Next Sunday (October 4^th) we shall celebrate Harvest Festival in St Mary’s Church.  It has long been the tradition in church to give annual thanks for the safe provision of our food, and also to use the opportunity to celebrate God’s generosity, the beauty of creation, and the hard work of our farming communities.  We could perhaps add to this list of those we pray and give thanks for, especially remembering all who continued to work through lockdown in our shops and supermarkets, those who stacked shelves and operated tills, the drivers who delivered groceries to our homes, and the long-distance drivers who transported our goods from their sources to the outlets where the goods are sold.  All these people play their part in the food chain, and we should be mindful of their contribution.

This year has been unusually notable for food supplies or lack of them with the issues of panic buying in supermarkets.  I remember being overcome with relief in late April when one of my kind neighbours finally managed to buy a bag of flour for us because she discovered a small supply in a local shop.  Such joy over a bag of flour would have been unimaginable to me three months earlier.  But perhaps this is a salutary lesson for those of us who have been accustomed to accessing food as and when we want it, to think about the millions of people in the world who do not know where their next meal is coming from, who have limited access to food supplies and equally limited finances with which to purchase food which is available.  The rapid growth of food banks in this country is a worrying indicator of increasing poverty and the unequal sharing of resources across society.  This week, instead of bringing contributions to our Harvest festival, perhaps you might consider making a donation to the local Foodbank with a bank transfer to The People's Church - Banbury Foodbank Project, Barclays Bank Sort code 20-03-84, a/c 20141224, referencing it “St. Marys”.  

We all know the harvest hymn ‘We plough the fields and scatter’, having sung it on numerous occasions over the years.  But the third verse is less well-remembered.  We have much to thank God for at this time, especially our life, our health and our food, yet currently a large proportion of people across the world have been shockingly deprived of some or all of those.

We thank thee then, O Father,

For all things bright and good,

The seed-time and the harvest,

Our life, our health, our food.

Accept the gifts we offer

For all thy love imparts,

And, what thou most desirest,

Our humble, thankful hearts. 

So let’s not wait until we ourselves are in danger of having those gifts taken away from us before we remember to offer humble thanks from the depths of our heart for everything which we are given from God’s generosity.

Sarah Bourne, Chaplain for the Arts – 30^th September 2020            sarahbourne@banburystmary.org.uk