7 days ago

Harvest: Our Daily Bread

Sunday Service, 13 October 2024

Led by Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

Musical Prelude: Der Rosencranz – Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel (performed by Holly Redshaw and George Ireland)

Opening Words: ‘Let Us Give Thanks’ by Laura Dobson (adapted)

At this harvest-time, we give thanks for the gifts of nature, freely given.

For the abundance and beauty of this earth, we give thanks.

For fertile soils, ripening crops and fruiting hedgerows, we give thanks.

For bracing breezes and misty mornings, we give thanks.

For cool evenings and spectacular sunsets, we give thanks.

For the sumptuous scent of fallen leaves on damp earth, we give thanks.

For the circling seasons, the dance of light and dark, we give thanks.

For the fruits of love and the gifts of friendship we harvest

here in our beloved community, we give thanks.

For the joys of sharing and growing and flourishing together, we give thanks.

For the promise of harvest that lies in the seed,

the huge oak tree in the tiny acorn, the sweet apple in the bitter pip, we give thanks.

For all the promise, potentiality and possibilities of our lives, we give thanks. (pause)

Words of Welcome and Introduction:

These opening words by my colleague Laura Dobson welcome all who have gathered this morning for our Sunday service. Welcome to those of you who have gathered in-person at Essex Church, to all who are joining us via Zoom, and anyone watching on YouTube or listening to the podcast. For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m Jane Blackall, and I’m minister with Kensington Unitarians.

This morning’s service is our annual Harvest Thanksgiving – a time to appreciate all the gifts of the earth – and this year we’re taking as our inspiration that famous line from the Lord’s Prayer – ‘give us this day our daily bread’. Over the next hour we’ll reflect on the deeper meanings hidden in that simple sentence – perhaps it’s about more than just the carbs – ‘Our Daily Bread’ might point towards all our human needs – all that it takes for us each to survive and thrive.

Chalice Lighting: ‘The Abundance of Our Lives Together’ by Katie Gelfand

Let’s light our chalice flame now, as we do each week. It’s a moment for us to stop and take a breath, settle ourselves down, put aside any preoccupations we came in carrying. This simple ritual connects us in solidarity with Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists the world over, and reminds us of the proud and historic progressive religious tradition of which this gathering is part.

(light chalice)

We light our chalice as a symbol of gratitude

as we celebrate the abundance of our lives together.

In this sanctuary we harvest bushels of strength for one another,

and offer our crop with the hands of compassion and generosity.

In the authentic and gentle manner of our connections,

we cultivate a simple sweetness to brighten our spirits.

May we be grateful for the ways we nourish and uplift each other,

For it is the sharing of this hallowed time together that sustains us.

Hymn 269 (green): ‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’

Let’s sing together. Our first hymn is a very traditional harvest hymn, number 269 in your green books: ‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’. For those joining via zoom the words will be up on screen (as they will for all our hymns). Feel free to stand or sit as you prefer and let’s sing up as best we can.

We plough the fields and scatter

The good seed on the land,

But it is fed and watered

By God’s almighty hand:

The snow is sent in winter,

The warmth to swell the grain,

The breezes and the sunshine,

And soft refreshing rain.

All good gifts around us

Are sent from heaven above;

Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord,

For all his love.

God only is the maker

Of all things near and far,

Who paints the wayside flower

And lights the evening star;

The winds and waves are governed,

And still the birds are fed;

Much more to us, earth’s children,

God gives our daily bread.

All good gifts around us

Are sent from heaven above;

Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord,

For all his love.

We thank thee then, Creator,

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.

All good gifts around us

Are sent from heaven above;

Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord,

For all his love.

Candles of Joy and Concern:

Each week when we gather together, we share a simple ritual of candles of joy and concern, an opportunity to light a candle and share something that is in our heart with the community. So we’ve an opportunity now, for anyone who would like to do so, to light a candle and say a few words about what it represents. We’ll go to the people in the building first, then to Zoom.

So I invite some of you here in person to come and light a candle and then if you wish to tell us briefly who or what you light your candle for. I’m going to ask you to come to the lectern to speak this time as I really want people to be able to hear you and I don’t want to keep nagging you about getting close to the handheld mic. And if you can’t get to the microphone give me a wave and I’ll bring a handheld mic over to you. Thank you.

(in person candles)

And if that’s everyone in the room we’ll go over to the people on Zoom next – you might like to switch to gallery view at this stage – just unmute yourselves when you are ready and speak out – and we should be able to hear you and see you up on the big screen here in the church.

(zoom candles)

And I’m going to light one more candle, as we often do, to represent all those joys and concerns that we hold in our hearts this day, but which we don’t feel able to speak out loud. (light candle)

Time of Prayer & Reflection: based on words by Jacob Trapp

Let’s take those joys and concerns into an extended time of prayer. This prayer is based, in part, on a Unitarian version of the Lord’s Prayer by Jacob Trapp. He still uses somewhat old-fashioned language but quite beautiful, I think. I’ve put the words in your order of service, and I’m going to ask Jeannene to put them in the chat on Zoom, in case you want to join in with speaking the prayer out loud. You might first want to adjust your position for comfort, close your eyes, or soften your gaze. There might be a posture that helps you feel more prayerful. Whatever works for you. Do whatever you need to do to get into the right state of body and mind for us to pray together – to be fully present here and now, in this sacred time and space – with ourselves, with each other, and with that which is both within us and beyond us. (pause)

Spirit of Life, God of All Love, in whom we live and move and have our being,

we turn our full attention to you, the light within and without,

as we tune in to the depths of this life, and the greater wisdom

to which – and through which – we are all intimately connected.

Be with us now as we allow ourselves to drop into the

silence and stillness at the very centre of our being. (pause)

And I invite you, if you wish, to join in with

the words printed on your order of service:

O Thou, whose kingdom is within,

may all thy names be hallowed.

May no one of them be turned against the others

to divide those who address thee.

May thy presence be made known to us in

mercy, beauty, love and justice.

May thy kingdom come to be in the life of all humankind.

May it come with peace, with sharing, and in a near time.

Give us this day our daily bread,

free from all envy and alienation,

broken and blessed in the sharing.

Keep us from trespass against others,

and from the feeling that others are trespassing against us.

Forgive us more than we have forgiven.

Deliver us from being tempted by lesser things

to be heedless of the one great thing:

the gift of thyself in us. (pause)

In a few quiet moments let us take some time to pray inwardly the prayers of our own hearts;

calling to mind all those souls we know to be suffering this day, whether close to home,

or in sites around the world where violence, injustice, and hardship are causing harm.

Let us pray for transformation as we hold all these sacred beings in the light of love. (pause)

Let us also pray for ourselves and our own private needs; we too are sacred beings who face our own daily struggles and opportunities, as we each muddle through life’s many ups and downs. So let us take a few moments to reflect on our own lives, and inwardly ask for what we most need this day – comfort, courage, or guidance, perhaps – to help us face the week to come. (pause)

And let us take just a little longer to remember the good things in life and give thanks for them. Those moments in the past week where we’ve encountered kindness, beauty, pleasure, or fun.Let us cultivate a spirit of gratitude as we recall all those moments that lifted our spirits. (pause)

Spirit of Life – God of all Love – as this time of prayer comes to a close, we offer up

our joys and concerns, our hopes and fears, our beauty and brokenness,

and we call on you for insight, healing, and renewal.

As we look forward now to the coming week,

help us to live well each day and be our best selves;

using our unique gifts in the service of love, justice and peace. Amen

Reading: from ‘Sleeping with Bread’ by Dennis, Sheila and Matthew Linn

I wanted to share this very short reading from a book titled ‘Sleeping with Bread’. The book is actually about the prayer practice known as the Examen – there’s much that can be said about this practice, and I’ll come back to it later, in passing – but one way they characterise it in the book is simply pausing at the end of each day, taking time to get spiritually centred, in touch with God’s presence, and spending five minutes asking ourselves two questions: For what am I most grateful? For what am I least grateful? But what I actually want to share is the origin of the title, ‘Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life’ (show the picture). This is what they write:

During the bombing raids of World War II, thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve. The fortunate ones were rescued and placed in refugee camps where they received food and good care. But many of these children who had lost so much could not sleep at night. They feared waking up to find themselves once again homeless and without food. Nothing seemed to reassure them. Finally, someone hit upon the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime. Holding their bread, these children could finally sleep in peace. All through the night the bread reminded them, “Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow.”

Hymn 271 (green): ‘Give Thanks for the Corn’

Our next hymn is number 271 – another traditional harvest hymn – ‘Give Thanks for the Corn’.

Give thanks for the corn and the wheat that are reaped,

For labour well done and the barns that are heaped.

For the sun and the dew and the sweet honeycomb,

For the rose and the song and the harvest brought home.

Give thanks for the commerce and wealth of our land,

For cunning and strength of the hard-working hand,

For the beauty our artists and poets have wrought,

For the hope and affection our friendships have brought.

Give thanks for the homes that with kindness are blessed,

For the seasons of plenty and well-deserved rest,

For our country extending from sea unto sea,

For the ways that have made it a land for the free.

Reading: ‘Our Daily Bread in a Culture of Excess’ by Joy-Elizabeth Lawrence (excerpts, adapted) (read by David B)

This piece is written by a Christian pastor – a pastor of Spiritual Formation – based in Illinois. It’s a long-ish reading in which Joy-Elizabeth Lawrence reflects on the meaning of the famous line ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ in the apparently comfortable suburban setting of her congregation.

When I went on pastoral calls with my dad as a little girl, I’d see the same picture in many homes: a white-bearded man praying over a loaf of bread, a bowl, and a very large Bible. A caption often accompanied it: “Give us this day our daily bread.” This petition from the Lord’s Prayer is deeply pastoral – in an older understanding of the word pastoral – bringing to mind scenes of grazing sheep near fields of wheat. This line resonates with people who grow and produce their own food, but not necessarily with those of us who live within a stone’s throw of five supermarkets.

Looking out at a well-dressed suburban congregation is certainly different from Jesus’ view of his disciples and the crowds when he first taught these words. Around 90 percent of Jesus’ listeners lived hand to mouth, while most of my congregation has high-end pantries full of food, and memberships at Costco. Today, almost 90 percent of the American population is food secure. Yet the direct reality of this petition is apparent for those among us who still experience hunger.

Jesus tangibly cares for the physical needs of hungry people. He feeds the five thousand. So though this text can be spiritualized—emphasizing our daily spiritual nourishment—there is also an essential earthy reality to this prayer: Our Father in heaven, provide for my daily needs! This message of physical provision must go hand in hand with any emphasis on spiritual needs because of our embodied reality of being human. God cares about our souls and our bodies.

When we pray “Give us this day our daily bread” we speak of us and our, not me and my. We’re praying with our brothers and sisters around the world. This isn’t just for me and my family; this is about the family of God; the family of humankind. And so we pray in concert with our brothers and sisters in the majority world where the luxuries of suburban life are distant and unimaginable. This petition can lead us to ask how we’re participating in God’s work by providing food for the hungry to meet the physical needs inside and outside the church.

We might also reflect on the difference between needs and wants. We trust God to provide for all our daily needs, not our desires. In a world that teaches us to confuse wants and needs, for the sake of marketing, this line of the prayer can lead us to the wisdom to know the difference.

Martin Luther summarized this petition in his shorter catechism, stating: ‘Daily bread is everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, field, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children, pious servants, pious and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honour, good friends, faithful neighbours, and the like.’ There is much on this list that we truly need and which we just can’t provide for ourselves. So as we pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” we’re interceding for the true daily needs of ourselves and our neighbours: clean air, water, food, shelter, sleep, love (relationships), and purpose. And we entrust all these needs to God.

Meditation: ‘Daily Bread’ by Malcolm Guite

Thanks David. We’re moving into a time of meditation now. To take us into a time of silence, I’m going to share a poem – a sonnet, in fact – title ‘Daily Bread’ by Malcolm Guite – which speaks of the very human efforts involved in doing God’s work and getting food from the fields to our plates. Then we’ll hold three minutes of silence which will end with the sound of a bell. Then we’ll hear some music for our continued reflection. Let’s do what we need to do to get comfortable – maybe adjust your position – put your feet flat on the floor to ground yourself – as we always say, the words are an offering, use this time to meditate in your own way.

‘Daily Bread’ by Malcolm Guite

Give us this day our daily bread we pray,

As though it came straight from the hand of God,

As though we held an empty plate each day,

And found it filled, by miracle, with food,

Although we know the ones who plough and sow,

Who pick and plant and package whilst we sleep

With slow backbreaking labour, row by row,

And send away to others all they reap,

We know that these unseen who meet our needs

Are all themselves the fingers of your hand,

As are the grain, the rain, the air, the land,

And, slighting these, we slight the hand that feeds.

What if we glimpsed you daily in their toil

And found and thanked and served you through them all?

Period of Silence and Stillness (~3 minutes) – end with a bell

Interlude: Salut d’amour – Edward Elgar (performed by Holly Redshaw and George Ireland)

Reflection: ‘Our Daily Bread’ by Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

Once a year – at least once a year – it’s important to stop and give thanks for the harvest – for everything it takes to get food onto our plates – for the earth, the weather, the pollinators, and many, many human hands – to till the soil, plant the seeds, to weed and water and prune, tend to livestock, to pick and pull up, package and process, transport the goods to market, and stock the supermarket shelves and ring up your basket on the till or at the market stall. It was hinted at in Malcolm Guite’s poem which we heard earlier for our meditation: yes, let’s thank God for the harvest, but let’s also remember that God didn’t just magic it onto our plate. A huge chain of people served as God’s hands along the way, bringing the harvest to our table, feeding us. Meeting our needs for sustenance, nourishment, and the sheer pleasure of eating well.

Harvest festivals take different forms around the world, and across the ages, but the need to give thanks for our food seems like an almost universal human tradition, and for good reason. To state the obvious: food is one of our most basic needs. And while many of us (in wealthier nations) seem to have kind-of taken it for granted that the shelves will always be fully laden, the security of our food supply here in the UK seems increasingly uncertain these days for a variety of reasons: climate change, geopolitical instability, the post-Brexit shortage of skilled workers, and ongoing disruption to supply chains, all these factors play their part.

You may have read in the news this week that this year’s harvest in England has been the second worst on record, largely because of very wet weather, after a few years of drought. For those of us who are city-dwellers, somewhat out of touch and alienated from the realities of agricultural production, it can be easy to forget how dependent we are on the elements, and how these forces of nature can still have a significant impact on our ability to feed ourselves. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) reported that this year England’s wheat haul is estimated to be 10m tonnes, or 21%, down on 2023; DEFRA reported that winter barley was 26% down, and the oilseed rape harvest was down by 32%. Tom Lancaster, a land, food and farming analyst at the ECIU, was quoted in the Guardian as saying: ‘This year’s harvest was a shocker, and climate change is to blame. While shoppers have been partly insulated by imports picking up some of the slack, Britain’s farmers have borne the brunt of the second worst harvest on record. It is clear that climate change is the biggest threat to UK food security.’

Which brings us to the famous words of prayer: ‘give us this day our daily bread.’ For those of us who are comfortably off, who take it for granted that we can pop to Asda, or Sainsbury’s, or even Waitrose if we’re feeling flush, it can be easy to reel off this line without much thought. But as we’re increasingly aware, we can’t take food security for granted, and our daily bread is not guaranteed. Indeed for many people – too many people – ‘give us this day our daily bread’ is a real plea from the heart (and the stomach). For many in our midst this is a real, live, question: Where is tomorrow’s food going to come from? People’s lives are precarious and it is a day to day scrabble for some of us to get such basic needs met. That’s why I wanted to share that image from ‘Sleeping with Bread’ – an image I find so powerful – these orphans of war holding a meagre ration of bread in their hands – for the comfort of knowing at least they will have something to eat tomorrow. But such food insecurity is a reality for so many people still.

Even in times when the harvest is good, supply chains are functioning well, and our supermarkets are well-stocked, we know that so many people don’t have the money to buy their wares. The number of people using food banks in the UK is still increasing, and this year approximately 3.12 million emergency food parcels were distributed by the Trussell Trust, which amounts to a 94% increase in food bank use over the last five years. We’re probably all too familiar with such statistics now but it’s important that we don’t become inured to them, or desensitised to this disgraceful state of affairs, such hardship which has largely come about due to political choices.

As Joy-Elizabeth Lawrence wrote, in the reading we heard from David earlier, it’s important to note that we pray ‘give US this day OUR daily bread’. That is, it’s ‘us and our’ not ‘me and my’ we’re praying for – our global family – part of the point of this prayer is to keep everybody’s needs in mind that and to remember not everybody is equally fortunate – we know that plenty of people’s access to daily bread is uncertain at best. So we’re praying for everyone’s need to be met, our own and our neighbours’, close to home and round the world. And perhaps the prayer might inspire us to do something practical or political to help address this poverty and hunger.

We prayed Jacob Trapp’s version of the Lord’s Prayer earlier but there are so many interesting renderings and retranslations that bring out different interpretations. One version of the line I like comes from Neil Douglas-Klotz’s ‘Prayers of the Cosmos’ – an intriguing project which takes both the Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes and considers how they might have originally been heard in the Aramaic language which Jesus would have spoken – and then translates freely, poetically, in a way that brings out layers of meaning which the familiar translations perhaps lack. In this project the line is rendered slightly differently as ‘grant us what we need each day in bread and insight’. This opens up interpretation of the line as being about something more than just literal food.

Now, it’s crucial that we don’t entirely jettison the literal meaning of the line – that we don’t excessively spiritualise its meaning – people need to eat – that’s still the primary message (one which would have been even more of a front-and-centre reality for most of Jesus’s listeners). But food is not our only need – and to paraphrase Jesus again – ‘we do not live by bread alone’. It makes me think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. What I’m about to say is a simplification of his model, and indeed I’m also going to gloss over much critique and variations on the model that have been proposed in recent years, but to put it in simple terms: Abraham Maslow’s famous notion was that there’s a hierarchy of needs – basic physiological needs (for food, water, air, warmth, shelter, and rest) plus needs for safety, stability, and security – these basic needs must be met first, these are the priority, and meeting these needs is the bare minimum required simply in order for us to survive. Once these basic needs are met we can progress to consider psychological needs (for friendship, intimacy, love, acceptance, and belonging), and esteem needs (for self-respect and the respect of others, based on competence, confidence, and achievement), and taking it further still Maslow speaks of the human need for self-actualization and transcendence. I think these days the consensus might be that it’s not like an escalator or a video game, where you tick off each level, and progress to the next level throughout the course of life! Indeed when we’re temporarily short of some of the ‘basic’ needs it may be that some of the so-called ‘higher’ needs – psychological and spiritual goods – help us to cope, to hang on, through times of struggle, suffering, and material deprivation. But at the same time I don’t think it’s too controversial to say that it’s harder to focus on self-actualization and transcendence when you’re hungry, cold, or exhausted. So for all its flaws it’s still a useful way to think about needs.

And for me there are echoes of Martin Luther’s long list of needs which we heard earlier and which began: ‘Daily bread is everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body…’ and then goes on to mention not just basic needs like food, drink, housing and money as part of ‘our daily bread’ but also things like good friends, faithful neighbours, good government, and peace. Joy-Elizabeth Lawrence summarises: ‘there is much on this list that we truly need and which we just can’t provide for ourselves. So as we pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” we’re interceding for the true daily needs of ourselves and our neighbours: clean air, water, food, shelter, sleep, love (relationships), and purpose. And we entrust all these needs to God.’

As I hinted at the start of this mini-reflection – there’s something to be said for making harvest thanksgiving (in the broadest sense) a practice that we participate in more than once a year – each month, or each week, or each day, we might prayerfully pause to take stock and give thanks for the many ways in which our needs have been met. And more than that, to reflect on the part we might have played in meeting others’ needs, the impact we might have had on those whose lives we touch, in the interdependent network of mutuality of which we are part. In the book, ‘Sleeping with Bread’, the authors advocate the practice of praying the Examen at the end of each day in this spirit – asking ‘for what am I most grateful?’ and ‘for what am I least grateful?’ – it’s a gratitude practice, but it’s more than that, as it requires us to pay attention to our life as it unfolds, noticing and taking in the good, noticing and facing up to the bad. Those of you who are regulars at Heart and Soul will know we do something similar each week in our Naming and Knowing prayers.

So (if this isn’t already your habit), I encourage you to experiment with this practice tonight, and in the days to come. Take a quiet moment on your way to bed to look back and reflect on its harvest. Ask yourself: what were you granted in bread and insight today? And give thanks for all that’s good.

Responsive Prayer of Harvest Thanksgiving:

In that spirit, to draw this time of reflection to a close, I invite you now to join in a responsive prayer of harvest thanksgiving. I haven’t printed out all the words for you but there is a simple refrain, which is printed in your order of service (and perhaps Jeannene can put it in the chat box for those of you joining via Zoom): ‘Spirit of Life, God of All Love, we give thanks for life’s blessings’.

Let us give thanks, this harvest-time,

for all the colours and forms of creation

that populate this precious earth,

and for our place within it;