It was then that St Paul in haste and horror proclaimed to them the living God for whose existence and goodness he appealed to Nature’s bounty.  “...he has not left himself without a witness in doing good – giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy” (NRSV, Acts 14:17).

And that message of the harvest is the same for us today as it was when St Paul spoke those words to the people of Lystra.  It proclaims to us the goodness and the generosity of God.

Year by year the world’s supply of food is replaced by his life-giving power as quickly as it is used up.  It is a shocking truth that one in eight people in the world go to bed hungry every night, (1) but we cannot lay responsibility for that at God’s door.

If the thousands of millions of pounds, which developed nations are able to spend on maintaining a high standard of living and on manufacturing sophisticated weapons of destruction, were devoted instead to helping eradicate global hunger, the world would be a very different place.  

As it is, despite there being enough food to feed all the people in the world, many people cannot afford to buy it.  Tax dodgers deprive poor countries of resources to ensure the right to food for their people.  Small-scale farmers often get forced off the land they need to grow food and see that land taken over by companies who use it to grow biofuel crops.  Crops burnt as biofuels in the UK alone are enough to feed 10 million people every year. (2)