“And they all lived happily ever after” - that’s how we expect a story to end. But that is how our reading from Joel begins - “And they all lived happily ever after”
“ O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice inthe LORD your God for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you the abundant rain, the early and later rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.”
“And they all lived happily ever after”
But boy did the children of Israel need to hear those words. They had been through some “tough sh... no I won’t use that word in church - They had been through through some tough sh..shenanigans.
You know here we are celebrating Harvest festival, and it is hard for us to celebrate it properly. We can say thank you to God and have a great time. But how many of us have ever truly been hungry? For us, if we plant some tomatoes in the garden and the bugs get it and we don’t end up with any tomatoes, we go “Ahh, that’s a shame” and we pop off down to Sainsburys to buy some together with carrots, asparagus, beef, chocolate and a bottle of wine to drown our sorrows. But imagine if if your tomatoes don’t grow, you have got nothing else to eat. You go hungry. Imagine if you have been quite hungry for months, eating hardly anything. And then the crop arrives and you can eat properly. Imagine the saliva in your mouth as you celebrate harvest festival knowing that today .. you eat.
The children of Israel had been through tough shshshshsh.. shenanigans. The book of Joel begins with a description of a plague of locusts. Commentators aren’t sure whether this is a metaphor for the locusts of foreign armies who have laid waste to Israel, or to an actual natural disaster. But enough to say that the people have hit rock bottom. Finally they turn to God, and God who has been waiting all along to help, pours out blessing upon them.
“And they all lived happily ever after”
“I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter.. you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord.”
Imagine how it is when everything has gone so terribly wrong in your life and you turn to God and he suddenly brings it all right.
Look at the contrast between our two readings.
In our first reading we have a people who have got desperate. They turn to God and experience his mercy and his blessings.
In the Gospel we have someone who’s very self satisfied. “Haven’t I done well. Aren’t I rich. Look at my big barns. Ooh - they’re full. I’ll tear them down and build bigger ones.” He’s totally self satisifed, totally self confident, totally self reliant. And then he discovers that there are things that he can’t rely on himself for - he can’t stop himself dying that night.
A foreign observer once said “the English are a nation of self-made men who worship their creator”. Is that what we are? Are we more likely to worship ourselves than to worship God, to rely on ourselves than to rely on God?
You know, even as a church we can do that. For my first few years here, we in leadership said “I’m not sure we can do that” “we’d better keep that money for a rainy day.” We didn’t take risks. We didn’t trust God. Then the rainy day happened. The ceiling fell down. We turned to people for grants and they said “Oh no, you’ve got too much money saved for a rainy day, no grants for you.” And all the money that you had generously given over the years went (click fingers) like that because like the man in the Gospel, we had built bigger barns, rather than trusting God and taking risks.
Sometimes it’s only when things go wrong that they can start to go right.
It’s Manchester in the 1950s - three young boys called Barry, maurice and Robin get a pocket money job. During the intermission at the cinema they going to entertain the audience by miming a record. Its a fun novelty act. But on the way on the way to the cinema, the record fell and snapped. Disaster, what could they do? They didn’t give up . Instead of miming - in depseration they sang live for first time. They were an instant hit with audience. That was how the bee-jees began their musical career. Now if you don’t like the beejees, you might wish that record hadn’t snapped. But it was certainly something going wrong that made made things start to go right and put them onto the path of fame and riches
Helen Keller, the girl famous for being deaf and blind yet learning to talk said “When one door closes, another opens, but we often look so regretfully at the closed door that we don’t see the one that has opened for us”
It is never good when people hit rock bottom, but sometimes God has to bring us to rock bottom before we will let him take us somewhere better. That’s what happened to the Children of Israel in the book of Joel. It was only after the plague of locusts that they stopped trying to rely on themselves and and looked to God to replace their pain with Gain.
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Sometimes God has to bring us to rock bottom. We know that’s true of a drug addict or an alcohlic. if you know anyone who is an addict, you’ll know this is true. You can be with them for years and you feel helpless. Nothing you can say to them can make them change. Everything you try to do to help them is just a sticking plaster. You know that life could be so much better for them, and they won’t accept it. It is only when they hit a point of real crisis - rock bottom - where they can go no further, that they realise they need help, And then God can replace their pain with Gain - then he can restore the years that the locusts have eaten.
So- we agree: its true of the drug addict. And I would add it’s true of you and me as well. We get addicted to our comfortable little lives. God has so much more in store for us. We say “i know things could be better, but I don’t want to risk what I’ve got”. So we settle for second best. Sometimes God has to bring us to rock bottom send in the locusts. And then he can restore us and give us the harvest of something even better. Replace our years of pain with a future of gain.
And remember, nothing is ever wasted - the God who walks around with the scars of the cross on his hands and feet can replace your years of pain with a harvest of gain.
Two stories, one secular, one Christian.
In 1930 Harland Sanders opened a service station with a cafe in it. His food was popular with the locals and indeed got some good reviews from passing restaurant critics. he was comfortable but not well off. Then 25 years later, when he was 65. The government built a new interstate (motorway). Nobody used the road he was on. Overnight customers stopped coming, and his business collapsed and he was penniless. he was 65 years old and at an age when most people would retire, and he was penniless. So he set out and went visiting other cafes offering them his chicken recipe. And they lapped Colonel Sanders’ recipee - and that was how Kentucky Fried Chicken, KFC was born. He ended his life as a millionaire - why only because at 65 he went bankrupt and his business crashed. he had to reach rock bottom before he could rise to the top.
and the other
Ignatius was a knight in 16th century spain, handsome, a lover of the ladies - he was going to become the greatest knight in Europe. Well would he have? I doubt it. I doubt anyone would ever have heard of him. But in the very first battle he went to fight in, the siege of Pamplona in 1521, a canon smashed his leg. The wound became infected and they thought he was going to die.
he was taken to stay with relatives to recuperate. at first he felt suicidal. he would be nothing more than a cripple. he had nothing to do but to read and there were only two books - one a book of romances the other lives of the saints. As he read the romances he felt excited, but when he stopped he felt empty inside. When he read the lives of the saints - he was surprised to find himself equally engaged - but even more, when he stopped he felt full inside. he realised God was speaking to him, gave his life to Jesus - and formed a missiionary order of monks - the Society of Jesus or Jesuits. While other Christians were busy fighting each other within his lifetime his order took the gospel to Japan, India, and even China. Today thousands of Jesuits serve throughout the world - and millions of people are Christians because of their preaching. And all because of one young knight who had such high dreams, but career ended in tragedy when a canon ball smashed his leg.
I don’t know whether God wants you to found the next Kentucky fried chicken or the next jesuit order. I don’t know whether he wants to do it when you are a young man like Ignatius or an old man like Colonel Sanders. But I know we can be addicted to what is comfortable and mediocre and that God wants better things for us.
Whatever is broken in our life, God can use that to bring blessings to us -“I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter.. you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord.”
In Harvest we give thanks for the food on our table, but we need to do it with the attitude of people who have been hungry, and finally here is the crop they can eat. We need to recognise our dependence on God, and then whatever is broken in our lives, God can take that brokenness and turn our pain into blessings and gain.I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter.. you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord.”
[stories about Harland Sanders and the Beejees taken from the book "The Flipside" by Adam J Jackson]
