Harvest Festival Sermon: Heaven in Ordinary.

Hebrews 10: 19 - 25

19Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Luke 13: 18 - 21

18Then Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? 19It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches.”

20Again he asked, “What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? 21It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds a of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

In my first Post as a Vicar, after completing my Curacy, I had nine churches, it was up in North Yorkshire. The parishes were along the side of the Moors, coming down into Ryedale. So that was nine Harvest Festivals, plus one at the local Primary School, and two Village Hall Harvest Festivals in Hamlets that had no church building.

Twelve Harvest Festivals in total, that's a lot of 'Ploughing the fields and scattering.' By the last Harvest Festival my enthusiasm had, I admit, somewhat waned. The last one was in a Village Hall, in a place that was just dispersed farmhouses and cottages, there was no actual settlement to be seen, only distant sets of stone buildings set into the side of the rising moor. The Village Hall stood alone by the way side, surrounded by rough pasture. It was a small wooden building, in need of maintenance, but then everything on the side of the moor was weather beaten and in need of maintenance.

I arrived in good time to set up, the service started at six thirty that evening, I was there at Six. The hall was locked, there was no one about, so I sat in my car and waited. The daylight was beginning to fade. As time passed and nobody arrived, I began to wonder if I had made a mistake, had I got the date wrong, or time? I checked my diary to reassure myself. At 25 past there was still not a soul to be seen. It had started raining, and was almost dark.

Just after half past a small figure, wrapped up, and bent under an umbrella, arrived and started unlocking. I sprung into action, gathered up my kit, and hurried over. Once inside I introduced myself. She was an ancient moors-woman, evidently not inclined to chat, and apparently not in the slightest bit concerned about the late start, or the lack of a congregation. I asked about the start time, wondering if I had got it wrong? She said I had not, but in a tone that suggested it was an odd question. She put on the lights, and, as one or two others arrived, some chairs were put out. By quarter to the hour quite a few people had arrived, but no organist as yet. By seven the hall had filled up, the organist arrived a touch after seven. He was a huge man, with great hairy eyebrows, and great hairy knuckles, and a keyboard tucked under his arm. He asked if I would help him set it up, so I took hold of one end, only to find it was covered in mud. Seeing my surprise he apologised, and explained he had a church organ at home, in his house, but he kept the keyboard in the barn, which meant it was bound to get muddy.

As it turned out, he was a very good keyboard player, the service was prefaced by a splendid, and very loud, Bach fugue. Everyone sang up in the hymns, and heartily said the Lord's Prayer. Afterwards there was an auction to raise funds for the hall, one of the lots was a brace of ducks, we were assured they were still warm as until very recently they had been on the pond by Naylor's Wood. Finding this curious I made further inquiries, but was advised there was no more could be said on the matter.

Why am I telling you all this?

I think partly because I need to tell the tale for therapeutic reasons, so thank you for listening, but also because by the end of the evening I began to wonder what it had all been about, all that 'Ploughing the Fields and Scattering' through twelve Harvest Festivals, culminating in a ramshackle hall on the side of a dark rain-raked moor, in the company of sturdily cussed people, listening to an auctioneer selling off some oily second hand tractor part?

After the auction was a 'tea', which meant sandwiches, sausage rolls, scones, and a cup of tea. The warmth of the hall, the effect of having sung hymns, and of having purchased a 'right good bargain', and the refreshments, all served to cheer and ease the gathered folk, and the sound of friendly chatter filled the hall. Not being able to converse about sheep, or growing fruit and vegetables, or gossip about local events, I stepped back and listened. The organist must have seen I was being left out, because he came over to talk. He asked about where I was from, and expressed the customary wonderment that anyone would want to be born outside of Yorkshire. We spoke about music for a while, then he thanked me for coming. He said getting together did folks good, that they went away better for it, and then he explained that although the locals were an independent minded lot, that they needed to get together more often.

He then asked me if I believed what I preached? I thought that was an interesting question, why would he doubt I believed what I preached? Had he come across a minister in the past who hadn't believed what he preached, or did this organist perhaps have doubts about the Christian Faith? So I asked him which it was?

It was because, he replied, “my sermon made no sense.”

That was hard to take, considering the effort I had made, and the welcome I had received, but I learnt that when people in North Yorkshire tell you what they think, for good or ill, they mean no offence by it, and expect you to take it in good heart.

So I asked him what he would have preached?

He thought about this, stroked the whiskers of his sideburns, and then said something along the lines of it was good for people to give thanks, else they could get ungrateful and miserly, and it was good for people to remember they needed God, that they couldn't totally fend for themselves, that they needed God to do His part in sending the rain and sunshine. He added that it lifted your heart to sing and give thanks even if times were hard. Then he said again that getting folks together did them good.

That was a fairly good summery of what I had said in my sermon, but perhaps I needed to listen to the locals for a time before I would start to make sense to them.

I did tell him, that's what I'd preached, but he looked doubtful, so I added all that he had missed out was the part about the virtue of good time keeping, like turning up to services on time.

He said he was sure I hadn't said anything about that.

Amidst the tractor parts, late arrivals, muddy keyboard, and dead ducks, I had wondered what it was all about, this Harvest and Church business? God managed to answer that question in the conversation I had with the organist, and in the evidence before my eyes of community happening over tea and scones. The funny thing was, it was the message I had given in my sermon, perhaps I too had not been listening.

We do go to church for community, and for thanksgiving, and prayer, and songs to lift our hearts, and to get us through hard times, and to recognise the part God plays in our lives, all as the organist said, but we also go to be reminded of what we know to be true, just as I was reminded in that moment. In the chaos and stress of life it can be easy to let slip the things that really matter, gathering together with other imperfect people, before and an ineffable God, can remind us, and set us back on the right way.

It is also worth remembering that God rarely booms at us from heaven, he is much more likely to be heard in the sincere and good things of this world, like a village Harvest Festival; and for a messenger He is more likely to employ a huge hirsute organist as an angel, rather than a golden winged vision in shining white. We should know this because the Word of God was made flesh; God's message of salvation was made known through the life of a first century carpenter who turned itinerant preacher, and who spoke about the Kingdom of Heaven in a man going out to sow, or in a woman kneading dough, or in the growth of a mustard seed. The Son of God came not with trumpeting armies, but in humility and obscurity,

Tell of His birth at Bethlehem,

Not in a royal house or hall

But in a stable dark and dim:

The Word made flesh, a light for all.

As the Disciple John wrote, Jesus came to the world, “and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognise Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” Yet in this heaven in ordinary, and in the darkness and chaos, the glory of God was made known amongst the poor and lowly, as John continues, “We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

That's the real prize of gathering together as disciples of Christ, seeing the glory of God.

The organist for that Harvest Festival lived beyond the boundaries of my parishes, on the high moors, so I never met him again, but before I left Ryedale I heard he had passed away, and his church organ had been sold. Then with a slight smile, my informant told me that at nights, up on the moors nearby where he had lived, several folk had reported hearing the distant sound of an organ, as if he played on despite his earthly demise. But then another thing I learned about the locals was they enjoyed spinning a yarn, and thought all Vicars from away must be naïve.

Maybe I was.

Amen.