5th October 2025 – Harvest Service
Green-fingered Graham Barratt from Gloucestershire knows his onions when it comes to producing prodigious produce, having this summer harvested a haul of agricultural titles.
His magnificent mange tout measured in at 180 mm (bigger than an iPhone 16) and has been recorded as the longest pea pod.
Next, his hefty tomatillo was weighed in at 140g, becoming the heaviest tomatillo recorded by the Guinness World Book of Records.
Wrapping up his streak of gardening glory, Graham’s loofa crop gave him prizes for the longest, at 1.4metres, and the heaviest, at 2.8kg.
I can’t claim any records, but I can say that I have been delighted this year by a couple of surprise tomato plants, nothing to do with me, which have taken root in my garden and continue to shower me with sweet yellow tomatoes. What a gift.
A wise woman recently observed that we are God’s harvest – we are the fruit on His vine. We’ve just heard that amazing Gospel reading which tells us that He wants our joy to be complete! He has deliberately given His words to feed us and to encourage us to follow Him, to remain in Him. His commandments tell us clearly how to do that – that if we can live with God at our core, and if we can love each other as generously as we want to be loved ourselves, giving easily but also receiving joyously, then our joy will be complete.
And what better themes to have at the centre of a Harvest celebration. The generous giving is all around us. What we give doesn’t have to be the biggest or the longest or the heaviest, just given with love.
Can you think of a gift that you have been at the receiving end of recently? It could be something small, something seemingly trivial. But something that gave you a sense of joy, of being blessed? An unexpected delight, perhaps, or maybe it was something planned. Perhaps the person behind that gift was pleased to have given it, perhaps they never knew they had. A bit like my tomatoes.
Many of you know that my daughter Libby and I went to Uganda in July, and while we were there we were able to visit the children that we sponsor through Compassion, including Ronald who both our churches sponsor. Mama Sandra, Ronald’s mum, gave us this beautiful hat, a traditional woven gift made by her, to say thank you for the support that our churches have given to Ronald and to the whole family. When I look at that hat, I think of the hardship Mama Sandra lives with, and that despite that, she wanted so much to say ‘thank you’ – I know she makes room to think about us, we are always in her prayers and the family is so grateful to us for our love towards them. She wants us to remember that too. In two Sundays time we’re going to be sharing much more about our trip so do please come along if you can.
I read the Book of Joy over the summer, and I’m going to read an extract from it;
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dali Lama are discussing what we can learn about generosity in human nature. The Archbishop says;
“You don’t have to have scriptural or religious teaching. It’s just the truth: You can’t survive on your own….You need other people in order to be human…because you can’t flourish without other human beings. They give you the things that you cannot give yourself, no matter how much money you have. And so we speak of Ubuntu. A person is a person through other persons. It’s the most fundamental law of our being.”
Ubuntu – our lives growing through other lives, helping ourselves as we help others. The charities we support, the conversations we share, the companionship we offer, the prayers that we raise, the blessings we receive and the warmth we feel in knowing that we are part of a mutually beneficial, abundantly loving creation.
As that wise woman pointed out, we are God’s harvest. We will thrive, our lives will become abundant and plentiful, and our joy will be complete when we live in faith, with God in our hearts, and receive the gift of love because of it.
Amen
