For my last nine years before retirement from full time professional ministry I was the Vicar of Laxton,
a small village in the triangle between Newark, Ollerton and Retford.
Laxton is quite unique.
It is the only village in the country that still operates the old three field system of agriculture.
Some years ago the ministry of Agriculture bought the fields to preserve the unique heritage, and the Crown is the present owner.
Each of 13 farmers has strips in the three fields.
There’s the wheat field, the barley field, and the third field,
and the crops are grown in rotation.
The villagers are very aware of their unique heritage,
and so make sure that all the agricultural festivals are kept
Plough Sunday, Rogation, Lammas and Harvest.
One woman in the village, who would have been 108 now,
told me that her childhood memories included seeing the farm labourers coming to church early on Lammas Day
and leaving their scythes in the porch as they came in.
You can’t do that with a combine harvester!
The first Lammas Day service I ever attended was when I became their vicar, and had to lead it!
Each year we came to church at 8.00 am on August 1st,
for a Communion Service.
During it a sheaf of corn was handed over the altar by a farmer
to symbolise the beginning of the wheat harvest,
as in our reading from the Book of Leviticus,
but in some churches, as today,
it’s a loaf of bread which is handed over,
and that’s where the name comes from – Loaf-Mass, Lammas.
After the Laxton service we all went to one of the farmhouses for a slap-up breakfast.
The idea of presenting the first of the harvest to God is very ancient,
as we heard in our first reading from Leviticus.
The Feast of Weeks marked the beginning of the wheat harvest,
and it was on what we now celebrate as the Day of Pentecost!
The sheaf had to be of the best wheat, to show the worthiness of God,
and afterwards everyone had a great party!
But our wheat harvest isn’t ready then,
so we celebrate it on 1st August.
The primary purpose of the service is thanksgiving,
gratitude that we and our children will be fed.
But throughout the Bible there are other meanings also.
One of those meanings is that by giving the first of the harvest to God
we are acknowledging that all comes from him, all is his,
and the giving of the first fruits symbolises the dedication of the whole of life to him.
This means a lot to me.
Dedication of the whole.
St Paul takes this us in a verse in his letter to the Romans.
‘If the part of the bread offered as first fruits is holy,
then the whole batch is holy
We dedicate the first parts of our lives to the Lord,
to symbolise that it all belongs to him.
Giving him the first day of the week in worship
symbolises that the whole week belongs to him.
One of my hobby horses is the way that the EU has decreed that Monday shall be the first day of the week, not Sunday.
I have to look hard to find a diary with Sunday as the first day.
Perhaps it is symbolic that the so-called Lord’s Day
is now the last day of the week, no longer the first!
The first part of the day in prayer is another first to give.
It symbolises that the whole day is dedicated to him.
We may not want that as our main prayer time,
but surely it’s good to lift our hearts to him
as we start out on the new day.
I remember my tutor when I was in training for Ministry
saying that every day as she got out of bed
she said a verse from the Psalms
sometimes with grea joy
This is the day which the Lord hath made;
we will rejoice and be glad in it.’
Other days she gritted her teeth and said
‘This is the day which the Lord hath made;
we WILL rejoice and be glad in it.’
And perhaps you know the poem
I got up early one morning and rushed right into the day;
I had so much to accomplish that I didn’t take time to pray.
Problems just tumbled about me, and heavier came each task,
“Why doesn’t God help me?” I wondered.
He answered, “You just didn’t ask.”
I woke up early this morning, and paused before entering the day;
I had so much to accomplish that I had to take time to pray.
Giving him the first part of our money symbolises that all our wealth and possessions are given by him,
we are stewards of his gifts.
How often do we just give God what is left over,
rather than putting aside regularly for his work?
I’m interested in the way the Christian Charity ‘Send a Cow’
observes this.
When a woman in Africa is given a cow by the charity,
then the first heifer has to be given away to another family.
And there’s the giving of some of our free time,
(after the priorities of family and work)
to serve him in his church or in the community.
And we celebrate that today in the
Dedication of our Church Wardens for their new year of service.
But as well as being about gratitude and dedication
Lammas is about God’s promises for the future.
the First-Fruits are the FIRST fruits
they are the promise of so much more to come.
And that’s a frequent theme in the Bible.
Our New Testament reading talked of Jesus’ resurrection
as a first-fruit.
There is more to come, it’s a promise of future glory for us all!
The Holy Spirit is described as first fruits, with more to come
St Paul says
‘We …. who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.’
People are also referred to as first fruits
‘Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest.’
St. James says of Christian believers
that they were the first fruits of God’s new creation.
St Paul talks of the first believers in a city as being the first fruits
of his labours there.
We are part of the realised promise of more,
and we trust that there will be many after us.
The last mention of first fruits in the Bible refers to the
first Christian martyrs
‘ redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb.’
The first of many martyrs.
Many even in our own times, gathered in for God to cherish.
The message of the First Fruits is
‘God has given generously, but there is so much more to come!
And isn’t that a glorious thought for us.
Lammas IS a time for glory.
Think of the glory of a field of wheat just before it is cut.
Think of all it has been through
battered by storms, warmed by the sun, refreshed by spring rain,
attacked by disease,
but it has come through to golden glory.
If wheat had feelings I think there would be a sense
of having achieved glory, in spite of it all.
That inspires me.
We go through so much in the average life,
but I believe that if we try to be faithful to God,
then we will come to glory
in spite of all that’s happened on the way.
Lammas and First fruits
A time of Glory,
a time of gratitude,
and a time for dedicating the whole by dedicating the first
a time of rejoicing in the promise of so much more to come
with our Glorious God,
both now and in eternity
Amen.
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