Continuing the agricultural discourse we kicked off on October 12th, National Farmers’ Day…
Readers beware: While I make no claims to any status as a theologian (in fact, I take pains to emphasize I am not), this post may veer into that lane before I’m able to jerk the wheel back. Read on with that advisory in mind.
Life is hard; sometimes it feels as if the world is out to get us–it’s more than a feeling, for the earth indeed gives grudgingly:
“Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)
So there we have it–apparently, agriculture is struggle. We are destined to contend with the dirt to survive. In hardship, trial, and pain we battle the forces of nature to eke out our sustenance and for one more day, push away the hunger that haunts our dreams. Human sin brought death, sorrow, and the knowledge of good and evil…thus we must struggle, labor, and sweat to survive, until we die. If you follow agriculture to any degree, it seems we are on an accelerating descent to our long-predicted Malthusian nightmare. Our topsoil is vanishing, soil fertility decreases, the oceans are over-fished, the desert creeps ever closer. Ugh–What a grim paragraph.
Yet there is another vision of farming, one of restoration, healing, and recovery. I witnessed it four decades ago on the dusty prairies. As I described in one of my chapters, a few brave stalwart farmers on the High Plains were already venturing into the world of “organic” farming (I dislike that term for the modern baggage it carries, but we’ll go with it for now). They sought ways to rotate crops, animals, grazing, and water to return fertility to the land.
Despite our fallen state, it is also true that God’s earth retains great restorative, redemptive power. Small farmers, organic farmers, lunatic farmers, and, quite frankly, many large farmers who earnestly seek better ways to feed the world without treating the earth as merely a resource to be plundered and depleted, together they help us to see that life, life abundant, is possible. If I scratch the surface (or plow the soil, if you will), I begin to cultivate the paradox of sin, failure, and misery, juxtaposed with growth, life, redemption-forgiveness, and God’s mercy and love. (Back to some thoughts on juxtaposition if it helps)
My car has veered over the road line solidly into the theology lane….I am tempted to think too lightly of God’s love–truly we are all loved, nothing should obscure that. Yet if I ignore the centrality of my sin, my own fallenness, the bleakness of the soil of my heart, then His love is cheapened. In our agricultural metaphor, the thistles, the thorns, the creeping desert that has overtaken my heart all illustrate the seriousness of my fallen nature. The joy of restoration, harvest, and bounty only make sense in the context of acknowledging my own spiritual destitution and famine. God be praised that his mercy through Christ is real. It is all the more amazing given our parlous, bleak hearts which seek after anything but God’s truth.
I am left to wonder, do I show love to my neighbor (the biblical neighbor, not just someone next door), if I ignore what God has commanded? If we fail to share the reality of the barbs, thistles, and drought of sin, it can only lead to famine. How do I warn my neighbor of the consequence of sin without making that the only message….yes, we each need to acknowledge sin, but let us strive to not get stuck in the weeds of talking about others’ sin without immediately following with the redemptive message of the cross. There are probably many ways to do that, but for now, let me begin by reassuring everyone reading this that we have all sinned. Let’s sit and have a cup of coffee together; we can start by talking about the realities of my own fallen nature….
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved.” Ephesians 2:4.
