CHURCH NEWS From Yetminster Methodist Church Hello What a beautiful day it was last Sunday 13 September when I drove across to Yetminster Methodist Church to conduct the first service in the building since March. And it was Harvest Festival! Sue had cleaned and decorated the church and June had placed a beautiful arrangement of flowers at the front of church. The weather was kind and we were able to chat outside socially distanced of course. Above all we could be together and share in worship to celebrate the Harvest being safely gathered in. I even followed a tractor to come to church.
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Our Church communities Cornwall being my favourite county, I reminded the congregation that the modern British tradition of celebrating Harvest Festival in churches began in 1843 when Rev’d Robert Hawker invited parishioners to a thanksgiving service in Morwenstow. We read, and lamented that we could not sing, Come Ye thankful People Come and We Plough the Fields and Scatter. We explored the parable of the rich young fool who when he had a bumper crop had nowhere to store his crop, so he tore down his barns and built bigger ones. Logical the capitalist in you might say, but what about the poor? Perhaps it was the gloating statement the rich man made afterwards Jesus objected to as the man said to himself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’ You fool says Jesus, what is the point for tonight you will die and what will all your big barns mean then? Verse 14 says, ‘A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’ No one ever said on their death bed they wished that they had spent more time at work. My friend died too soon shortly after her 40th birthday. Experiences and relationships, she said, that is what is important. When we talk of those who have died, we don’t talk about how much money they made, we remember their generosity of spirit, how they acted and interacted with family, friends and the world what their values were. That is what endures to the second and third generations in a family. What should the rich man have done when he had his bumper crop?
