For the last decade I have become increasingly
interested in most things agrarian, especially gardening. I
feel it draws together my theology, ethics, love for ecology and aesthetics and
even family life. And of course I just
like playing in the dirt. What makes this
pertinent to what I am going to say is that gardening was not something I just
decided one day to invest time and money into.
I came from parents that gardened and mini-farmed and no they weren’t
hippies, (at least not by the time they decided to farm). But, they did come
from agricultural families and communities. So, this was a learned and
inherited interest and one I am grateful for. I have come to appreciate the
long traditions that pass from one generation to another. I have also come to
appreciate the contemplative reflections of life, failure, patience and the
humility of the close and practical connections we share with the dirt; and I
appreciate the process of growing plants, food and me. It has given me a vision of our
interconnectedness.
Why am I telling you
all this? To put it simply, it is because
we live in a culture dominated with contrary investments and now I am watching
the church, quite literally, buy into it. We buy into things that offer self-security
because we are afraid of being without or losing what we gained or just saving
ourselves, but then we set ourselves at odds with others to keep it.
Of course we shouldn’t
be all that surprised since it is the cycle many Christians entered into some
time ago with pre-tribulation raptures, flighty heaven theologies and
prosperity gospels, just to name a few of the things that should be “left
behind”.
Now within my own community
I am meeting more “doomsday preppers” who store up to secure for their own
needs and store weapons for their own protection (for my thoughts on the weapon topic see here). We have those trying to secure wealth in case
of an economic collapse and tell me to buy up gold and silver in preparation.
But, no matter the medium for our security, it is all self-focused escapism
which comes at the cost to many other things necessary for life’s
flourishing. It’s like Norman Wirzba
says, “We have assumed that we can know and pursue what is best for ourselves,
all the while disregarding the needs of the communities, natural and human,
that sustain us.”[1] The reality is none of us are big enough for that and to
continue denying our “biological kinship” with creation will only make our
destructiveness increasingly evident.[2] Might I add, this stands in full-scale
opposition with the gospel by which we are offered the freedom to affirm this
life not escape it.
However, if we stop
devising new self-preserving ways that avoid trusting God with our lives, we
might just end up becoming a church that is faithful. We might become a church that feeds our
neighbors. We do not have to be a false
church that returns to the historical arrangements of power struggles and
hierarchy. We do not have to be dualistic Christians who, as Brueggemann says, “…juggle
[God’s] good purposes and our hidden yearnings and try to serve two masters, try
to live two narratives, try to live two dreams, and [become] weary.”[3] This was the cycle of Israel before Jesus and
it suffered greatly. But with Jesus, life comes from our surrender and death
because we have finally touched our impuissance,
or our inability to do it alone. Until
we reflect deeply on our own fragileness, limits, interdependence on the
elements, ecosystems and communities to which we belong, we will find ourselves
on the wrong side of the competing voices and withdraw into isolation and abandon
the rootedness and loyalties that bind us together.
[1] Edited and
Introduced by Norman Wirzba. The Art of
Common Place: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry (Berkley, CA:
Counterpoint Press 2002), viii.
[2]Ibid, ix.
[3] Walter Brueggemann Prayers for a Privileged People. (Nashville,
TN: Abingdon Press, 2008), 43.
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