we need to receive food
regularly to have a beneficial effect.
So it is in the spiritual life
and in the services we attend. If we only go to church at times when the church
is bright and decorated and full – at Christmas, Easter and Harvest and times
when we think there’ll be a crowd there – that is in fact like living on cream
cakes. What we also need in the spiritual life is a balanced diet and the regular
sustaining food that comes by joining in the worship week by week and pray day
by day.
Thus we need, in order to build
up our bodies, earthly food for which Jesus bids us pray; we need to give
thanks for it and ensure that it is available for all.
But in addition we need
spiritual food, for we cannot live by bread alone. Both in our earthly and in
our spiritual life we need to have a regular diet with all the vitamins needed;
along with the enjoyable highlights there is need of regular, sustaining food
to give the right diet for health.
What does God ask us to do in the Harvest? God asks us that we fill up our
spiritual life regularly, so we may rejoice all the time, pray all the time,
and give thanks all the time. That's our spiritual duties and those are
duties that are energized by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.
And as we yield to the Spirit, God produces that.
Giving
thank is a natural virtue. A person who is truly grateful to God for everything
in life can be said to love God with his whole heart; because such a person
will invariably say a whole-hearted yes to life, accepting without reservations
all that God had ordained for it – It is also the very significance of Harvest.