DRAUGHTON HARVEST FESTIVAL, 23 SEPTEMBER 2000
COLD ASHBY 6 OCTOBER 2002
As a layman, I find that it’s more difficult to say something at a Harvest Festival than it is on, say, on one of the Sundays in Lent.  This is because almost everyone who goes to Church has had experience of a Harvest Festival Service and knows the form. Certain thoughts are expected, certain sentiments expressed, favourite hymns sung.   There is not very much new to say about a festival that has been held throughout this country, and here in Cold Ashby, every year for hundreds of years
But this lack of confidence on my part, and a hankering after something new to say, may mean that I am falling victim to the fashion for innovation that seems to be so characteristic of the age in which we live. Almost every week initiatives are announced by our elected representatives.  I heard on the radio this morning that at their annual conference due to start to-morrow, the Conservatives are poised to announce no less than 25 policy initiatives. And those who oppose them politically propose alternative initiatives.  The idea that Parliament, for example, should pass fewer laws seems impossible to contemplate.  
And outside Parliament everyone, commentators all, seems to have opinions and demands for action. “It ought to be banned”.  “Why don’t they do something about it?”  “Direct action is what we need”.   As George Burns said: “Too bad the people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs”. 
So call me one of the Forces of Conservatism if you like. Am I getting to look like Victor Meldrew?  There are lots of things I find hard to believe these days: and I do hanker after a little stability.   Which is where the harvest festival comes in. For like all the great occasions of our Christian year it gives us the opportunity to pause and to think a few basic thoughts about our lives and our place in God’s creation.  Less time in locomotion and more in thought, as I think Bertrand Russell put it. 
In the Gospel of St. Luke Jesus is recorded as telling his disciples about the rich farmer who did so well that he got greedy.  He pulled down his barns and built bigger ones. Then he sat back and said to himself that he had done enough and all he wanted was to eat drink and be merry. He did not do anything for his neighbours who were less well off.  
Well, all his wealth did him no good for he died that night. 
Many of us, farmers or not, reap a harvest of some kind from our efforts. The message of a Harvest Festival for me is that the fruit and vegetables that decorate our church are symbols of the riches we draw from God’s creation year in year out. We need, however, to be wary of building ever bigger barns or bank accounts and give back to others who, for whatever reason, have not been able to share in the fruits of the harvest.  Here in our own country we have along way to go before we build the Promised Land. 
And among those who are most in need of our prayers and help are the farmers themselves, the people who feed us. At Harvest Festival our thoughts go out to those who are finding it so hard to making a living on the land, whether as a result of the BSE crisis, Foot & Mouth  or more recently because of the collapse of agricultural prices generally. The effects have been traumatic for many farmers and were brought home personally to me by the sight of a school friend being interviewed on television after he had sold his pedigree heard of cattle at Penrith Market because he could no longer keep going. 
So one of my resolutions at this Harvest Festival is, as a non-farmer, to count my blessings more, whinge rather less and try to do more to help those less fortunate than myself.   And I will try to give thanks to God for those blessings every day, not just on those great festival days or even just in church.  
[ Insert here Diary of a Church Mouse]
“For human beings only do
 What their religion tells them to” 
I think we might all learn a something from the Diary of a Church Mouse and perhaps do rather more of what God wants us to do, not least in sharing the fruits of his harvest with others.   
