HARVEST THANKSGIVING

SERMON 2021
INTRODUCTION
Life is full of promise.

It is true, the world as we know it, and the world we see in the news media, is in trouble.

We know our Environment is in trouble, in many ways. We’ve got climate change, the
destruction of forests, loss of soil, the mass extinction of many different species, and islands
of pollution floating around in our oceans.

We are Economically in trouble. Our housing crisis in New Zealand is just the tip of the
iceberg in a world where the wealthy are getting exceedingly wealthier, while the vast
majority of people are finding it harder and harder to make a living.

We are Socially in trouble. Our society is so fragmented. Even with the rise of the internet
and its many forms of communication families and communities are more fragmented and
disconnected than ever before. Loneliness and sadness have become a significant part of
our social experience.

It can be easy to just give up or find some shiny new thing to distract ourselves with for a
few hours. So, it is of absolute importance that we are reminded, again and again, that in
the spite of all these problems in our world, Life is still full of promise.

Life is full of promise because that is how God has made it. God doesn’t have a Plan B,
escape strategy. The Bible’s message of hope, the good news Jesus makes available to us, is
not the promise of escaping our troubles, it is the promise of restoration and renewal; for us
and the world with us.

JOEL
Life is full of promise. But many of us, as Christians, have brought into the popular
mythology that the spiritual life is something separate from this world, that the truly
spiritual life is waiting for us in heaven. In reality, heaven and earth are intimately
connected. And the Bible shows us that a genuine spiritual life is deeply concerned with life
in our world, because God is deeply concerned with life in our world.

The Old Testament Prophet Joel grounds us, connects us, to God’s deep concern for the
world. The opening chapter of Joel describes a time of great destruction. The Kingdom of
Israel have endured a double devastation. Locusts and grasshoppers have come and
devoured their trees and grasslands and crops. And the army of the Assyrians have come
and devoured their towns and cities. It seemed to be a hopeless situation, but Joel led the
people in a time of turning back to God, who was their ultimate Source of Life.
As the community of Israel turned back to God, Joel delivered them a message from God.
The wonderful thing about this message is that it wasn’t only addressed to people. God
spoke to the soil and to the animals first. They’d also had a hard time and God promised to
save them too. God promises vibrant, lush, vegetative growth, pastures growing, trees
abundant with fruit. And when God speaks to the people about putting things right for
them, it comes in the form of rain, early rain to get the plants growing, and late rain to
renew the earth after the time of harvest. There are descriptions of people eating and be
filled with satisfaction. Not in a way that leads to greed, but in a way that leads to gratitude.

So, when we look at our world, with its problems, we are invited to see that God is
concerned for these things too.

A GRAIN OF WHEAT
So, God promises us life. But where do we fit in? How do we take part in God’s promise of
life?

To answer that question, I’d like to take you to a story in John’s Gospel. This story provides
us with a blueprint for how we are to live our lives as those who follow Jesus into God’s
promise of life.

Jesus has come to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival, he's almost at the point of being
betrayed and arrested. But before all that happens some Greeks hear about him. These are
foreigners, people of sophisticated culture. They’ve come to Jerusalem for the Passover,
they’re interested in the Jewish faith, and they want to meet Jesus. This sounds great to
Andrew and Philip, who think of themselves as Jesus’ Public Relations Team. This could be a
great opportunity for Jesus to get his message out to a wider audience, to hit it big on the
international stage.

At first, when they tell Jesus about this opportunity, it sounds as though Jesus agrees with
them. He says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Jesus revealing his
glory and being glorified comes up a lot in John’s Gospel. Being glorified means being
recognized and celebrated and honoured for who you really are, for your character. In our
society it’s like being put on the Queen’s Honour List. And Jesus is saying, “This is my time to
be recognized and honoured.”

But then, Jesus describes an image of a grain of wheat falling to the ground to explain what
he means by being recognised honoured; and it has nothing to do with international
speaking tours in Greece. Jesus is going to reveal God’s glory, God’s character, through
sacrifice and servanthood. In the same way that a seed, has to be sacrificed through
planting, for more life to come forth, Jesus is going to lay down his life, in the ultimate act of
servanthood, in order for a new kind of humanity to be brought to life.

And then he says, “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my
servant be also.”
SERVANTS OF LIFE
Life is full of promise. God is deeply concerned with the flourishing of life and promises us
life. But for us to live in God’s eternal kind of life and to be part of God’s plan for the
flourishing and restoration of our world, we need to follow Jesus in his way of servanthood.

This is a difficult truth for us to come to terms with. We live in a world where it’s venture
capitalists like Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, who are seen, not only as successful, but
as the only ones with power to advance our world into a new era of prosperity. Meanwhile,
there are countless numbers of people at bottom of the heap, who increasingly experience
powerlessness and loss of hope.

But God’s promise of life is for everyone. Jesus tells us that anyone, no matter how
insignificant or how prosperous, can be part of God’s salvation project of renewing the
world. But to do so, we need to trust God and enter into Jesus’ way of servanthood.

Bernard of Clairvaux wrote “Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet,
what you need is not a sceptre but a hoe.”

Richard Foster offers guidance in the life of servanthood when he points out the difference
between serving and servanthood. Service is occasional and often dependent on getting
some kind of recognition. But servanthood is a way of life that is content with what are
often hidden acts of service Brother Lawrence, in 18th Century France explained that he
would pick up a single piece of straw out of love for Christ. Foster writes, “In the realm of
the spirit we soon discover that the real issues are found in the tiny, insignificant corners of
life. Our infatuation with the “big deal” has blinded us to this fact. The service of small
things will put us at odds with our sloth and idleness. We will come to see small things as
the central issues.”

So, as we give thanks for the harvest of this season, let us hold to these two essential truths.
That in a world, too often devoid of hope, God promises us life.
And that Jesus invites each of us to be part of the God’s promise by following him into the
way of servanthood.