Mid Winter Harvest Festival
This sermon can be listened to here
Gate Pa – 27th June 2021, 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings:
Psalm: Psalm 130
First
Reading:
Genesis 2: 4b – 9, 15-end
Gospel:
Mark 5:21-43
What I want to say:
Te
explore what harvest festival is about, and using Matariki to offer the idea
that in harvest festival we also commit to ongoing care for creation, where the
harvest comes from. I want to link that with Pope Francis’s Laudato Si, -
giving thanks for creation and developing an attitude holding the bond between
concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society and inner
peace. That leads us to the Gospel reading and the reign of God revealed in Jesus
offering of hope and life to both people in today’s reading. In Jesus the reign
of God defeats the powers that prevent people and creation from thriving and
bring death, and instead offers life. And for many what prevents people
thriving is their fear. Jesus breaks the power of fear and invites us to trust God
even in the midst of our fear and doubt.
What I want to happen:
What ways are we being invited to
live in ways that allow creation and all involved in the harvest to thrive?
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
Why have harvest festival?
What are we doing today?
ð Talk neighbour
ð Plenary
2. Some ideas
Tradition – a lot people grew up with harvest festivals
important
event life their communities
continue
to be important
opportunity to give thanks both joy gardening
harvest
that our labours have reaped
simple
joy in growing things in own land
being
able eat what we have grown
today
we give thanks for that
Give thanks for all who are involved in
provision of our food
-
Last year showed
how reliant we are on them
-
How many of them
there are
ü Famers
ü Farm workers
ü Seasonal workers
ü Companies work with them – Zespri and Fonterra
ü Those work in processing and packaging (and
materials used in processing and packaging)
ü Transport
ü Shop owners and workers, including diaries and
supermarkets
ü Government agencies work with them and seek
protect
-
A lot people give
thanks for and pray for
-
Acknowledge
strain and pressure Covid-19 and climate change putting on all these
3. Matariki
our harvest festival comes during Matariki –
Maori new year
-
number of traditional aspects
Matariki that were important for Maori
-
one of these was
that appearance of that vast cluster of stars in dawn sky
-
sign that time prepare land for
kumara planting
-
so that there might be a
harvest
-
good harvest doesn’t just happen
-
relies on good
soil and well tended land
-
this land we live
in, and this planet we live on, earth
-
– are central to idea of harvest
-
Matariki and
Harvest Festival give us opportunity to remember
-
this land, this planet are God’s
greatest gifts to us
-
absolutely central to our ongoing
ability to live here
-
the need for us to care for land
-
not just Matariki
-
all year around
4. Laudate Si
Last week talked about Murray Bodo – Franciscan
Friar, and Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home written by Pope Francis.
Pope Francis wrote about giving thanks
before and after meals: “I ask all
believers to return to this beautiful and meaningful custom. That moment of
blessing, however brief, reminds us of our dependence on God for life; it
strengthens our feeling of gratitude for the gifts of creation; it acknowledges
those who by their labours provide us with these goods; and” (Laudato Si’ para
227)
Harvest festival offers us chance to do that bigger
scale
Invites us into rhythm of gratitude everyday
it reaffirms our solidarity with those in
greatest need.
same time invited to be mindful of all those
for whom access to food is precarious
for
whom life is precarious
bring
to mind and pray for all those for whom this is not the reality
invited to be as generous and as compassionate
as God we encounter in our own experience of harvest
part
of today is offer this to Food bank
provide
us opportunity gather significant offering food for foodbank
to
be a sign of this generosity
5. bigger minds (repentance)
Harvest festivals might also invite us into
bigger way, different way of seeing creation and ourselves
opportunity to repent
“St Francis shows
us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the
poor, commitment to society and inner peace.
Bodo goes on to
describe inner peace as awareness that God is,
- and that God dwells in all creation
Later talks about
creation being place where laws based on
- relationship not on ownership
- Nurturing rather than overpowering and
subduing
-
Place of
trinitarian relating rather than hierarchical relating.
This world created by and out of God Lover,
Beloved and Love Between
This world is held in this relationship of
mutuality, compassion, completeness
Explore Genesis 1 and 2(?)
6. Kingdom of God in two Women
Two questions at heart Mark’s Gospel
- Who is this man Jesus?
- How reign of God brought about in him?
“Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom!
Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!”
Reign of God, Kingdom of God is restoration of
God’s intentions within all creation
- All that prevents people and creation from
thriving
- All that brings death is defeated
è the reign of God revealed in Jesus offering of
hope and life
see in Mark’s story calming of the storm
story of healing of man in Gennesaret which we
did not hear
todays reading of woman and the girl
courageous woman who overcame 12 years of pain
and belittlement
to trust enough
to reach out and touch
7. Fear
For many what prevents people thriving is
their fear.
A lot of conversations around climate change fear
offered as big motivaotor
Fear does not help us thrive
Too often stops s in our tracks
In
last weeks story Jesus asks disciples “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith (trust) yet?”
Then Marks tells stories of people of Gennesaret
who seeing eh pigs run into sea
- Seeing man once possessed now dressed and sane
- In their fear asked him to leave
This week woman who in the midst of her fear
trusted
Father who in midst of his fear daughter
trusted enough to first ask
And then do as Jesus says
The trust allowed them to act even in the
midst of their fear.
Fear denies life
Fear stops us thriving
Jesus breaks the power of fear and invites us
to trust God even in the midst of our fear and doubt.
So that we can join the work of kingdom of God
Living God’s mutuality, compassion,
generosity, completeness, love
- For others
- For all creation
- For ourselves
As we give thanks for the harvest
What ways are we being invited to live in ways
that allow creation and all involved in the harvest to thrive?
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