“Harvest of kindness”

 HARVEST/CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY
Readings:  Jeremiah 23:1-6, Colossians 1:11-20, Matthew 5:43-48, Psalm 8:1-9
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, on November 20, 2022

“What are human beings that You are mindful of them, mortals that You care for them?
Yet You have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.”
(Psalm 8:4-5 NRS)

On this Harvest Sunday my thoughts were directed to this text from the Book of Psalms. It talks about many things, God’s care for us and our world and our responsibility to care for each other. Most of all it suggested to me the importance of kindness, a reoccurring theme in the Old Testament. Today I would like to offer you three thoughts.

1.    Be kind to yourself and reap a harvest of contentedness
2.    Be kind to each other and reap a harvest of community
3.    Be kind to the earth and you will be rewarded with abundance.

Be kind to yourself and reap a harvest of contentedness

How we see ourselves is directly related to the contentment we find in our lives. Contentment is not dependent on how life treats us, but how we treat the things life brings our way. Some days it brings sunshine, some days it brings the storm, sometimes much is given, sometimes much is taken away. And while to a certain extent we have control over our destinies, that control is never absolute.

I grew up listening to song by a group called Fairport Convention, who on their 1973 album titled simply “Nine” had a tune with the chorus, “Pleasure and pain is like a profit and gain, Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, Be kind to yourself when you’re tired of yourself, Don’t go mixing the reds along with the blues.” For sure, life offers us a mixed palette of experience!

Yet for a Christian person contentment comes not so much from who we think we are, but from whom God’s Word says that we are. The scriptures talk about mindfulness. Not the sort of mindfulness that we are encouraged to practice by health professionals but knowing that God has us always in mind.

“What are human beings” asks the Psalmist, “That You (God) are mindful of them? “The verse continues “Mortals that You care for them?” This thought that God cares for all of us and has things in mind for all of us, can be a tremendously empowering thought if we embrace it with our lives! We are somebody, not because of what we have achieved in life, or because of who are family may be, or the car we drive or the place we live, our value is tied up with the fact that God, has us, in mind.

In the church calendar today is Christ the King Sunday. If Christ is King, and we are sisters and brothers in Christ, then through faith in the King, that makes us royalty. Verse 5 enforces this fanciful idea “You have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.” Only royalty get to wear crowns.

One royal follower of Jesus, the apostle Paul writes to the church in Phillipi “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret … I can do all things through Him who strengthens me”. (Philippians 4:11-13 NRS)

God has things in mind for our lives. God knows what we are going through. God wants to help. In Christ we are sisters and brothers of the Servant King who gave His life that nothing can separate us from God’s love. Jesus Christ is the source of Christian contentment. Seeing our lives through God’s eyes, can be our source of peace. So, I say, be kind to yourself, focus on Christ and reap a harvest of contentedness. But this royalty thing? Don’t let it go to your head…

Be kind to each other and reap a harvest of community

Before her passing in September this year the Queen of England celebrated 70 years on throne. She proved herself to be a lady of Christian faith and her life was defined by the sense of duty that she felt her high office had called her to. Over the centuries before (and continuing during) her rule she saw the once vast British empire, that it was claimed covered a quarter of the world’s inhabitants, crumble and shrink.

Yet during her reign she has managed to create, from the ashes of that experience, a ‘Commonwealth’ of nations who have come together, not out of coercion, but by choice. Some of whom had rejected all ties of empire, some who were never a part of it.

Isn’t that what a Christian community is supposed to be? A place we share our ‘common-wealth’? A place we bring our gifts of time, talent and treasure and become mutually enriched? We read in the Book of Acts what happened right after Pentecost was that the believers gathered, shared together, brought who they were and what they could offer to the table.

But for a community to grow, it takes kindness. Looking to each other’s interests as much as to our own. Even as Paul suggests, in humility counting others as better than ourselves. And the church is a peculiar kind of community, because we don’t get to choose who is a part of it. At least, that is how Scripture tells us it should be. The church is a community God has called together, so they can demonstrate to the world what living together in Jesus name can look like.

Not so sure we do such a good job of that! The fact that there are more denominations and splinter groups and groups who claim to be independent form the rest of the Christian church because only they have the truth… isn’t exactly testimony to the notion ‘See how these Christians love one another.' But that does not mean we should give up trying to do those things that God calls us to!

Sowing seeds of kindness towards each other can still reap a harvest of community. And the stronger our community of faith becomes, then the further we can be enabled to reach out to the community around us with the gospel message.

We have a mission. And that mission focuses on the ability of Jesus Christ to turn people’s lives around. I fear we often forget that He is the center, not this program or that initiative, but we are called to proclaim Christ, and Him crucified, and risen from the grave and in the power of His Holy Spirit able to bring about radical change to a person’s life.

A football coach ensures their team take time to gather. They may even huddle up in the changing room, to psyche each other up. ‘Go Team!” But they are never going to win a single game unless they put all they have onto the field of play. We can huddle up and pray in our church services, but we also need to get out into the field of the world and sow those seeds of kindness if any kind of harvest is going to be seen.      

Be kind to yourself and reap a harvest of contentedness.
Be kind to each other and reap a harvest of community.

Be kind to the earth and you will be rewarded with abundance

We have signs of God’s abundance all around us today.  In Scripture Adam and Eve’s first job is as gardeners caring for Creation. Their misuse of their freedom made that task a harder task to deal with than they had ever imagined. We should learn from that. Care of Creation has been our stewardship mandate since time began.

The Old Testament laws are full of provisions that suggest the land, as well the people, needed time for Sabbath, for rest, recuperation, and renewal. Sadly, in our greed, we somehow gloss over those passages. It’s not complicated. Be kind to the earth and we will be rewarded with abundance Abuse the resources at hand and we will be in trouble. Just like happened in the first garden of Eden.

And this text “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them” takes us right back to the original Creation. It is just as well I had nothing to do with the creation story because my reaction would have been to see that humanity went as extinct as the dinosaur’s way before the present day.

The damage we do to our planet, to each other, to the creatures we share the planet with. Our warring madness, our inability to see each other as people of infinite value, our greed, our mindless schemes, our  abuse and neglect of things we should cherish. Our prejudice and violence and inability to simply get along. What a mess.

How do we take steps to change all of that? Through kindness. Through doing the little things that make a big difference. Through being mindful that we can make a difference if we keep sowing positive seeds of acceptance, peace and most of all love. There can only be a harvest of kindness if we keep sowing seeds of kindness. As the graphic at the top of the page suggests: “Plant Kindness, Harvest Love.”

So today, I sow these three seed thoughts into your lives and I pray, as I pray every time I am given the privilege of occupying a pulpit, there will be some sort of harvest as a result.

•    Be kind to yourself and reap a harvest of contentedness.
•    Be kind to each other and reap a harvest of community.
•    Be kind to the earth and you will be rewarded with abundance.

Psalm 8:4-5  “What are human beings that You are mindful of them, mortals that You care for them?
Yet You have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.”

To God Be All Glory!
AMEN