Thought for the Day-A Grace Exchange?

The Corn Exchange, Mark Lane (published by Rudolph Ackermann, 1808)

A Thought for the Day given at a lunchtime Harvest Festival at St Olave Hart Street based on the text of 2 Corinthians 9.6-11.

To the well-trained eye, this place has more visible echoes of harvest time than you might expect.

John Betjeman, famous for his nostalgic poetry, once described St Olave’s as “a country church” in the City — a comment that still appears on the sign on the churchyard wall. One source claims the quote dates from the 1930’s.

By that time, Seething Lane likely had less corn chaff blowing down it — the ‘sifethen’ in Old English that gave the street it its name. The heyday of the Corn Exchange in nearby Mark Lane, which had dominated this part of the City since the mid-1700s, had long passed.

Yet the legacy remains. The logo of the Corn Exchange Company is set into one of our windows just over there and also appears as a badge in the roof. Both point toward the site of the exchange, which finally closed in 1987. Painted ears of corn still decorate the base of the glass.

A magazine article from 1856 offers a colourful description of the Exchange, in language even more romantic than Betjeman's. It advises readers not to be “over-scrupulous on the score of mud or dust” in the streets, nor vexed by the sight of “sacks staggering on two legs up-stairs or down-stairs,” or the need to “dive beneath a nosebag or two” as horse-drawn carts squeezed along the narrow roads.“ There is too much business, and business of too much importance, going on continually in that district, to admit of the observance of ceremony,” the author remarks.

Inside, the article describes a lively scene: five hundred “dealers, factors, and speculators” chattering in various languages, grain from sample bags lying ankle-deep on the floor, and the critical role of Mark Lane in setting the price of grain, flour — and ultimately bread — not just for the UK, but much of Europe.

For over 250 years, the Corn Exchange in this parish was where the country’s grain harvest was traded.

The passage from Scripture we heard today, from what we call Saint Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, has long sparked debate on the exchange of gifts.

Paul is urging the church in Corinth — which, as we understand it, had few morals but lots of dosh — to give generously to a collection he was taking to the church in Jerusalem, where people were starving. That early church had sold everything in expectation of Christ’s imminent return, leaving them unable to support themselves during a severe famine, compounded by persecution.

Paul asks the Corinthians to give what they can, explaining that their generosity will bring God’s blessing, and an “increase in the harvest of righteousness.” Earlier in the letter he praises the Macedonian church — poorer by far — for giving sacrificially. And he makes clear that even the ability to give is itself a gift from God. The act of generosity becomes a sharing in God’s grace. 

“God loves a cheerful giver,” he says.

Some philosophers have argued that there’s no such thing as a genuine gift. That all giving comes with strings attached — expectation, obligation, the hope of return. That even Paul’s language here — sowing and reaping — suggests a kind of spiritual transaction.

Can God’s grace — the harvest of righteousness — be traded like corn?

If we truly believe the answer is no, why do we so often act as though it can? As though we are living - leading - a 'grace exchange'? Why do we withhold our gifts — our time, our care, our love — until we feel obliged or expected to offer it or can gain something in return?

That kind of giving is transactional and a misunderstanding of the economy of God - which is based not on exchange but grace. Where generosity flows from having received everything, fully, perfectly and sufficiently already, in Christ.

This economy is seen most clearly in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus — the ultimate example of self-giving love, freely offered, expecting nothing in return.

There are signs of grace among us today, too. The announcement this past week that Bishop Sarah will be the first female Archbishop of Canterbury is a sign that the Church of England has recognised that God’s grace works through all people — at least when it comes to gender - and at the highest levels of the church.

So this harvest time, may Paul’s words — and the grace-driven winds of change blowing from Canterbury — separate the wheat from the chaff of our lives. This week let us reflect on how we treat all we’ve been given by God: as a commodity to be traded, or a gift to be freely shared?

Amen.