Harvest Sermon: Healing The Land

Text-wise, this is a shorter sermon than usual this week (don’t cheer too loudly). You’ll see this is built around a TEAR Fund film, and you’ll need to watch the film at the point where I provide the link, before coming to the summary.

2 Chronicles
7:12-22

Introduction
Our text for Harvest Festival this year is 2 Chronicles 7:14:

‘If my people who are called by my name humble themselves,
pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from
heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.’

It’s an odd text for Harvest. It comes from a night-time
divine visitation that Solomon received after the dedication of the Jerusalem
Temple. But I was attracted to it, because of the reference to healing the
land. Healing the land seemed a good theme for harvest, and especially because I
wanted to tie in our theme with the sermon series I began on healing three
weeks ago.

In that respect, the context of God’s promise to heal the
land if his people come to him in penitence is a relevant one, I think. For God
anticipates a time of drought, a locust invasion or pestilence (verse 13). And
these plagues are very similar to what we witness in our world today. At a
harvest time when we are so grateful for the plenty we have, we are conscious
that millions in our world do not enjoy that.

So firstly, let’s consider some of the ways in which the
land needs healing in our world today. I’m hoping we can now see a ten-minute
film from TEAR Fund from their ‘Be Part Of A Miracle’ campaign. (Link
here.)

Summary
Healing the land is God’s promise to those who turn to him. But he calls us to
be partners with him. As Sophia said in the film,

‘You can’t just say, ‘God, help me,’ when you are not taking
care of yourself. You need to take care of yourself, but you also need his
help.’

And as Cuthbert quoted Augustine at the end,

‘Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though
everything depended on you.’

Yet is the church in Fombe doing anything different from other
relief agencies? Secular charities would instigate similar relief work. More
widely, we will share in the concern to change our lifestyles to mitigate the
effects of climate change. We, too, shall campaign for fairer rules on
international trade. We shall work to see medical drugs made as available for
the poor as for the rich of the world.

But our text calls for people to pray, to seek God’s face
and turn from our wicked ways. There is a Christian distinctive here. We partner
God in healing the land, because the Creator made us to be his stewards of it,
not people who do what they like with it. Treating creation rightly is part of
the bigger picture of repentance, the call to turn our entire lives back to
God. So it’s good to see TEAR Fund link their service of the poor in the way
Cuthbert said near the end about the church:

‘We are always close to the community, enabling people to
step out of poverty, and bringing them to faith.’

A true healing of the land is linked with the healing of the
person – healing their alienation from God by bringing them to faith in Christ.
And so healing the land is for the Christian a spiritual activity. We may well
do many of the things that secular agencies do, but it will be based on prayer
and connected with sharing our faith. In healing the land, the Creator calls
his stewards, the human race, back to himself.

Cuthbert said,

‘Would you start by committing to pray?’

I want to commend TEAR Fund’s ‘Be Part Of A Miracle’
programme to you. I receive their prayer diary. Every day there is material for
intercession or thanksgiving regarding their work among the poor and oppressed
of the world. If you are willing to take up Cuthbert’s challenge to start by
committing to pray, then speak to me afterwards. Let’s make a start in healing
God’s land.

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