Spiritual Farming: A Place To Grow

The foundation for every society the world has ever known has been its agriculture.  Communities live, grow and eat together by the work of their hands.  The world’s largest and most common occupation is farming; people still farm more than anything else.[1]  Ironically, in most societies farmers are at the bottom of the food chain.  In Africa approximately eighty percent of the population would consider themselves farmers while forty percent of the continent is malnourished.[2]  This means that the ones producing food cannot even feed themselves or their families.  More food is being produced than ever before with more than enough to feed the entire world, yet nearly 1 billion people are malnourished. 

In the West farming populations are dwindling away.  Millions of people in farming communities have been displaced with the industrialization of agriculture; hundreds of thousands of farms have disappeared over the last thirty years.  It is a farming market of “Get big or get out”, survival of the fittest.[3]  Unless you can farm on a few hundred acres, you probably won’t make it as a farmer.  The diversity of local farms has been replaced with monocultures; the local community dependent on local food production is declining and our society is, too, along with it.  The modernization of agriculture, or so-called agricultural progress, has produced synthetic salt-based and petroleum-based fertilizers, pesticides, and large-scale equipment, which are creating massive compaction and erosion of precious topsoil and poisoning the ground, all under the guise of “progress”.   It is estimated that in order to grow one bushel of Iowa corn, it costs two bushels of topsoil.[4]  Farms have become factories, and cattle slaughterhouses represent concentration camps.  Our widely distributed food is pumped with chemicals and hormones only to increase production and speed.

Farming, for the most part, has become less of a way of life but, instead, an investment of the absentee landlord who never became intimate with the land or the cycles of nature in which his or her crop is produced.[5]  In fact, this is the problem: husbandry has been replaced with domination, destruction and greed.

This essay lays out a theology for the garden and begins a list that demonstrates the importance of holistic practices found within a farming lifestyle and it’s implications for the Christian life and mission.

A theology for the garden
Creation
In Genesis 1, we read that God created the heavens and the earth, and everything that He created in this first biblical story He created “good”.  He created humanity in His image and told them to rule over His creation as vice-regents.[6]  

            In Genesis 1, the narrator focuses on humanity’s connection to the Creator; in Genesis 2, the narrator focuses on humanity’s connection with creation.  In Genesis 1, the Hebrew word for earth (erets) is used nearly twenty times (usually in connection with heaven, referring to all the cosmos).  However, in Genesis 2, the earth is only mentioned a few times and the emphasis shifts to the garden and humanity’s (adam) connection to the ground (adamah).[7] 

            We as human beings are deeply connected with our Creator and His Creation;  “For you are dust and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19).  Wendell Berry states it beautifully when he argues that our modern word “environment” is a preposterous word, carrying the connotation that the world only encircles us and is separated from us.  He says that the world does not just environ us but, in fact, we are made of it, we eat it and breathe it, and we belong to it as it makes claims upon us to properly care for it.[8]

Fall
Humanity’s relationship with God had been broken and as a result everything else became broken too; Creation itself became unraveled.[9]  Sin had entered the world, and the ground (adamah) became cursed because of man (adam).  Humanity was expelled from the garden to toil and cultivate the ground until they became the ground once again.[10] 

            Once sin was introduced into the created order it began to act as a parasite, destroying all of creation and all spheres of life.  The land does not sin, but is infected by it.  The ground is cursed and longs for its redemption.[11]

Redemption
             After the first Adam was booted from the garden the second Adam, Jesus, redeems all of creation in a garden; relationship with God was both broken and restored in a garden.  Humanity turned away from God in the Garden of Eden and, again, God was betrayed in a garden.[12]  After being betrayed in a garden, Jesus returns to be crucified, laid in a tomb and resurrected in a garden.[13]  When Mary was weeping at Jesus’ tomb and was confronted by Jesus, she thought that he was a gardener.[14]  Cyclically, Christ inaugurates both the redemption of creation and the conquering of sin in a garden.  Since God’s redemptive plan is for His Creation as well, believers are to participate with God in redeeming all things, showing mercy, justice and stewardship.

Consummation
           Though the victory over sin has already been accomplished in the death and resurrection of Christ, the full reality and fulfillment of victory are still yet to come.  Both the Old Testament and New Testament speak of a new heavens and new earth that will come to fruition.[15]  The new heavens and new earth does not mean the obliteration of the old and a replacement with new matter, but a transformation of something old into something new, the same matter.  Christ’s resurrection demonstrates this best: Jesus’ body was transformed from a physical body to a spiritual body, nail-scars visible. 

In Revelation we are given a picture of a new heavens, new earth and a new Jerusalem, a city that has at its center a river of life with the tree of life also yielding its fruit, a renewed Creation.[16]  The entirety of the Christian story, the history of Creation, begins with a garden and ends with a city that is a garden, a redeemed land that is no longer cursed by sin, everything in right relationship. 

            Resurrection apart from creation is Gnostic at best, for we are a part of it and it is a part of us; the resurrection of Christ in creation directs our attention back to creation and to a God who is redeeming all things.[17]  Redemption embraces the totality of creation.           

A spirituality of farming
Western Culture in general has forgotten their Creator.  In our current post-modern context a common theme found in spirituality is to look introspectively for truth and meaning.  However, truth can be found all around us.  Creation is a reflection of its Creator; the whole world is a sacrament of a living and sustaining Creator.[18]  God’s design and hand is written all over the universe.  My farmhand, once atheist, now says that he has begun to see nature as a divine reflection of intelligent design.  He is baffled by how garlic foliage grows.  When the rain falls on the plant, the foliage is designed to catch and distribute the water to its roots.  We can learn so much about our Creator by observing His handiwork and being intimate with it.  James Houston writes, “The Creator is behind all physical processes, all reproductive capacities, all principles of harmony in the universe”.[19]  Creation is a mirror reflection of its Creator.  Creation has much to teach us about ourselves and about the One who created us.

God is the first farmer.[20]  In many societies farming is at the bottom of the social ladder.  Many farmers live in poverty and also live in shame because they are not able to provide for their families.  Wendell Berry makes the distinction in types of work, a distinction between “making” and “doing”.  We do not find our soul through doing jobs and tasks; we find it through being artists, that is, by creating.  As image bearers of God, the first farmer, farmers are artists and makers who receive dignity through the work of their hands.[21]  In fact, this is a part of humanity’s “pre-fall” mandate, to keep, serve and till the ground, recreating beauty through garden management.[22]

God is not only the first farmer, but all farms and lands are His.  Exodus 19:5 says, “the whole earth is mine”.[23]  It is God who causes all things to grow and sends the rains in it’s season.  When thinking about the universe (both macro and quantum perspectives), the earth around us and in us, and the farm in which our hands plow, we see order and chaos, sovereignty and choice, domestication and wildness.  Although you can plant the right plants at the right time, the harvest is ultimately dependent on God.  In the struggle of two seemingly battling forces, in the midst of tragedy and brokenness, there is hope for restoration and redemption.  For example, look at nature; it is a cycle of life and death.  During the fall we planted our first large crop.  Our plants were attacked by onslaughts of aphids, beetles, worms, borers, mites, and squirrels.  The plants had yellow leaf blight, powdery mildew, black rot, and tomato mosaic virus.  We had a hard freeze and lost around 400 tomato plants and many other crops including tomatillos, corn, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins.  It was devastating.  We did everything we could to save them, spending 2 full days putting frost blankets on and off the plants, fighting high winds and our own ignorance.  Battling pest and disease, death came to almost fully ripe fruit and the plants that gave them birth in a hard freeze too early in the season to be expected. 

It is now three months later and the field has been replanted with potatoes and other vegetables.  However, the dead and tilled tomatoes and tomatillos from before sprouted again by the hundreds.  What Jesus said came true;  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)

The plants that we had tried to domesticate did not conform to our demands.  Creation itself had other plans.  The fruit had fallen into the ground and died; moreover out of that death came hundreds of small plants growing wild on their own without our control.  Though thinned out now, we left many growing in between rows, in rows and other places.  There is a beauty to the wildness, a sense of awe and respect, a remembrance of death and a hope for new life.

If everything is God’s and we are His stewards then this meansstewardship is not about tithing.  The word “stewardship” gets its etymology from the word “sty-warden” or pig keeper.[24]  The Septuagint phrase translated as steward in the Old Testament means literally “the one over his house”.  In the New Testament the Greek word used is oikonomia, which means “the law of the house”.  It is from this word that we arrive at the English words of “ecology”, “economy” and “economics”.  The steward is the manager or economist of the household.   In scripture, particularly, God’s household is the people of God.[25]  Generally, all of creation is God’s household.[26]  In Genesis one God creates humanity in His image to rule in His palace temple; humanity is God’s household manager of creation created in His image to reflect God and rule over His creation as He rules over us, that is, a management characterized by self-giving, self-sacrifice, servant-hood, by diakonia, the mutual self-giving of persons of the household in service to each other and creation.

To be a steward means that everything in your possession is not yours, but God’s.  It is not about tithing some portion from the excess of wealth, but in self-sacrifice managing all of our resources, i.e. monetary currency, time, relationships, land, etc. and giving recognition to Who is the true proprietor.

Understanding the rhythms of creation.  God created the earth and its seasons.  There is an appointed time (kairos) for everything, a time to plant and a time to uproot.[27]  The right plant needs to be planted in the right season and in the right environment or there will be no food. 

One way of participating in the rhythmic flow of creation is by practicing Sabbath.  Farming is hard and tireless work; there is always work to be done.  Sabbath needs to be taken by the farmer and given to the land.[28]  The farmer must rest from his work, so that he can have the strength to do his work, also recognizing that God is in ultimate control.  By recognizing the rhythms of creation, we can better understand the rhythms of our own lives.[29]  Practicing Sabbath is not just about rejuvenation, but also about celebrating the creation of the world and basking in the rest of God.  It is about remembering God’s creative acts in the first six days, embracing that work and space do not control us, celebrating shalom, reconnecting us to the Creator and to the sacramentality of creation.[30]  The physical space we try to conquer is continual and exhausting; when we cease from work and bask in God’s Sabbath rhythm, we can experience eternal time, God’s holiness and shalom, giving Him praise and worship.

Health is found in diversity.  In the Creation narratives we see that God planted “various kinds” of trees.[31]  There is so much diversity in nature and we also need to simulate that in farming.  We need to imitate God’s diversity and give the farm a healthy balance of systems.  Large-scale monocultures destroy the land.  The only way to make monocultures work is by polluting the land with fertilizers and pesticides.  With diversity there is health.  Certain plants give back to the soil that which other plants take.  A diversity of crops helps with insect control and natural fertilization.  Large-scale mechanized farming compacts and erodes the soil and destroys the ability to provide quality healthy food.  In diversity there is life; in singularity, autonomy and monism of any kind, there is death.  The farm should reflect the Creator and His creation, plurality in unity, diversity in harmony.

Farming operations in the United States use more petroleum and petroleum-based products than almost any other industry.[32]  A good “hands-to-acre” ratio is needed to give adequate care to the farm’s animals and plants.  To practice good stewardship and husbandry the land must be lovingly used and this “requires intimate knowledge, attention, and care.”[33]  To care for the farm requires intimacy.  A biblical understanding of farming requires justice, compassion and stewardship.[34]  There can be no true compassion without intimacy, no husbandry without relationship.

            Soil is like a bank account.  A grass-fed cattle rancher near Tallahassee, FL told me that the number one thing to focus on when ranching, farming or gardening is the soil.  He said that the soil is like a bank account; you have to make deposits if you want to make withdrawals.  Without investing in the fertility of the soil by using cover crops, crop rotation, and caring with compost and mulch you will quickly see the effects on the plants.  I want to take this thought one step further.  Adding chemical and salt-based synthetic fertilizers and herbicides is like the current Federal Reserve money printing habits in economic crisis.  The only way out of unhealthy soil is to create and deposit synthetic solutions, which pollute the water table and further diminish the value of the garden, creating false fertility out of thin air.  Your soil and plants might look good for a while, but eventually your soil becomes worthless, dependent on stimulus’s to grow anything.  The soil is now worthless and your entire garden is sick.  Quick fixes coat the problem, but declining health comes as a result of it and leads to further destruction.

Healthy soil is alive and moving. Only a teaspoon of good garden soil contains a billion bacteria, yards of fungal hyphae, thousands of protozoa, and a few dozen nematodes.  Good soil will have up to 50 earthworms in a square foot, as well as macro and micro arthropods.[35]  Cultivating this type of soil takes investment and time;[36] it takes deposits of these beneficial organisms; it takes time to build with care, minimal disturbance, compost, mulch, and other natural products that encourage a healthy and living soil.  Healthy soil is diverse as a farm is diverse as the body of Christ is diverse.  Unhealthy soil is pale, uniform and dead, arrived at by quick fixes and fast food fertilizer. 

The best way to add nutrients to the soil is through compost and protection with mulch.  As nature doesn’t till the land to grow, neither should a farmer.  The garden should be covered with the appropriate mulches and given the appropriate natural fertilizers, like sugars, rock amendments and organic compost, consisting of greens, browns and nitrogen tailored to the needs of particular plants.  Even Jesus knew about fertilizer![37]  If farmers are to grow good healthy vegetables and crops, they need healthy compost and lots of mulch.[38]

The ordinary can be sanctified.  Gardening is drudgery, especially pulling weeds.[39]  Weeding takes up 15% of the work.  Crawling, bending and pulling with care, being stung by thorns and thistles (like nettle weed) of a cursed ground is a necessity for a productive garden. Tilling, hoeing and weeding is back-breaking work.  The work never ends and the garden is in constant need of care.  However, even beauty and healing can come from weeds.  Nettle weed, which is extremely painful, injects histamine into the skin - not a fun experience – but the weed can also used for relieving symptoms of arthritis.  Redemption can still be found in the “fallenness” of Creation.

Can the mundane work of pulling weeds, doing household chores, cleaning chicken manure, and especially for my spouse, household and farm accounting be a spiritual practice?  I think it can be.  Though I haven’t yet personally found joy in doing these mundane tasks, I think joy comes as result of the good, the bad and the ugly, remembering the past, being present in the moment and imagining the future.  (August 7, 2011: Actually, I found this yesterday!  By singing songs and praising God while I working, I found great joy.  Meditative psalms of praise in solitude and community transform my being vertically and connect me horizontally.  That is, by finding joy in the Spirit, I find renewed compassion for the world.)  Shalom is found in communion with God, even in the boring and continual tasks of managing a household.            

Further chapters to include when writing on a spirituality of farming are: Naming and identifying animals and insects, birthing of livestock, caring for livestock, nurturing organic growth of people and plants, recycling and composting, frugality, the consuming family versus the producing family,[40] going to market, the necessity of hospitality in friendship, manual work and table communion, food, and a community of sharing.

            The most important thing to remember is the farm is not a factory; it is a household economy, a way of life, a spiritual discipline.  Farming can be a reflection of the God’s kingdom and can participate with Him in mission and redemption.  Farming incorporates roles of responsibility that require justice, compassion and stewardship.[41]  I am a vice-regent of His great cosmos in my small intimate sector on four acres.  I am a father, husband, shepherd, pastor, teacher, community leader, missionary, businessman, gardener, veterinarian, artist, mechanic, carpenter and chef.  A farmer is a steward of God’s creation and God’s people.  Farming is holistic spiritual life and Christian mission at it’s finest.

  

Bibliography

Banks, Robert. The Tyranny of Time: When 24 Hours is Not Enough. Eugene: Wipf and

Stock Publishers, 1997.

Banks, Robert and R. Paul Stevens, eds. The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity.

Downer Groves: IVP, 1997.

Berry, Wendell. The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural.

Berkeley: Counterpoint, 1981.

________. Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993.

________. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1996.

________. Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food. Berkley: Counterpoint, 2009.

Doherty, Catherine. Apostolic Farming: Healing the Earth. Ontario: Madonna House

Publications, 2001.

Dryden, Grant. Farming God’s Way: Trainer’s Reference Guide.www.farming-gods-

way.org, 2009.

Fountain, Dan. Let’s Restore Our Land: Church and Community Leaders Working

Together to Restore the Land. Fort Meyers: ECHO, 2007.

Hershey, Terry. Soul Gardening: Cultivating the Good Life. Minneapolis: Augsburg

Fortress, 2000.

Heschel, Abraham J. The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man. New York: FSG

Books, 1951 [2005].

Houston, James M. I Believe in the Creator. Vancouver: Regent College, 1980.

Lloyd-Jones, Sally. The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name. China:

Zonderkidz, 2007.

Lowenfels, Jeff and Wayne Lewis. Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener’s

Guide to the Soil Food Web. Portland: Timber Press, 2010.

O’Donovan, Oliver. Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics.

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.

Thurow, Roger and Scott Kilman. Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age

of Plenty. New York: Public Affairs, 2009.

Sutterfeild, Ragan. Farming as a Spiritual Discipline. Indianapolis: Doulos Christou

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[1] Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman, Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty (New York: Public Affairs, 2009), 58.
[2] Grant Dryden, Farming God’s Way: Trainer’s Reference Guide(www.farming-gods-way.org, 2009), 24.
[3] Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture(San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1996), 41.
[4] Ibid., 11.
[5] Catherine Doherty, Apostolic Farming: Healing the Earth (Ontario: Madonna House Publications, 2001), 25.
[6] Gen 1:26-28.
[7] Gen 2:5-9, 19.
[8] Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 34.
[9] Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name (China: Zonderkidz, 2007), 33.
[10] Gen 3:17-23.
[11] Rom 8:19-23.
[12] John 18:1, 26.
[13] John 19:41.
[14] John 20:15.
[15] Isa 65:17, 66:22; 2 Pet 3:13. 
[16] Rev 21-22:5.
[17] Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 31.
[18]  James M. Houston, I Believe in the Creator (Vancouver: Regent College, 1980), 205.
[19] Houston, I Believe in the Creator, 19, 46.
[20] Gen 2:8.
[21] Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food(Berkley: Counterpoint, 2009), 35-36.
[22] Gen 2:15.
[23] Also see 1 Cor 10:26.
[24] Loren and Mary Ruth Wilkinson, Caring for Creation in Your Own Backyard (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1992), 16.
[25] Col 1:25, Eph 2:19-22, Heb 10:21.
[26] Ps 24:1, 50:12, 89:11, 90:2. 
[27] Ecc 3:1-2; Gen 8:22; Ps 104:27.
[28] Lev 25:2-7.
[29] Robert Banks, The Tyranny of Time: When 24 Hours is Not Enough(Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997), 223.
[30] Abraham J. Heschel, The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man(New York: FSG Books, 1951 [2005]), 19-22.
[31] Gen 1:1-12, 2:8-9.
[32] Wendell Berry, The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 1981), 260.
[33] Berry, Bringing It to the Table, 33.
[34] Verne M. Gleddie, “Farming,” in The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity, edited by Robert Banks and R. Paul Stevens(Downer Groves: IVP, 1997).
[35] Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis, Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web (Portland: Timber Press, 2010), 19.
[36] Just a healthy soil takes time, so does discipleship.  The soil is a person and the Word, the Seed, grows best in organic living soil.  This takes great patience, diligence and hands on care. See Luke 8:3-15.
[37] Luke 13:8.
[38] Dan Fountain, Let’s Restore Our Land: Church and Community Leaders Working Together to Restore the Land (Fort Meyers: ECHO, 2007), 109.
[39] Terry Hershey, Soul Gardening: Cultivating the Good Life(Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2000), 16.
[40] Ragan Sutterfeild, Farming as a Spiritual Discipline (Indianapolis: Doulos Christou Press, 2009), 34.
[41] Paul Stevens, “Farming”, The Common Book of Everyday Christianity.