Some of my earliest memories are accompanying my Dad in his allotment. Something I did from about six months old. My Dad’s allotment was on land belonging to ‘Sutton’s Seeds’ which used to be based in Reading, until the M4 motorway was driven through the middle of the seed beds in the late 1960’s.
My Dad’s plot was next to his Uncle Jim’s plot and quite often the pair of them worked together sharing seeds and produce. I realise now that my Great-Uncle ensured that my Dad and his growing family always had enough to eat. Money was scarce but Uncle Jim was generous. So too was Auntie Dorothy, who brought me my first garden tools - small boy sized when I was about three and a half.
My memories of the feel of the soil on my hands, the joy of harvesting what we grew and the smell of the methylated spirit stove and the subsequent ‘meths' tasting tea have remained with me all my life.
When the allotment was covered in concrete and we had moved to the west of the town I continued to help my Dad with the large vegetable patch at the bottom of our long garden. But, a passion for growing flowers now developed thanks in part to our lovely neighbours who like my great-uncle and aunt encouraged my interests by giving me plants.
Over the years, I sort of forgot the childhood joy I found in helping to grow things to eat but lockdown in 2020 changed all that. With additional time to obsess over the garden I created raised beds in which to grow initially; sweet peas for cutting and kale for sustenance. This has continued with the sweet peas relegated to large pots and the raised beds stuffed with a variety of different brassicas, runner beans and latterly potatoes. After a few disasters with the allium family, I have concentrated on these three crops and what joy I have re-discovered in harvesting what I have grown. It still feels like magic has happened.
Especially, as I tend to think; ‘Oh! nothing will come of these seeds’. Yet every year things do grow, even things (such as this year) like broccoli that I have no memory of planting!
God’s good gifts are how I think of the produce I pick, even when the crop isn’t great because of the vagaries of our climate. God is generous and I give thanks for that generosity.
The Hebrew people were taught to be thankful for God’s generosity as the first reading from Deuteronomy tells us. ‘Be thankful, give thanks and make a thank offering to God for all you are given’ probably sums that passage up. Paul’s words to the Philippians continue the theme as he tells those early Christians that God will always give us what we actually need, even if it is not what WE think we need.
The Harvest, is not something we can ever take for granted. There are many across the world whose lives depend on how good their own harvest is and the effects of the Climate Emergency we are now living in, only seem to make their existence even more precarious. In our own country the Harvest cannot be relied on to bring all we need either. We do not produce enough produce to actually feed our population and we rely on goods flown across the world to appear on our dinner plates - not something that is particularly ‘eco-friendly’. Food miles can be enormous just to put vegetables in our mouths.
Farmers are in a tough place. They are being asked to produce more home-grown food and at the same time subject to internal and external forces that can make this difficult. Much land is also coming out of food production because it’s just too expensive to farm. The food producers of our country and our world need not only our thanks and support but our prayers too.
This is what we are doing this morning. We are giving thanks to God for all we receive through his good Creation and we are giving thanks for those who produce the food we eat and we are praying for their well-being and continuation in doing the job we need them to do. We should never take the farming industry for granted, just as we should ever take God for granted.
Later in this service we will use the words of the General Thanksgiving - words that have been said for over 500 years in one form or another. The prayer begins:
“Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life…”
Like today’s readings this prayer reminds us to be thankful and to be thankful to God every day. As we give thanks for the bounty of Creation may we never take God’s generosity for granted and further that we will like my Great-Uncle Jim always share the bounty we have with others.