A ripping wind tears into an interventionist God

On a bright afternoon this time last week I was on a coastal path in North Cornwall near Bude. Having walked up an arduously steep hill, we were rewarded all of a sudden by a long and open view. On the next headland I could see the tiny form of human figures like vertical ants, their heads like pinpricks. And I thought how amazing that in these tiny skulls are receptors that can contemplate the vastness of the universe.

An individual’s brain concentrates reality into a sharp focal point, rather like a child with a magnifying glass learns to concentrate the light of the sun into a spot that can set a leaf alight. And amongst the things the human brain distils are meaning and values. (Our worship is part of that process: through imagery, music, reading, theological reflection, and what we sometimes call ‘fellowship’ – being together, we try to experience the reality of a God we intuit/sense but cannot fully understand).

One of those distilled meanings is gratitude or as we say at harvest, thanksgiving.

From that same cliff top I see a patchwork of green fields spread out on my left hand side and an expanse of the Atlantic Ocean on my right, sparkling and dazzling in the early autumn sun. From where we stand the vista is enlarged by height, and I see and smell in it the oxygen and nitrogen of the air and the hydrogen and oxygen of the clouds and sea, and recognise the generative power of our environment. No wonder that many people have described how they have experienced a sense of the transcendent when close to the majesty of nature.

Theologians sometimes say that ‘all of life is gift’ – which is a rather pompous way of saying that we each owe our life and our meaning to the whole of what is. But the theologians also point out, very reasonably,  that understanding life as gift (rather than claiming it as a right or something we own) can help us to understand our responsibilities in relationship with others and our environment.

Harvest isn’t a local affair; it’s universal. It’s about more even than our planet because our planet depends on gravity and motion and black holes and indeed the interdependence of all that is.

The day before this coastal walk, on a similar, but much lower cliff, we had attended a wedding reception in an outsize tepee. Not long before the speeches were due, a gale suddenly blew up – not any old gale, but a sort of extreme, global-warming, freaky wind. The tent began to sway and creak like a sailing ship in a storm. The poles supporting the tepee up were as tall as very large masts and to be hit by one of them falling would have caused very serious injury. Like the Titanic the band played on, but some of us, older ones mainly, were becoming increasingly alarmed and I wanted to shout for everyone to evacuate’. But of course, you didn’t want to be a spoilsport. Then the wind ripped the vast tent in two - like the veil of the temple being rent in twain from the top to the bottom. We ended up in the adjacent Edwardian Surf Club building – a bit like a youth hostel. And the Dunkirk Spirit prevailed.

But the point was: not only can nature sparkle and dazzle, it can also be destructive and frightening. We are reminded that some farmers have had their crops washed away or burnt to the ground or their buildings damaged or their cattle plagued with TB.

Harvest hymns tend to adopt a benign, local view: All is safely gathered in ere the winter storms begin. And historically our Church of England, with a church in each village, has tended to take the local view, securing the homestead and it stores for another season.

I want to finish with a comment about another line from the hymn, ‘Come ye thankful people come’: ‘God our maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied’.

It raises the question of what we mean by a providential God. Is it that the creativity of God has enabled an environment conducive to human life and flourishing? Or is it that God has specifically given us a massive apple crop this year or that there is a surplus of wheat worldwide this year?

Perhaps it would be helpful to make a distinction between a providential God and an interventionist God. Let me explain.

An interventionist God is the idea that God might be persuaded by our prayers to provide for our wants. When we pray, ought we provide God with a shopping list of things we want, or ought we to contemplate the divine reality of love and creativity? About twenty years ago many of us referred to God’s interventionism as ‘Parking Place Theology’. It was the result of someone claiming to prove the existence of God because when driving around London they would often pray for a parking place and immediately find one. Game, set, and match.

That of course immediately raises the question: how is it God finds you a parking place but seems to ignore the person who beseeches God to heal their dying child, or the person who implores God to save their country from a ruthless tyrant.

At harvest we shouldn’t muddle a providential God with an interventionist God. God is not running the farming industry any more than he or she is running the Church of England. We have the gift of life and are expected to make the most of it in terms of love, justice, respect, and inter-relatedness.

The hymn concludes with a wider picture:  a metaphorical harvest of souls at the end of time. ‘For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take his harvest home’ (ie to Heaven).

It recognises, however naively, that God’s harvest is one bringing people together. I’m reminded of Jesus’ comment to Simon, Andrew when he called them as disciples: ‘Follow me and I will make you fishers of men’ (or of people). It might suggest to us the value to our mental health of not worrying so much about what we shall eat of what we shall drink, or wear, or drive, or take our holidays, but to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness – i.e. what ultimately matters and what is ultimately important.