The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it (Psalm 24:1)

The first house I remember living in was 9 Cadham Crescent in Glenrothes. We moved to 63 Rollason Road in Coventry when a I was a small boy. I was driving through Glenrothes a few years back on my way to St Andrews when I realised that the stretch of road I was on was familiar and on a whim I turned off onto a side road and there was Cadham Crescent. There was our old house, much as I remembered it. There were other people living in it. A few years previously I’d driven down Rollason Road and passed our old house. There were other people living in it. That’s the way it is with houses. You live in them for a time and then new people take possession. There is a sense in which, even if you own your own home, you are a tenant in it.

In the same way we are all tenants in this world. We spend our lives, our days, here before passing on and, through he love of God in Jesus Christ, entering into eternal life with him. We pass on the world we live in to the people who follow us - to succeeding generations. This world is not ours to own. The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. He just lends it to us during our lives.

More than that, though, he provides for all our needs. We are gathered here this morning to thank God for the blessings of the harvest - for the food that we eat. At the same time he meets our other basic needs for warmth and water, for shelter. Sure, we might understand how seeds germinate and how better to husband livestock, but the natural processes by which these things happen are the outworking of the laws of nature that God built into the universe he created. Sure, we might understand how water gets around - evaporation, condensation and all that. We may be able to irrigate land to grow more abundant crops, but again, these processes spring from the laws of nature that God created. Sure, we may have to build the homes that people live in, but the human creativity  and curiosity that have driven us to design dwellings and to discover new materials are gifts from the God who made us in his image.

So let us thank God for the harvest! Let us rejoice that, in this country at least, people don’t generally starve. Though we should, perhaps, wonder why there is a need for foodbanks in a world where God’s gift of the harvest yields enough food for everyone and more. Let us thank God for the harvest! Let us rejoice that we have homes to live in. Though we should, perhaps, wonder why there are people sleeping rough in a world where which God has made with enough stone and wood and metal to cover everyone’s head several times over. Let us thank God for the harvest! Let us rejoice in the simple blessing of a warm room on a cold night. Though perhaps we should wonder why there are people shuddering with cold in a country which has energy resources coming out of its ears.

Perhaps it has something to do with our society forgetting the words of the psalmist. The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. Without that idea it’s easy to think of everything in this world as nothing more than a commodity to be bought and sold, to be owned and exploited. Without that idea  it’s easy to see the production of food, the building of houses or the generation of energy as nothing more than ways of making money, rather than being the means by which the blessings of God’s harvest ensure that the basic needs of God’s children are met.

Perhaps society has lost track of what we are meant to be in this world. We are here to tend God’s farm - to do God’s work in the world. We are here as descendants of Adam - here as labourers in God’s field, playing our part in looking after little part of God’s creation to ensure that the blessings of the harvest are available for all.

Perhaps society has forgotten that we are tenant farmers - that the Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. Perhaps we have become like the tenants in the vineyard in Christ’s parable who came to see themselves as its owners. And where has that led us. It has led us to destroy huge swathes of the world’s forests and to pollute its oceans. It has led us depopulate the countryside and to punch holes in the ozone layer and melt the polar ice-caps as if the world were ours to trash if we please and without thought for the generations who will come after us and dwell in this world as new families dwell in old houses.

There are those who point to a line in Genesis Chapter 1 about God telling newly-created Man to subdue the Earth and say that that’s what’s at the root of the way we have pillages the planet. That’s poppycock. This process began with the movement folk call the Enlightenment. It began when people reduced the world from being God’s creation to being nothing more than a machine to produce the resources we want and to supply the minerals and precious metals crave. When the harvest ceased to be a blessing from God and merely the result of crop rotation and careful husbandry.

This world is God’s creation. This world is God’s farm. This world is God’s garden. It is not ours to despoil and destroy. We are merely tenant farmers - here for a while to tend God’s fields and to labour in his garden. To do what? To make sure that all God’s children know the blessings that God pours out on humanity. To see to it, as far as possible, that everyone gets enough to eat. To see to it, as far as we can, that everyone has a roof over their heads. To see to it, as far as we can, that everyone stays warm when he nights grow cold.

So let us thank God for the harvest! Let us thank God for all the blessings and gifts we have at his hands. Not just for the fact that we have them, but for the opportunity God gives us through them to do his work in the world - to share those gifts with all God’s children. To look after one another as God looks after us. To care for one another as God cares for us. To love one another as God loves us. 

We are, all of us, tenant farmers in this world, for the Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. We are here for a time and then we pass it on to those who follow us. We, all of us, have the chance while we are here to wreck the place - to make it a harsher, colder, more uncaring, more brutal and unjust place. We also have the chance to be labourers in God’s Garden and workers in God’s field, to bring in a harvest of kindness, generosity, compassion, care and love that make this world we hand on a brighter, more just, more beautiful place. 

The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. While we are here in this world let us give thanks for the harvest, and for all the blessings we have at the hands of God. Let us share them with all God’s children for, ultimately, we are all tenant farmers and will, one day, have to hand on all that we have. Let’s make that a world that is a good place to live.

Lord teach us to work with you in bringing in harvest of love, peace and justice. In thanking you for all your blessings may we share those blessings with one another

Preached at Gretna:St. Andrews Parish church