Weekly update – 6th October 2024

Where do they think the apples come from?

The way we shop has changed over the years. Gone are the days of the butcher, baker and greengrocer that you’d find in every town, instead we head off to large supermarkets, where everything we need is under one roof. This is all very convenient if you have a car and are tight on time (or have the power to have your shopping delivered to your front door), but it does remove us from being involved with the food that we buy. As items are shipped so far, to lengthen the shelf life and to ensure an attractive display, most foodstuffs are packaged; we no longer have the ability to give a tomato a little squeeze to check its ripeness.

There’re varying views on whether this is sustainable going forward, but for now, it’s a fact – this is how most people do their weekly shop; the buying of food is separated from the production, we go to generic supermarkets, selling generic foodstuffs, all very clean and neatly packaged, very different from how it left the farm or orchard.

Which is why every year someone pops on Facebook and asks ‘what’s the awful smell?’ during muck spreading time, and why it’s pointed out to lorry drivers, moving the harvest from farm to packers, that they shouldn’t be driving down the country lanes – where do they think the apples come from?

But this compartmentalising, of distancing what we should know about growing food from the actual purchase of it, is often replicated throughout our lives.

Sometimes we feel we have little choice; when working we need to leave home and family issues out of mind so that we can concentrate on our professional tasks (and vice versa); sometimes it’s to avoid an uncomfortable truth (how may of us worry about climate change, but still hop in our car or on a plane for a week’s holiday in the sun?); and sometimes it becomes a survival mechanism, we lock worries and situations away in our mind, to enable us to get through the day.

 

Do you know what we shouldn’t be compartmentalising?

God

God isn’t just for Sundays

God isn’t just for us as individuals, or us as a Church

God isn’t just for when we ‘really need Him’

Colossians 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.

 

When we make Jesus front and foremost, when we give everything to him, all the compartmentalised parts of our lives are placed in him too.

 

Over the coming months we have the privilege to welcome many visitors to St Nics, as people come to celebrate Harvest and of course Christmas. Let us be the servant that Christ calls us to be, to be one body of Christ, to reflect his love, compassion and grace through our actions. Let’s not compartmentalise God, lets live out our faith daily, in a way that is appealing and compelling to others, and pray that they too may learn of the joy of faith.

 

Oh, and if you pass a lorry on a country road, remember where the apples come from.

 

Jenny

Churchwarden