Explorations in Just Living
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Welcome to the blog of the Enough for Everyone program of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). By "just living" we mean both justice-based living and just simply living – freeing ourselves from the clutter of stuff so we can focus on living faithfully and living well. Join us in the exploration!
About the Author
Bryce Wiebe coordinates Enough for Everyone, a ministry of the Presbyterian Hunger Program. He loves slow food and is fascinated by the way things are made. He is excited to dive into experiments in simplicity with you. His sacred cow of consumption: kitchen gadgets.
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Seeds in the Kingdom of God
A short World Food Day reflection for a Communion Service. For more information on this year's Food Week of Action and it's theme, "Seeds" visit pcusa.org/foodweek
Luke 13:18-22
18He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? 19It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” 20And again he said,
“To what should I compare the kingdom of God? 21It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” 22Jesus went through one town and village after another, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem.
Delivered at the World Food Day Chapel service
October 16, 9am
Presbyterian Center Chapel
Get in a straight line, at the sink. Hands to yourself. Hands to yourself! Soak your paper towel. Careful not to tear it. Be gentle. Now wrap it around your bean. Don’t worry now about it being too tight. Open up your ziplock bag and place your paper towel and bean inside. Ok now does your bag have your name on it? Perfect. Now to the window, because seeds need warmth and sunlight to grow. Tend your seeds. Water them. They will grow.
For weeks and weeks we watered and watched. Watched as the seed coat softened and split. Watched as the thin, white filament of roots stepped their way through the cracks and the small shoot stretched its way upward. After awhile the leaves unfurled, creating a tiny canopy above the opening of the bag and shading the kindergarten scrawl of my name. B backward R capital Y C and E. A name on a bag a name on a seed.
This World Food Day we find ourselves very interested in seeds and the names that go on them. I spent my first 12 years on a farm and I would read the bags of seed as my dad poured them into the planter; Pioneer, Cargill, Monsanto. All these names for corn, for wheat, for soybeans. These names are among the hottest topics in the food and farming world.
In 1980, the Diamond v. Chakrabarty case affirmed living things were eligible for patent protection with the decision a genetically-modified bacterium was patentable. With the law established, biotech companies began their work at isolating genetic traits in commodity crop and patenting their results. Monsanto patented the first genetically modified seed in 1982 and and it entered the market in 1996. Fast forward to today and 90% of the soybeans in the US are genetically modified. Planting these seeds requires farmers to sign a contract that states they will not save seeds and replant them. It makes farmers wholly owned by those who design their seeds and restricts the methods of farming they can engage in. These seed modifications are done so that producers can put more pesticides and herbicides onto the ground which may or may not wash into drinking water, may or may not diminish soil quality, but ends up in our bodies.
And when they have more than are needed? They dump these modified, patented seeds into markets all over the world, undercutting the local crop varieties, replicating monoculture, big commodity farming all over the world and, eventually, replicating the health and environmental impact they bring as well. Moreover, armed with intellectual property rights and lawyers unlike has been seen before, they inspect fields for any sign of the life they own; the DNA they created, marketed and sold still visible in plants generations further down the line, possibly even crossed with other varieties. Small farmers who have long saved a portion of the harvest for the next years planting, now risk being sued. A field where this seed has simply blown and sprouted? They must pay as well.
Why care about a seed?
See, the Kingdom of God is, the Gospel says, like a seed. Like potential. Like the smallest initiative that creates stunning effect. You must do some work; tend to the soil, water when needed, shield from the harshest challenges presented by weather, and soon there will be a plant. Protect it, fertilize it, weed the garden, and it grows. Soon enough it grows so that even the birds of the air make a home in its branches.
The kingdom of God, however, is not like the GMO seed, though to read the public statements of the companies that produce them would suggest otherwise. The eradication of hunger, a work of justice, depends, they imply, on them. Other methods of agriculture have failed, charity of good people has failed, those “kingdoms” have given us desolation and a barren land with no plants, no humans, no animals, as Jeremiah might say. We need row after row of Round-up ™ ready corn. The market saves, their genius saves, and for this it must be paid, handsomely, and it must protect itself from the small farmers of the world and from biodiversity. (It is, after all a “narrow door”, this way of salvation.) And those who would retain and replant their saving grace? They must be punished, they must held accountable. How could a corporate giant continue this saving work if it weren’t well compensated for its efforts? The birds of the air must pay rent for their stay.
No. The Kingdom of God, my friends, will subvert the systems and it always has. Any kingdom we attempt to replace it with will fail no matter how well intentioned and no matter how seemingly successful at first appearance. To participate in the Kingdom of God and to do its work will mean saving seeds as we have found them and planting them knowing we do nothing magic to make them work. We must plant seeds developed over thousands of years, thousands of varieties, each reflecting its particular time and place; each developed in cooperation with the earth in which it is meant to grow and the people who have grown there too. Hunger and poverty will end, not when we convert the whole planet to industrial farming, but when we no longer build systems that profit from treating their symptoms with one-size-fits-all solutions, patented, packaged, and reproduced to make it easy on those for whom ease and plenty are already the norm. It will end when we shoulder the work of repairing our relationship with the Earth. It will end when we restore dignity to work. It will end when we allow all God’s people to flourish, supporting food sovereignty, local economies, and sustainable ways of buying and selling. It will end when we cultivate the seeds God is sowing. When we join the Kingdom of God at hand. These are not, after all, our seeds.
We cannot claim ownership over God’s Kingdom any more than we should be able to patent life itself. We cannot presume to constrain the Holy Spirit’s actions into a monoculture of experience and processes that validate our own insecurities any more than we should allow the rich bio-diversity of the Earth’s seeds to fall victim to corporate greed masquerading as benevolence, pretending to be universal and claiming itself as progress. The Kingdom of God is a seed. Today that is both literal and metaphor.
The seed set out upon this table is the nourishment offered to all who will come. The table is set for all God’s children. It is enough for what we need, enough to offer us strength. It is enough with the promise that it will grow in us and, perhaps, through us too. The seeds of a grain, crushed, mixed, watered and warmed; seeds planted in a different way. It is the glimpse into a Kingdom that starts so small that it may seem meaningless. The fullness of God, the kingdom itself, is growing, like a seed planted in the ground, growing into a shoot, then a branch, then a tree, then a whole forest, field, and vineyard. God’s grace is growing and expanding and diversifying, promising to nourish the whole of the World. May we offer ourselves as workers in the rows, and count ourselves among the guests at the table.
- Posted at 11:17 a.m.
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