Rectory Ramblings…

A wise youth makes hay while the sun shines, but what a shame to see a lad who sleeps away his hour of opportunity (Proverbs 10:5). If you won’t plough in the cold, you won’t eat at the harvest (Proverbs 20:4).
 
I found two harvest related proverbs for this month’s Ramblings, both of which carry the same message in a way… there is no such thing as a free lunch. The trouble is human beings are very good at looking for free lunches.
The attraction of the Lottery for many is obvious for just the tiny price of a ticket you could take away this week’s millions. But of course it isn’t a new thing. Before then there were, and still are, premium bonds and football pools. I find interesting the number of new variations on the Lottery have been added to keep us interested and playing, in case we might get bored and spend our money on some other get rich quick scheme. And there are certainly many of those to choose from: from horses and roulette, to pyramid selling and investment scams. They catch us for the same reason the “send your bank details to a rich widow in Nigeria” scams do – we are so desperate to get something for nothing we will try anything to get it. It is tempting to think that this is a modern phenomenon, but it’s not. Gambling may well be the second oldest profession, and whoever first used these proverbs, hundreds of years before Jesus was born, presumably did so because they thought they needed to. The first chapter of Genesis tells us that God rested on the seventh day, but it also tells us that he worked on the first six before he rested.
 
The bottom line is that a bountiful harvest requires an investment of effort and is the fruit of two forms of labour. The first is the “ploughing in the cold”, the well planned and hard preparation that comes without any obvious signs of fruit. There is only the faith and conviction that it will be worth it in the end but the effort needs to be spent or there will be no harvest. The second labour is “making hay while the sun shines”, taking advantage of the opportunities that are placed before us while we can, not wasting them, and putting in the extra effort at the time when it is needed. We have seen this in the stories of the Olympians and Paralympians over the past couple of months. The gold medals have gone to those who, in their own way, ploughed in the cold and put in the effort to be ready for the final big push to reap the harvest at the right time. So whatever harvest it is that you are looking to reap in the future, expect to pay the full price. Do all that needs to be done when it needs to be done and be encouraged, that by the grace and blessing of God, the harvest will surely come in due course.
 
We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land, 
but it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand (Matthais Claudias).
                                                                                                

Revd Eddie

BENEFICE CHURCH SERVICES FOR SEPTEMBER
  
Sunday 29^th September          
10:30 am         Benefice Communion,              Easton on the Hill 
4:00 pm           Harvest Service & Supper,       Collyweston 
5:30 pm           Songs of Praise,                       King’s Cliffe 
Sunday 6^th  October               
9:30 am           Harvest Communion & Lunch, King’s Cliffe
11:00am          Benefice Communion,              Bulwick