Some Things Learned from Study Leave Genesis 2:4b-11, 15; Revelation 22:1-5; Matthew 18:21-22

Transcription

1 Some Things Learned from Study Leave Genesis 2:4b-11, 15; Revelation 22:1-5; Matthew 18:21-22 September 14, 2014 By Dr. David B. Freeman, Pastor Weatherly Heights Baptist Church From Wendell Berry, the American novelist, farmer, and social critic. I ve had this quote printed in your worship guide, and I invite you to ponder the significance of these words. Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do. I ll come back to that in a moment. Have you ever noticed that the Christian story of human beings begins and ends in a garden? The Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis and the garden flowing with the water of life in the book of Revelation are presented as the bookends of human history. Likewise, have you ever considered that our first profession, and the profession that has served us for most of human history, was that of farmer? Unlike us, our great grandparents likely lived on a farm and were farmers. They planted their crops, depended upon the rainfall, ate what was in season, and put up for the winter as much as they could. They cared for the soil, knowing that it was a portal into the future. They knew that soil is not dirt. It is a living organism that must be honored, nurtured and fed. And when it is, our great grandparents knew that it will produce even more life, five-fold, tenfold, even a hundred-fold or more. Most of us are far from our great grandparents gardens and farms. We are engineers, educators, scientists, computer programmers, and dozens of other things. We don t have a single farmer in our congregation. No offense, Leonard Mitchum, Jim Davis, and others who have gardens. We have some folks who garden and grow vegetables and fruits. They even share the bounty of their

2 labor with us, but we have no one who depends solely upon their farm for their food. No, we have Star Market, such as it is these days. We have Publix and Kroger. We have the larger retailers, which I prefer not to name. We have strayed far from our origin, and I fear we have lost something of great value and, perhaps most importantly, are now subject to the long memory and stern judgment of Nature. You have allowed me to spend the last couple of months studying the food supply of our country: how food is produced, where it comes from, who benefits, it s nutritional value. I ve enjoyed visiting farms in Virginia and here in Alabama that are on the cutting edge of sustainable farming practices. I ve met with our county extension agent and others, and today I want to share with you a bit of what I ve learned and offer a suggestion. Let me begin with a personal confession. I have known most of my life that I am peculiar in at least one respect. My wife might say many. I am hardwired to the soil. While some of you understand what I mean, I don t think everyone feels what I feel. I love the smell of the earth and the feel of friable soil in my hands. I enjoy the manual labor required to harness the aliveness of the earth, to subdue it, transform it into those two things that feed us: beauty and food. If you re not hardwired to the soil, that s okay. Don t hear this as a value judgment against you. I m sure it explains why I felt drawn to this subject and why I long to have a farm of my own some day. With that confession, here is some of what I learned. First, I have become convinced, as has a rapidly growing movement today, that the typical American diet is taking a heavy toll on us. Over a period of two generations, we have shifted from eating beans, corn, potatoes, broccoli, asparagus, apples, tomatoes, and grass-fed meats to eating frozen pizzas, chicken nuggets, Big Macs, hot pockets, potato chips, sodas with high-fructose corn syrup and corn-fed meats. Another way of saying this is to say that we have shifted from eating nutritious whole foods to eating far less nutritious processed foods. These processed foods we can get cheaply and in supersized portions. And too often they are eaten behind the steering wheel of a car or behind a desk or on the run somewhere. The few vegetables and fruits we do eat are drenched with copious amounts of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. 2

3 I had a friend from Texas call this past week, and I was trying to explain to him what I was studying. After I rambled on for a bit, he said, Yeah, just look at the advertisements we all get in the mail. Go through it and count how many products are prepackaged, processed foods and how many are real foods. That s not a bad idea. Do that next time you get a flyer in the mail. What is the toll of this? According to the US Attorney General, obesity is officially an epidemic in this country. Some argue that it is the most pressing public health problem we face as a nation, costing the health care system an estimated $90 billion dollars a year. The disease once known as adult-onset diabetes has been renamed Type II diabetes, since diabetes now occurs so frequently in children. A study in the Journal of American Medical Associations predicts that a child born in 2000 has a one-in-three chance of developing diabetes. Some fear that this generation of children may be the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will be shorter than their parents. Add to this heart disease, certain cancers, and other illnesses that can be tied directly to our diet, and you begin to see the enormous toll the typical American diet is taking. The second thing I learned: the economic and ecological impact of the typical American diet is also extracting a heavy toll. To understand this, we need to go back to 1909 when a German scientist named Fritz Haber discovered how to make synthetic nitrogen, chemical fertilizer. Some claim that his discovery was the most important invention of the twentieth century. It certainly was important, coming to us as a twoedged sword. Without it, we could not feed the masses of the world today. Chemical fertilizers have boosted productivity to levels never dreamed possible. But here s the other side of that sword. When we acquired the ability to make our own fertilizer, we shifted from a total reliance upon the energy of the sun to reliance upon fossil fuel, which is how synthetic nitrogen is made. The commercial farming industry today could not exist without synthetic fertilizers. Farmers no longer have to honor, nurture, and feed their soil, so it will produce five-fold, ten-fold, and even one hundred-fold. All they have to do is apply synthetic fertilizers. 3

4 Today s commercial farming practices no longer feed the soil, which in turn feeds the plants. They feed the plants this synthetic fertilizer and fail to care for the soil. Consider this. When you add the natural gas in the fertilizer to the fossil fuels it takes to make the pesticides, drive the tractors, and harvest, dry, and transport one bushel of industrial corn, you find that every bushel of industrial corn requires an equivalent of between a quarter and a third of a gallon of oil to grow it. That s fifty gallons of oil per acre of industrial corn. Many are rightly concerned today about our dependence upon foreign oil. Add to production costs the costs of transportation. The typical American diet meal travels 1,500 miles before it reaches our dinner plate. Yes, we like broccoli in January, but there is a cost to that that we have not yet paid. Add to that the destruction of topsoil and the depletion of fertility, and you begin to see the economic and ecological toll of the typical American diet. Here s one more thing I have time to share this morning, and this is the most important. I am convinced that the church has a role to play in balancing this heavy toll. The church is a keeper of community. We are a gathering of families. We are a collection of resources that we can share with each other and our broader community. We have master gardeners in our congregation, people who know how to take a piece of earth, treat it well, and reap its bounty. We have some great cooks in our congregation, who can take a basket of fresh vegetables and turn it into a feast. We have nutritionists, who can tell us more about whole foods and processed foods. And we have some land that we are currently paying a lawn service to maintain for us. I think we have the perfect combination of resources to address the problem of the typical American diet, so here s my suggestion. Let s build a garden. Let s build the Weatherly Community Garden and do it the way our great grandparents did, honoring the soil, nurturing it, and feeding it. Let s get our children involved by letting them nominate and help plant the vegetables. They will be more likely to eat them if they nominate what is grown and help to grow it. We could have some raised beds for those who want to garden but can t bend to the ground. 4

5 We can have a vegetable stand set up after worship on Sundays, so you can stop by, pick up a basket of fresh, nutritious fruits and vegetables, and go home and cook them. Maybe one Saturday a month we could put up signs in the neighborhood announcing free vegetables. We can hand people a basket of vegetables and a bulletin for Sunday morning. Here are my goals for the Weatherly Community Garden. First, education. I want our children to know that there is an important stage before Star Market. I want them to be actively involved in the garden and to become excited about growing their own food. If you don t cook fresh vegetables, we ll have cooking classes. I want us to supplement those classes with nutrition classes where we can really dig into what is a healthy lifestyle and diet. Second goal: the production of locally grown, organic produce. It will have to travel only as far as from our church to your kitchen. That s about two miles for me. It will take a few cents worth of petroleum to get fresh vegetables to my dinner plate. The third goal is outreach. I want to use this as a new way to connect with our community. The slow food movement is here. People more and more desire locally grown, organic vegetables. The farmers markets that have sprung up in the last few years have been a great success. Some of you receive a weekly box of vegetables from Doe Run Farm or another local farm. It s time to do this. Besides, Wendell Berry is right. Whether our politicians or we realize it, Nature is party to all that is happening now. And she does have more votes, a long memory, and a stern sense of justice. We don t all have to move to the farm. But we do need to be aware and make informed decisions. I ve got a hoe and a basket. How about you? Closing Prayer Lord, you have given us this earth to call our home. Forgive us for the disrespect we ve shown. May we now repent and live more in harmony with this grand garden you ve given us. Amen. 5