Living simply

Informal Sermon preached at St Alphege, Solihull for the all-age Eucharist.
Sunday 11th October 2009 – Year B - Harvest Thanksgiving

Readings: [Joel 2: 21-27] 1 Timothy 6: 6-10 Matthew 6: 25-33


[AV - Camera on speaker]

Today we celebrate our harvest thanksgiving; it’s a day of thanksgiving to God for his all gifts to us, and especially for his gift of food. Over the spring and summer farmers grow all kinds of foods in the fields. Now all the food has been collected in, the harvest is completed, and we come to give thanks to God for all the food that has grown and we give thanks for the food we shall eat over this coming year.

But thinking about the harvest and our food also makes us think about God’s other great gifts to us; about the land, the sunshine and the weather, all the things that people make and which we buy and sell, all the good things that we have and that we enjoy.

And if you are sitting in the first three rows you might like to have a look under your seat cushions and see if you can find examples of some of the many good things that we have and enjoy, that come to us through God’s creation. If you find one, perhaps you could bring it forward to now.

[Children look under seats, find eight posters and bring them forward. Each poster has a picture illustrating a word]

So what have we got? For the sake of the AV operator I want to read these out in a particular order. We have got:
Mobile phones [AV - Display mobile phones]
Food [AV - Display food]
Holidays [AV - Display holidays]
Clothes [AV - Display clothes]
Houses [AV - Display shelter]
Water [AV - Display water]
Beauty products [AV - Display beauty products]
Car [AV - Display car]
[The children hold these up for all to see.]
[AV - display eight words with small pictures.]
Lots and lots of wonderful things. We are very fortunate to have all these things.

Now let me ask you [talking to children in the front pews], which of these would make the best birthday present. If you could ask for any one of these for you birthday, which would it be?

[Discussion with children, probable outcome mobile phone or car]
[AV - if possible display the relevant picture]

Well that good, and I am sure that we would all like …. for a birthday present.

But now let’s turn things around a bit, and think about these eight things in a different way. Let’s suppose that you could only have half them. Let’s suppose that half of them we can keep, and half of them we have to lose, and live without. Which four would you keep and which four would you manage without?

[More discussion with children. Hopefully we agree to keep House, Water, Food, Clothes.]
[AV - display slide with “Food, Clothes, Houses, Water”]

So what’s a bit interesting here, is when we select one as a birthday present its [mobile phone], but when we have to select four to live with and four to live without, we choose to manage without a [mobile phone]. So when we are forced to choose, it is the simple things that matter; water, food, clothes and a place to live.

Now it is a very good thing that we have chosen the simple things, because the sad truth is that in the western world, we take much more than our fair share of the good gifts of the earth. And because we take more than our fair share, other people have less; sometimes they don’t even have the simple things that they need. So, for example, if we think about the amount of oil and gas that we burn, in Europe and in the USA we burn far more than our fair share. This slide shows how the average carbon emissions of your average American and European burn, compared to average carbon emissions in China, India and Africa. [AV - Display “contract and converge” slide from 2012].
This slide shows how much we should each be burning, so as to give us a good chance of avoiding serious climate change.
[AV - Display “contract and converge” slide from 2025]

Look how much smaller the American and European need to be! We really need to cut down massively on the oil and gas that we burn, for the sake of the climate. This means that we need to get better at living simple lives, less dependent on cars and holidays.
[AV - Camera on speaker]
Now we all know this isn’t easy. We all know that we like our cars and our holidays. There is a very real sense in which we need our cars and our holidays, so how can we change? How can we move towards simpler living? Well, I think we need to take very seriously the words that Jesus said in our gospel reading today. We have to “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” So let’s try, moment by moment, to live as God wants us to live. Let’s try to love other people as God loves them. If we can do this then God will give us the things we need, and we do certainly need a solution on climate change. If we follow God then in small steps and in large, he will lead us towards lifestyles that are simpler and more fulfilling. We will get better at enjoying the simple things in life like our clothes and houses, our water and our food. We will want to give thanks to God for these things more and more. Our harvest thanksgivings will become ever more meaningful.