Dear Friends, 

In the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) there is a description of the appointed festivals, of which the Offering of the First Fruits is one: “…you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest…before the Lord…” Leviticus 23:9-11.  This served as a sign of thanksgiving and of the people’s dependence on God for their daily bread.  In the Celtic year 1^st August marks the beginning of the season of Lammas (from an English word for ‘loaf’ and ‘mass’), the first of several harvests until Samhain on 1^st November, when all the fruits and berries are gathered in.  In times past in Britain Lammas Day was widely celebrated as a day of thanksgiving.  Loaves of bread were baked from the first wheat crop and used as communion bread in church.  The practice died out during the Reformation, but re-emerged later as harvest festival.  It is gaining in popularity again as we reconnect more closely with where our food comes from.  A traditional part of Lammas celebrations was for the people in the locality to come together for a circle dance around the churchyard, expressing the inter-connectedness of all life, and dependence on God.

 

A prayer ‘The First Fruits’ by Ruth Burgess from the Iona Community provides another perspective which might speak into our lives today.

 

When I bring you the first fruits

you get what you get:

you get my energy,

my imagination,

my scribbling,

my experimentation,

my dreams.

You get the raw me.

 

Part of me would prefer to bring you the finished article:

the tried and tested formula,

 

Successful or fruitful?

the buffed and polished carving,

the machine that I know will work.

 

But that is not what you ask for;

because you want to be with m

in the making,

in the messiness,

the uncertainty,

the laughter and the pain.

God of the first fruits,

here I am.

Come and work with me always.

 

I wonder if a perceived focus these days on success and perfection, feeds a sense that we can only ever present a ‘flawless self’ to the world.  Yet God wants to walk with our ‘true self’, God wants us to bring our ‘entire self’, in all our vulnerability and brokenness, into this community of God’s people, where we can learn, share and grow together…and become fruitful people:

“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  Galatians 5:22-23a.

May I wish you all a fruitful Lammastide.    

Linda.