Generous Sowing, Generous Reaping: 75 year anniversary of Windrush.

Opening Prayer (after Lancelot Andrewes, 1626)

Blessed are you, creator of all, to you be praise and glory for ever. As your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation, may we rejoice in this day you have made; as we wake refreshed from the depths of sleep, open our eyes to behold your presence and strengthen our hands to do your will, that the world may rejoice and give you praise. Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Blessed be God forever

This reflection was written on the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury. Many people came from their homelands to Britain in response to the call and invitation to citizens of the Commonwealth to rebuild the Motherland after the devastation of two World Wars. People came, ready to work and settle and learn and give of their many and diverse gifts. They were not always warmly received by the communities they arrived in. Difference of culture, race and language can often be viewed with suspicion; ‘They are not like us’. Yet, in the Kingdom of God, all people are welcomed and diversity is seen as rich and strong.

Bishop Guli, in her ‘Travelling Well Together’ booklet, includes seven values, all of which St Albright’s and Church Without Walls embrace. The sixth value is being Generously Collaborative: A willingness to work well with others in a spirit of open honesty and transparency and with appropriate realism and accountability. To form partnerships that welcome challenge and help celebrate our differences, mindful of our need for one another.

Together we are greater than the sum of our parts, together our narrow vision is broadened, together we make up the body of Christ.

Celebrating our differences and our need for one another is part of sharing the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Rev’d Sharon Quilter, our Diocesan Racial Justice Officer, reflects this in her Sermon Video on today’s anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush. You can watch it here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qmOoyIJzJ-A&feature=youtu.be, and read a transcript here https://www.chelmsford.anglican.org/uploads/publications/Sharon_Quilter_Sunday18th_June_2023_Sermon_Transcript.pdf 

I’ve been reflection on where an attitude and the practice of being generously collaborative begins. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians explores sowing generously and reaping generously:

2 Corinthians 9:6-11

‘The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written,

‘He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;

his righteousness endures for ever.’

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us.’

Imagine a sower in a field, scattering the seed by hand, reaching it as far as possible. She repeats this until the seed is finished. She knows that if she sows a generous quantity, she is more likely to reap an abundant harvest. What do you notice as you imagine this?

Today’s reading asks us to be generous and cheerful givers, giving to the poor, and if we can do this too, we will be blessed abundantly and always have enough. What is your experience of both giving and receiving?

Take a moment now to look at your hands, remembering how you distribute your giving? Perhaps you feel that you have large and generous and open hands like the sower we’ve just pictured, or maybe you feel that your giving is limited.

Can you be open to being challenged or changing your habits in this area of your life? What might God lay on your heart about this issue?

Contemplate the reading again, noticing what is said about the generosity of God.

Imagine again, the sower in his field. This time, the sower has arrived to harvest his abundant crop. Picture this crop now. What does it look like?

‘God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance.’

Take a moment now to talk with God about what these words mean to you. Include your struggles and blessings.

(Parts of this meditation were taken from the prayer App, Pray as you Go).

Go well; sow generously; be generously collaborative with each other, rejoicing in differing cultures and views; reap generously.

Rev’d Wendy Pagden

22 June 2023