Like me, you may have grown up with harvest festival services.  We sang ‘We plough the fields and scatter’ and brought gifts of fruit, vegetables, tins of soup and packets of biscuits and tea, to place either in front of the communion table or on the stage in the school hall, often arranged around a gigantic loaf of bread baked in the shape of a wheatsheaf.

Also like me, you may have grown up in a city where, even allowing for the allotments, there were no fields to plough and precious few of us scattering seed, good or bad, on the land. Even though there was still value in giving thanks for what we have, remembering where it comes from and passing something on to someone who might need it, those harvests were pretty far from the farm.

Harvests come in many shapes and sizes though.  We can reap a harvest of love in the relationships we nurture, and we might gather in a wage every week or every month.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to have a regular income can find real value in acknowledging that blessing, just as the harvest festival acknowledges the yearly provision of our food.  There are many ways people do this – running marathons, getting sponsored for epic bike rides, all those big TV events, which inspire such amazing wit, imagination and generosity in everyone taking part.

These moments can act like a personal harvest festival, but they need not be tied to a great public event, nor even be just once a year.  Jesus made very clear the value of giving whatever we can, whenever we can, quietly and unobtrusively, the ‘widow’s mite’.

The size of the sum is unimportant: the desire to give is the thing.  Even if the only field we plough is in a shop or an office and the only crop we reap is in our bank account, there’s still a lot to be grateful for – and still, therefore, a reason to share the harvest.