HOLY POTATO

This is Harvest Festival according to the humble potato...

Pass round a bag of crisps and ask people to share them.

Harvest is a time of sharing... it’s when we say thank you to God for all the good things which come our way, and we offer produce to God by offering it to one another...

I know this is a strange and slow connection, but Harvest reminds us that other people are made in the image of God - when we give our produce to others we are giving it to others made in the image of God. And this is the great thing about the SeaView project - those who are at the bottom of the social heap are also made in the image of God, just as we are, so by helping to support them we are giving to God.

Anyway, how are those crisps doing? I have two thoughts here, depending on what happens...

SERMON A: where the crisps run out in row two

SERMON B: where everybody in church gets a fraction of a crisp

In the first instance it’s a practical reminder that things are unequally distributed in our world: however badly done by we may think we are, we still have a huge amount more than a lot of people in our society and certainly than the majority of people in this world. Things aren’t fair, and as well as pressuring governments and leaning on capitalist systems to press for a fairer distribution, Harvest is a practical time when we GIVE to lead the way.

In the second instance it’s a suggestion that we can share and we can exercise some self restraint so that others can have something, because it costs us to share. It costs us in financial terms, but it costs us in terms of outlook too: we are forced to look up and consider others, and that can be profoundly disturbing and upsetting when we realise the situation they’re in.

The second potato-related thought I’d like to offer you is about your lunch today. As you know we’re having a shared lunch after church today - you’re all brought topping and exciting deserts and stuff, and because my oven is the nearest to church I have done the baked potatoes. Yesterday I popped down to the King’s Road to the Greengrocer there to buy 60 enormous baking potatoes.

The place has recently changed hands and as I went in I was immediately regaled with “Uh oh - here comes Trouble...” (the standard greeting between priest and greengrocer I’ve discovered). There were already a few people in the shop as two of us manhandled 60 spuds from a large paper sack-bag and onto the scales then unto my recyclable Jute bag (see how eco friendly St Johns’ is? No plastic was used in your baked potatoes!); and when we were all done and the lady was totting up the price the guy behind me stepped in and said “I’d like to pay for those potatoes please... I don’t get to go to church very often, and I’d like to do my bit...” So your lunch today was purchased by a complete stranger; by a stranger who doesn’t get to come to church very often; by a stranger who doesn't get to come to St John’s church at all, who just happens to shop om the Kings Road!

So there’s your perfect Harvest illustration: our mystery benefactor wanted to be involved and help out those he’d never met; he knew nothing about us except that we in someway represented God, and he wanted to bless us because God had blessed him!

And isn’t that us and the SeaView Project? the things we’ve brought today to offer to God in thanksgiving are going to a fantastic project in our parish who work with the homeless and badly housed; those at the bottom of the heap. People we don’t know: people we may not even like, or approve of if we did meet them; people we know next to nothing about; but people who represent God because - like us- they are made in God’s image and infinitely precious to him; and we want to bless them because God has blessed us!

All people are made in the image of God - those we like, those we disapprove of, those who wind us up and make our blood boil... and Harvest is a great time for remembering that: for celebrating all that we have which comes from God; and for giving back to God by giving to others - BUT even as we’re doing that God’s prevenient grace [grace which goes before us - grace which surprises us by preparing for us] is there, going before us, and another human being, made in the image of God and equally precious in God’s sight, has shown us the love of God in action!

So as you’re tucking into your spuds after mass, ponder the profound thought that they are sacramental potatoes! - because they are concrete symbols of God’s prevenient Grace! (Well, I hope they’re not THAT concrete...)
 

Fr. Andrew Perry

Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea