Blackberry harvest

For the first time this year I have managed the serious blackberrying I have long dreamed of doing. In fact it is a very suitable year for this activity, because they say the harvest is six times bigger than usual in the UK! The weather, apparently, has been particularly favourable for blackberries right from the last mild, wet winter till now. In fact there are abundant crops not far from my home. A short walk with a bag and a container, and I am ready to go.

This friendly, free food is proving good to stew with apples and eat with evaporated milk and chunks of bread. I also scatter it on breakfast cereal or take it as a snack to supplement the teatime bread and jam. It is handy to give as a gift, too.

A phrase keeps coming back to me from an old prayer: “... the kindly fruits of the earth”. “... to give to our use the kindly fruits of the earth”, the Litany says.

“Kindly” in what sense, I wonder? It seems strange to call an inanimate fruit “kind”, even if it is benign and nourishing. The Oxford English Dictionary has a bewildering array of meanings for the word. The appropriate one seems to be, “Of good nature or natural qualities”. The fruits are, quite simply, intrinsically good for us. That is what God created them to be.

“And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food’” (Genesis 1:29 ESV).

On an early visit to Cornwall in the 18^th century, the great Evangelical Revival leader John Wesley found that blackberries saved him from starvation. A travelling companion writes,

“One day we had been at St Hillary Downs, and Mr Wesley had preached from Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones, and there was a shaking among the people, as he preached. And as he returned, Mr Wesley stopped his horse to pick the blackberries, saying, ‘Brother Nelson, we ought to be thankful that there is plenty of blackberries: for this is the best country I ever saw for getting a stomach, but the worst that ever I saw for getting food: do the people think we can live by preaching?’”

In defence of the good people of Cornwall I must say that Wesley was given a hearty welcome wherever he went in the county once he had become better known and accepted. The tradition of hospitality continues today and I well remember the generosity of the people in the early 1980’s when I was a minister there!

Even if the meaning of the word “kindly” has changed over the course of centuries, I think the more usual signification was always there. God is kind – and not just because He has given us nourishing harvest produce. His plan to save lost outsiders is kind. This does not mean we can presume on His kindness. It is the other side of His severity towards those who will not take Him seriously. There were some non-Jews who became cocky because they had been accepted into God’s kingdom whereas some of the formerly privileged Jews were left outside. The apostle Paul warns them in Romans 11:19-22 –

Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.

And we should imitate God by being kind to others. Too many Christians let the side down by not being kindly. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you”, says Paul again in Ephesians 4:32. If we can’t be kind in these ways, have we truly understood the kindness of God?