Harvest is turning into a a place of lament this year for some reason. Without forgetting to offer thankfulness, that thankfulness is conditional surely. Indeed it ought to be utter humility rather than thankfulness for the west. How can God's People, who have signed up to justice and the integrity of gospel values, ever give thanks for 'the harvest safely gathered in' when that is the last thing it is for the majority of God's People in Palestine and Vietnam and Niger and Pakistan.
We can't say thanks for the crops we eat grown in fields of the poor while our own lie fallow and pay lip-service to justice. Harvest ought to be a national moment of reflection. All those traditional hymns we have were written in an age of Empire where those who grew our food weren't worth much to those who owned them and ruled them and enslaved them. I don't want to sing hymns like as if they have anything to do with God's Realm.
Recent Comments