Sunday 7th October 2007HARVEST

Fr David Cherry

Deuteronomy  26  :  1 - 11  ; Philippians  4  :  4 - 9  ; John  6  :  25 – 35  

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”   May such beautiful words take hold of our hearts and minds as we open ourselves to the God of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen

Making thanksgiving in this way, rehearsing the story reminds, makes us never forget who we are: beneficiaries, those who are constantly receiving who we are, constantly sustained by the Spirit of God in every breath.  

During one of the Freshers Fayre’s a student came up to the chaplaincy stall to engage with us and said he wasn’t religious but was interested in what we did.   I’m reminded of hearing or having read someone who said : actually we are all religious. It just depends what you’re religious about.  It depends what you have put your trust in.

Spirituality can be described as a process of becoming personally aware of where you have placed the treasure of your trust; what you hope for; what you want, what you actually believe in – what is the ultimate horizon of meaning for you.  

For Christians, that ultimate horizon of meaning in which we are called to place all our trust is the God who is one with us, shown to us in the human face of Jesus.  Any principles, set of beliefs about God, philosophy or idealogy follows from and is secondary to the Mystery of the Person of Jesus, a Mystery we find ourselves caught up in and celebrating : God’s loving engagement with you and me.

Our spirituality is then about engaging with a Mystery with a definite and definitive focus : the Person-hood of a God who regards us – as Bonhoeffer said - as the 'ground of unfathomable love’ .

In the Spiritual Exercise of St Ignatius of Loyola, the first step (the Principle and Foundation) that a retreatant undergoing the Exx. is invited to make, is a consideration of God’s purpose for our lives:  Inigo writes :  

Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.   
The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created.
Hence, man is to make use of them in as far as they help him in the attainment of his end, and he must rid himself of them in as far as they prove a hindrance to him.


The person praying the spiritual exercises is invited to come to a place where he or she makes a personal discovery of where she is in the universe – the discovery that all things are made for one’s benefit.  It is the discovery of  God’s desire for each person and the purpose of one’s life.   But also that the misuse all these good things have the possibility of limiting one’s freedom – hindering one’s spiritual and human development.  

What this will look like and what those few lines will mean to each individual will be unique and it will issue in a cry of wonder :  Aha – this is what I am about because this is what my Creator is about.

And to be in this kind of a place is to begin to experience gratitude – thanksgiving to Another for the fact that this is true : I am created and all things are created for me, for my growth and well-being.
“What I do is me, for this I came” – cries the poet, Hopkins.

There is this sense in the creed of the Jew who comes to offer his harvest produce, the first fruits of God’s gift and of his labour – he knows where he is and what he is about “A wandering Aramean was my father…” – and then rehearses the story of a People being found by God and experiencing God’s graciousness in his life; the story of being brought out of bondage to freedom in a promised land of plenty.    

The Jew bringing his gift of thanks, rehearses, makes remembrance of what God has done towards him.  There is the acknowledgement that all is from God and his budgeting involves God in giving the first-fruits, the best, the most costly back to God.

Here in the Eucharist, we Christians continue to rehearse our story.  We make remembrance of God’s goodness towards us through hearing the Scriptures, the Gospel proclaimed.  We make remembrance, we rehearse in every Mass, the story of how God came to save us from the delusion that humanity is self-made; the delusion that there is no Other, only me.

Making thanksgiving in this way, rehearsing the story reminds, makes us never forget who we are: beneficiaries, those who are constantly receiving who we are, constantly sustained by the Spirit of God in every breath.   Thanksgiving makes us human, less demi-gods.

Karl Rahner said: “the Eucharist (that Greek word for ‘Thanksgiving’): “the eucharist makes the Church.”  

Now there’s a strange thing.  We obviously are doing it, we are making thanksgiving as we urbanites process round singing ‘We plough the fields and scatter….” in solidarity with all farmers and food producers – and of course with all whose crops have failed, those in famine and living in want.  But it is thanksgiving that makes us into a People, the humane People of God, and it is through thanksgiving that God can reach us.  

We thank Another, not ourselves, and so keep the relationship with God to us open.  And in doing so we put all our hope and trust in the goodness of God, finding ourselves the dependants of Christ who sustains us as the Bread of Life.

Come, offer your praise and put your trust in Him.

And, as the apostle bids us:

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”