Last weekend Therfield Chapel had its annual Harvest Festival service. Our Pastor Joshua Jones was preaching and it fell to me to lead the service and prayer time. As I sat at home considering appropriate prayers for inclusion at a harvest service it occurred to me that there are many harvests in our world, and not just ones of food, as important as these are. I touched on some of these 'other harvests' in my prayer time & now I would like to think further about this in my blog.
It is important to remember that a harvest is when we reap what we have earlier sown, and only a cursory glance at the world around us tells us that what we are reaping today is far from all good. Seed is not always good and in my view our world is reaping the harvest of sowing much bad seed down the years. I have chosen only a few bad seed to look at, not because these are the only ones, but because this is a blog and not a book.
The seeds of pride and power I will take together. According to the bible pride is the original sin and indeed this is at the heart of all the bad seed sown. Pride and the wanting of power is at the heart of all dictatorships & warlords that blight so many countries today. They cause so much poverty that is completely needless. Somalia, Libya and Syria are examples of just three of these nations.
Our country is not immune of course. We may not have open warfare between pride filled, and power hungry groups, but pride is at the heart of much in our country. Do our politicians always do what they believe to be the best for the nation, or the best for their party and hence themselves? Do our business leaders really care at all for their customers, or is it all about the bottom line? And us, as individuals, do we really care for those around us? Are we willing to build them up even at our expense?
This brings me onto the next bad seed and that is 'I'. I don't just mean myself of course, but the cult of individualism that has taken over our nation. I am reminded of the run up to the last election where I lost count of candidates telling us to vote for selfish reasons, for the party that will give 'us' the most (them). It was all party ideology and no time for proper cross party discussion as to what our country really needed. I am not being naïve as I didn't expect this, not with our current worldview.
The philosophy of our age is to be concerned with the individual, be selfish. We are to be inward looking, concerned with only things that effect us, our friends, and immediate family.
The next seed is, believe it or not, freedom. I foresee a few raised eyebrows at my inclusion of this. Is not freedom a good thing, what people have fought for and laid there lives down for. Of course freedom can be a good thing, a very good thing, but we must look a little closer at what we mean by freedom.
My bible teaches me that we were never created to be little gods. The true creator God never meant us to have absolute power over our lives, even if this is actually possible. We were never meant to be inward looking, concerned only with things that effect us, but to be outward looking. The bible teaches us that Christians are part of the body of Christ. This is a picture showing believers as parts of the body, but with Christ as our head, our leader.
As parts of the body of Christ Christians should let the head rule, just as it does in a real body. This means we voluntarily give up some of our freedom to Christ, and accept Him as the ultimate power in our lives. Our nations worldview encourages us to be masters of our own fate. Christianity says this is not possible (the subject of another blog perhaps), and true freedom comes with a lessening of the 'I' and an increase of Christ in our lives. It is actually a fallacy that we can be completely free. As someone once wrote 'No man is an island', and indeed as soon as we acknowledge another person then there has to be compromise.
The results of these and other harvests of the world are found in the UK as a nation that no longer has any true basis for its values. Hence just about any belief system, or philosophical view is allowed. Absolute truth went out when our nation ceased to truly follow Christ. With no absolute truth our countries worldview tells
us to be wary of anyone with claims of truth. In fact it is very intolerant of any faith/view that disagrees with its interpretation of tolerance. Irony abounds.
In such a world the next casualties are free speech and the freedom to proclaim your faith to any who would listen. The later will only concern some, but the former should worry everyone.
If you are happy with the harvests of the world then fine. I believe that Christianity supports freedom of speech as our Lord never forces Himself into the lives of anyone, and hence you have a right to your views, even if I disagree with them. However if you think that there must be a better way then I urge you to consider Christianity. You might find it a little more radical than you thought, but millions of people down the years would testify to its ability, (or more accurately Christ's ability) to change lives.
