Harvest
Readings Year B (RCL)
Harvest in Provence by Vincent Van Gogh Hymns for St Andrew's Harvest 130 Fill your hearts with joy 380 O Lord my God P. O let us spread the pollen of peace 534 We plough the fields
Hymns for St Peter's harvest 251 All things bright 380 O Lord my God P. O let us spread the pollen of peace Music suggestions What a wonderful world - Louis Armstrong Oxfam has produced a briefing paper on the threat to the Palestinian olive harvest. It begins:
This year's olive harvest at risk There is growing concern about this year's olive harvest, which begins in the autumn. A quarter of the Palestinian agricultural sector is dedicated to olive production. Nearly two thirds of the Palestinian population - and therefore a higher proportion of the rural population - benefit from income from olive oil. This year, the olive yield promises to be very high [1]. But the entire production and marketing cycle is at risk of being wiped out because of closure, with the result that thousands of people will be deprived of a primary source of income.
Click here to read more.
This has given rise to this cartoon from al jazeerah
| Origins of the Harvest Festival
The Jewish roots of our Harvest Festival are described here (wikipedia)
Jesus celebrated the Festival of Sukkoth - also known as the Feast of Tabernacles. Click here to find out more The origin of the festival, as we know it in this country, isn't that distant. If it hadn?t been for a Victorian vicar in Cornwall, there probably wouldn't be harvest thanksgivings in any of our churches. The Revd Robert Stephen Hawker, for forty-one years Vicar of Morwenstow on the wild Cornish coast, is said to have initiated the modern Harvest Festival. However, during the Middle Ages the Church had a harvest festival of its own. It was called Lammas meaning Loaf Mass. This was held on 1st August, before the harvest had properly started. Each farmer cut one sheaf of corn, and the flour from those sheaves was made into one huge loaf. Everyone went in procession to their village church and the loaf was offered to God as the first results of the coming harvest. Later, when the crops were all safely gathered in, the farmer would throw a big party celebrated with beer and plenty of hullabaloo for all his workmen and their families. But these customs gradually died out and today many people ignore Lammas. Towns were growing bigger and the people who lived there weren't interested in farms or crops. Even in the villages people began to think that the Lammas celebrations weren't very 'proper' Robert Hawker was acutely aware of the life-and-death importance of the harvest to his parishioners and he was convinced that the germination of the wheat was supernatural. He liked the old customs and, despite criticism from neighbouring clergy who thought him most peculiar, he held a service in 1843 to which everyone was invited to bring their produce as a way of saying thank you to God. And thereafter he urged his parishioners each year to come to church for harvest thanksgiving. And so the idea caught on. Along with the service, the traditional lessons, hymns, and fruity decorations, went a Harvest Supper with an abundant supply of cider and the Vicar singing silly songs to round off the proceedings. People would come from far and wide and there were many harvest-festival enthusiasts who would do the rounds of country churches during the harvest season.
The Jews had, and still have, THREE harvest festivals. One comes just after Passover (Pesach), around our Easter time. It celebrates the very beginning of the harvest, when the first barley was brought in. The second is 50 days later, at Pentecost. The Jews call it Shavuot and celebrates the wheat harvest. The third happens in September/October, after New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). It is called Sukkoth.
Leviticus 23:39-43 describes what takes place at Sukkoth
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Go to CONTACT to book a ticket for the Harvest Supper taking place on Sunday 24th September at 6.30. Tickets cost £5.30. This harvest season we are supporting
Our Harvest festival is an occasion of celebration - traditionally "all is safely gathered in". It must never be forgotten at Harvest that millions in our world go hungry and harvesting requires an answer to the question of "how shall we share?" It's also an occasion to "wonder". Questions raised in an order of service include: Who put the colour in the rainbow? Who wrote the song for every bird at dawn? Who put the tingle into beauty? Who his the summer in strawberries and cream? Who put the craving into hunger? Who set the beat in our hearts? These questions posed by Roddy hamilton are inspired by Job 38:1-18 Harvest Highlights: (from Farmers Weekly) For some growers, harvest 2006 was perhaps one of the earliest and driest on record thanks to the drought in July. But for others, the constant rain interruptions throughout August halted combining and hit quality, with many in southern and eastern regions suffering particularly badly. In total, 35% of crops were rated ?good? by growers, compared with 58% last year, according to FWi?s overall UK crop performance analysis, collected from the harvest reports. to see click here
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The Last Olive Harvest in Palestine
