Re-View: Harvest
Today we celebrate Today we celebrate Harvest! The Festival always has two sides to it.
The upside is the material and spiritual blessing we enjoy here in the developed world. Even in a so-called age of austerity, caused by credit crunch belt-tightening, our barns, like our shops, are full. Most of us still have jobs or the prospect of employment, although we must support and pray for those who don’t. We’re awesomely blessed! I’m not aware of many people cutting back on buying a new CD or download, a visit to the cinema, or a pleasant meal out. Let’s face it we are loaded (relatively)! And thank God for that. No guilt should attach to our plenty or our enjoyment of the good things of God’s creation.
The downside is that there are still too many people in the Developing World who have no access to clean water, free primary education or health care. That should matter to us. We cannot look the other way avoiding responsibility for our neighbours and a fairer world. That’s what biblical prophets like Amos and Micah tell us in no uncertain terms.
Micah Challenge (go to micahchallenge.org.uk for more) is a broadly Christian response to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals which were reviewed in New York last week. And they make us ask; “What are we doing to help?”
Highfields is committed to local and international compassion projects such as our work with the Homeless in the City Centre and in Prisons, our partnership with Mission Programmes like STORM in Africa, and through our Mission Partners, micro enterprise projects like pig farming in the Philippines, or HIV/Aids work in France.
“What does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6: 8
