Harvest reaches deep into the Bible. Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks) celebrated the firstfruits of the wheat harvest (Deut 16:9-12), while Sukkot (the Feast of Booths or Ingathering) marked the gathering-in of the year’s produce (Deut 16:13-15). The Church’s modern Harvest Festival is not simply a continuation of either feast, but belongs to the same ancient tradition of thanking God for the fruits of the earth.
In England, this took a particular form in Lammas, or “Loaf-mass”, an Anglo-Saxon celebration on 1 August when a loaf made from the first wheat of the harvest was offered to God in thanksgiving.
The familiar autumn Harvest Festival came much later. In 1843, the Revd Robert Hawker invited his congregation at Morwenstow in Cornwall to a special harvest thanksgiving on the first Sunday in October, and the idea soon spread.
Harvest is celebrated in all sorts of ways around the world. In Germany, Erntedank is often marked with fruit, vegetables and grain decorating the church. In Korea, Chuseok is celebrated with family gatherings and special rice cakes. In Jamaica, decorative “occasion breads” are part of celebrations and church life. At St Augustine’s we sometimes bless a traditional Jamaican duck bread at Harvest, to eat followng the service.
Our own celebration is simple and joyful: we gather to give thanks, decorate the church, bring gifts for others, and often share a few snacks together afterwards.
Our Harvest collection
This year we are supporting Wandsworth Foodbank, helping local people and families facing hardship.
If you are able, please bring one or more of the following on Sunday to celebrate the Harvest Festival:
- Tinned fruit
- UHT non-dairy milk
- Tinned kidney beans / chickpeas / lentils
- Hot chocolate
- Tinned custard / rice pudding
- Tinned vegetarian meals
- Baked beans / spaghetti hoops
- Pasta sauce / other cooking sauces
- Instant coffee / tea bags
- Savoury snacks
- Tin openers
- Nappies, sizes 4, 5, 6 and 7
- Deodorant / shampoo / conditioner / shower gel
- Adult toothbrushes / toothpaste
At Harvest we thank God for our daily bread, and we help make sure that our neighbours have theirs too.
