As we celebrated Harvest, Sera R spoke of how our Holy Habits help us to look up, express hope, recalibrate relationships and declare how much God matters to us. Deuteronomy 26:1-11 was the passage we explored together. 

Introduction: Showing that Someone Matters

How have you recently shown someone that they matter to you?  Maybe you turned up for a party, given a gift, sent a message. Yesterday, I went to a friends house, where they were celebrating her parents 65 wedding anniversary. A few family members had gathered, while I sat at the table with them. And sitting there, we used the liturgy of the church to renew their wedding vows. In the words and in the actions the couple and their friends and family were saying ‘you matter’

Another question: in times of change and times of crisis, how good are you at showing people that they matter to you? It's not as easy is it when life gets wobbly or demanding. It's easier to let things slip a bit as you move to survival mode and you put your energies elsewhere.

A final question for now: how do you show God that he matters to you? In ordinary times and in crisis times, how do you express what the ultimate relationship in your life means to you? 

Holy Habits for a New Chapter

I ask these questions because in today’s Harvest Bible reading, a leader (Moses) is offering guidance to those he leads (the Children of Israel) at a time of transition (preparing to leave the wilderness and daily diet of manna and quail to settle and build a life in a fertile land) to a place where they will have the responsibility to farm, grow, feed, trade and do all the things they’ve not done for a very long time. 

Anticipating this change, this transition – Moses says to God’s people – Have some habits that remember & declare what & who matters to you. In Deuteronomy he offers lots of guidance on this. But today, this harvest time, we’re focusing on one particular thing to do with the first-fruits of the land.

His instructions as seen in Deuteronomy 26 are: when you settle in the promised land, and when the food you’ve tended is first beginning to grow, make this a priority. Instead of just keeping your head down and striving endlessly, or swinging between working and chilling, working and chilling, working and chilling, do the following:

• Gather & bring: gather the first things you harvest from the land, don’t eat it. Gather it in baskets, bring to a sacred place, offer to it to the priest who places it at the altar,
• Declare & remember: retell the stories of your people’s journeys of calling and of finding freedom in which. Do this in front of God, and with your people, and the priests and the foreigners who live with you. If you want to know the plot of Genesis and Exodus – these verses are a great summary)
• Worship & Celebrate: in it all, speak of God’s character – that he is calls, that he provides, that hears, that he sets people free, that he is powerful, that he is faithful to his promises, that he is present and attentive. That he is ‘LORD’ – I am.

 Anticipating a time of change, when all the energies and attention could be focused on work, when the daily dependency on God is less obvious –God and Moses institute a habit that says ‘this is what matters, this is who matters & these are the reasons why.’ This was a habit that got written into the rhythm of God’s people – Bikkum - offer the first fruits to God, eventually at the temple- and years later when they’d forgotten this and were in rebuilding after exile, Nehemiah reinstituted the habit.  

Holy Habits for Us Today:

Gathering & bringing, declaring & remembering, worshipping & celebrating – does this connect with what you do, what we do? What are the habits that you have that say ‘this is what matters, this is who matters & these are the reasons why?’ 

• Think about Harvest services, and Christmas, and Easter. 
• What about the meal Jesus gave us and that we mark each week at communion – gather & bring, declare & remember, worship & celebrate – doing it with words and actions.
• What about the church year and the services we come to
• What about the songs that we sing and the prayers that we pray
• And what about those personal habits you weave into your days, your weeks and your years,  they ways you start your days, or pause you week, or change the tempo of your year?

If you're anything like me, sometimes these things will feel profound and uplifting, and at other times (many other times), they feel like you're going through the motions. But it's not the feelings that validate the worth of these things. It's the value that they express that matters.

Going Deeper Through Our Habits

I've been inspired recently  to view these habits as an adventure into the depths of God by the writing of David Adams (a vicar on Holy Island whose writing is influenced by the Celtic Christian tradition) who says, ‘Adventurous living is not only going out, it is living in the depths of our being, it is expressed in how we respond to the word of God and to the liturgy.' (Deserts in the Ocean, David Adam, 2000)

With this in mind, I want to dig a bit deeper into today's Bible passage to draw out a couple of things to deepen our reflection on Holy Habits.

Hope Expressed:

Firstly, the bringing of the First-fruits was such an expression of hope on so many levels. Can I be honest and tell you that I’m not great when it comes to hope! I don’t feel hopeful very often. Life experience, the years of Covid and the global situation since have worn away my feeling of hope.  I find it easier to lean on my own skills, hard-work and effort, and I lose sight that God is at work fulfilling his promises of restoration. Hope does not come easy to me.

Maybe that’s why I’m so struck by the hope that is woven through these instructions. Moses gave thee instructions while they were in the Wilderness – ‘are we there yet?’ NO! But you will be and when you do ‘gather & bring, declare & remember, worship & celebrate’ – with the firstfruits. Things are going to change, you will get to the land God promised. There is hope.

That emphasis on bringing the firstfruits is so important. I loved a line I read that said the 'firstfruits are initial evidence of the bounty, the beginning of something'. This is not bringing the leftovers, brought with hindsight after all the harvest has been proven. This is bringing the first, the beginning of something more. (As an aside- in the New Testament, Jesus’s resurrection is described as the firstfruit of the resurrection of the dead, the sign that this is the beginning of something more).

Doing something sacrificially that says 'there will be more, God will be faithful, I can depend on him' is an expression of hope. We start with the expression with our actions leading the way, and then our feelings and thoughts can catch up later.

Relationship Recalibrated:

Within this activity of bringing the firstfruit, we see the potential of recalibrating relationships  in a number of different ways. And for us today, our holy habits need to also be recalibrating our relationships

• People’s relationship with one another – they were to do this together and include others to in the celebration – ‘Then you and the Levites and the foreigners residing among you shall rejoice in all the good things the Lord your God has given to you and your household.’ Think about the habit we have of sharing the peace with one another each week, can I say that if that is not recalibrating how you treat people, then you need to get deeper with that habit.
• People’s relationship with the earth – by stopping production, pausing, leaving the land, being thankful, not simply focusing on consumption – the relationship with the land gets changed. Think about the habit of Harvest, if the bringing of food as an offering to help those who are hungry does not shape how you tend and care for creation, then you need to go deeper into the adventure of Harvest.
• People’s relationship with those who are not friends and followers of God – there was a public element of bring the first-fruits to the ‘dwelling for his Name’ and ‘the altar’ – daily life would involve  rubbing shoulders with a whole bunch of people of worshipped other gods and saw things differently. These actions would be a witness to those around. When you choose to come to church rather than Ikea, you are declaring in action not words that God matters to you.
• But most importantly- it affects the relationship with God. Isn’t it so easy in life, to put your head down, and just get on with stuff. I remember when I first became a mum, I believed life had three stages – was crying, is crying, will cry. And as I mentioned now, it’s tempting to adopt the 'slog or flop' approach. And to ignore the one who really matters. God invites them and us to gather and bring, declare and remember, celebrate and worship because is tends our relationship with HIM.

A habit that says ‘‘this is what matters, this is who matters & these are the reasons why.’

Conclusion:

And that is why I began by asking – what are the habits of expressing hope and recalibrating relationships that you weave into life. Or flip it on its head – when you do those things, these things – are you expressing hope and are you recalibrating the relationships.

This is not going through the motions.. this is adventure…

Let us be people who express hope in the face of world in crisis and our own feelings. Let us be a people who recalibrate relationships to reflect the love of God. And in this explore new depths, let’s make it an adventure.