To Steward the Earth is to Make Food Integral to Faith

2006 Earth Day Message

Prairie Woods, Iowa

Genesis 2:7-9 and 15

And so began the cycle of life, the miracle of life. 10,000 edible plants alone, springing up from 10,000 varieties of tiny inert seeds, drawing by their roots in Adama – most strictly translated into English as “the fertile soil” – taking up into stems and leaves the soil’s fertility (its minerals and nutrients), bankrupting that soil of its sources of life to form, nourish and yield all manner of fruits, vegetables and grains, feeding all manner of domestic and wild birds, animals and livestock and, of course, Adam – which means in English “mankind, humankind,” each bird, animal, man and woman forming with this nourishment in its own miraculous cycle of life, each rising up, aging and finally dieing.

And all of this life on the face of Adama, each in its own, each in their own autumn of life falling back to Adama, returning by the collective death and decomposition of our plant and animal waste, our organic matter, our bones, our fallen bodies to feed the microscopic life in the soil, yielding miraculously once again, the minerals and nutrients that nourish germinating seed and the roots of plants all over again, and again, and again.. A cycle ended, a cycle begun, endlessly, infinitely, defining our purpose in this Created world – to till it and keep it, most strictly translated into English. “to serve it” and “protect it.”

It is with great pride and great humility that I daily endeavor to fulfill this first great commandment of God’s word. Of all the things I’ve studied, trained for and learned in 51 years of life, no vocation has satisfied me in the way farming has:

• To tend the miracles of soil life, seed, plant and animal;
• To watch it all take shape over the course of a season,
• To bend my back, strain my every muscle, over and over in hundreds of tasks required of me to see this life take root, take shape, yield fruit;
• To study Nature, listen to Nature, watch Nature and with my puny mind and body attempt responses that nourish along plants through 700 plagues of weeds and all manner of insects, diseases and pests; through killing frosts, and endless cloudy days, and record dry spells and 8 inches of rain in a single hour, and nearly 7 weeks of not one drop of rain, and 100 degrees F – all in one season.
• To watch the nimble fingers of my children stirring composted manure into potting soil, sowing seeds into flats, moving watering wands and cans above those flats, disentangling the roots of tender young plants from one another as they emerge from protective greenhouses to transplant into the tilled soil, weeding and pruning and finally harvesting; a hundred varieties of vegetables and herbs,
• To hear the laughter, the joy of discovery, the thrill of sudden treasure, of a 4-year-old harvesting the Yukon gold potatoes, tumbling from hills I fork open to him.
• To see a 5-year-old moving an animal larger than he is into place and milking it with the serious expression, skill and love of one 80 years his senior,
• To see this young boy 5 years later coming ‘cross the barnyard, a newborn in his arms, somehow managing to maneuver through the back door, up into the kitchen; there proudly, matter-of-factly proclaiming, “My first delivery.” (Can you tell he wants to be a veterinarian.)

I live the Creation story everyday. I’m challenged every moment I live to practice stewardship of the Earth. My every waking thought challenges me to find new ways to serve and protect what really matters in life. And even when I’ve had to drive away to subsidize what I could not sustain, purchase, or employ with greater efficiency (without extra income during the many years my family has struggled to establish a self-sustaining farm), I still thanked God for revealing to me my true purpose in life.

This second Creation story in the Bible, which scholars believe actually is the older of the two creation accounts, at once reveals to human beings our vocation in life, our relationship to God and our identity. We are formed from fertile soil. It is our very name. It defines our purpose in a blessed world of miracles.

Thousands of years later, descendants of the same seed, in a culture that has by inventions and science, by economic exploitation of once cheap and plentiful fossil fuels, moved 99 percent of Adam into cities and suburbs, does this change our first purpose and calling? Is our collective responsibility to serve and protect Creation ended? Did our Savior come to fulfill the law or absolve us of it?

The Bible says God’s word is open to interpretation, and you may interpret thousands of written words to support almost any purpose you would prefer in your world. But the stark implications of what has happened, is happening to our agriculture, our countryside, our vital resources, the fragile sources of life, the delicate balance of Nature God Created, set in motion and entrusted to us – all cry out to a thinking people to recognize the insecurity of our food supply, the injustices of our practices, the ecological risks we are taking, the sense of community we are losing, the spiritual emptiness of lives lived with no relationship to seed, soil, plant, bird, animal or that steward still clinging to the first purpose in the garden – the beleaguered farmer of contemporary America.

How secure is a food supply that has increased reliance on fossil fuels for agricultural production 15-fold? When my grandfather did field work as a child in southern Illinois , the ratio of energy required to produce food (from that of the human body to other sources of energy – the sun, horses, mules, oxen) was 1 to 4. Today that ratio has been estimated to be 1 to 90, with almost all of that other energy coming from fossil fuels and nonrenewable sources of energy.

When average net farm income for hard working families across this mighty nation is no more than $7,000, how just is that economic system? The food system from which almost everyone in the United States purchases daily may be almost completely anonymous, but with the knowledge that our purchases are impoverishing the people who feed us, how can we call ourselves people of faith, people of God? The Illinois Hunger Coalition director told me at a food security summit a few years ago that when she and her staff tabled information at the state fair in Springfield, Illinois farmers were coming up to their booth and telling them that they could not feed their children and they could not qualify for assistance because they were asset rich, yet cash poor. People of faith, is this justice? We are called to do justice.

When I assisted agronomists, soil scientists and educators in on-farm research as a grant writer in a school for farming, I was almost daily confronted with the impact of our food and farming systems on the environment. A public health official told me that he’d been monitoring more than 150 wells over 7 years in his county, and was very disturbed by the rising presence of chemical nitrate in drinking supply. One in 10 wells in Wisconsin was unfit to drink 5 years ago. Today in parts of that county monitoring its wells, 1 in 3 wells is now unsafe. Does such a food and farming system that renders irreplaceable, vital sources of drinking water unfit, reverence Created life?
It is conservatively estimated that 70 percent of all antibiotics being administered in this country are being fed to healthy pigs, cows and poultry to make them grow faster and to protect them in industrial concentrations from being wiped out by a time bomb of conditions ripe in close quarters for epidemics. At least 25 percent of this antibiotic passes from bird and animal into waters, slurries, the environment, and samplings of water in more than 30 states have shown more than 45 percent contained at least one type of antibiotic. The wonder cure of the last century is being rendered useless as bacteria build resistance by the day in the huge slurries of our confined animal feeding operations. More than 150 organizations – the majority of them health and medical associations – have called for an end to this non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock facilities. Is the Christian’s response, to ignore these professionals, refuse to recognize the serious implications of these practices, purchase food from these food and farming systems?

I used to naively believe that I could ignore what was going on all around me as I struggled with conviction and commitment to act and live responsibly with my wife and children on our little corner of the world. I used to think I could simply live, farm, till and keep what I believed to fulfill God’s purpose. I’ve honestly come to believe that this is impossible, even immoral. To live truly thankful lives is to responsibly protect and serve soil fertility. It is to do justice in our consumption of food. It is to love mercy in our direct market relationships with farmers and food producers. It is to walk humbly in a wealthy land of many resources by refraining to waste and squander those resources, by speaking out in our communities about how our tax dollars are spent at every level of government and public investment.

We’ve been put in this garden to till it and keep it. Let us resolve individually and collectively this day, let us resolve as people of faith and conviction, to fulfill this Biblical commandment, to show it in our homes, neighborhoods and churches. To show it at the table, the community meal, the church supper where we feed those we love.
In my capacity as director of Churches’ Center for Land and People, I have since July 2003 devoted much time and energy devising practical ways that we can increase earth stewardship, economic justice, community and spirituality for farming people and the land. We’ve developed two documentary films about these projects.

• One shares our collaborative and ecumenical work to train, apprentice, instruct and place young farmers in sustainable agriculture enterprises and farming operations at religious camps, retreat centers, seminaries and outdoor ministries.
• The other shares an exciting, growing system we’re developing of winter farmers market benefit sales held in church parish halls across Iowa and Wisconsin and in scattered churches in the Chicago area. This project is restoring direct market relationships between farmers and consumers. At the same time, it raises money to help other farmers through emergencies with farm market vendors donating 10 percent of their proceeds to the Harvest of Hope farm crisis fund.

I thank God for these opportunities to help my rural neighbors maintain their stewardship vocations, to help you achieve your stewardship responsibilities by supporting and engaging in these projects. Our challenges are great. The importance of our individual and collective contributions to this work cannot be over-emphasized. They are so important, so vital to generations that will follow us.
Adam, your Creator is calling you. Adam, your Creator is sending you out into this lovely garden of miracles, of glorious creations well worth investing your time and energy. Till it and keep it this day, every day, and give thanks for our Genesis purpose. And with all that you own, in purchases as a consumer, in reverence for Creation, make food a cornerstone of your faith.
The Lord be with you this Earth Day 2006. The Lord be with you indeed.
Tony Ends, Farmer
Scotch Hill Farm, Brodhead, Wis.
Also, Director, Churches’ Center for Land and People

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