Rogation Sunday
(3rd Sunday in Easter)
May 5, 2019
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| We had planned a blessing of the tractors for the end of the service, but it was too wet. |
I’ve shared with some of y’all before that this is the
most rural place I have ever lived. Some
of y’all have heard some of the culture shock my family and I have gone through
as we’ve adjusted to life here. It is very different from the cities and suburbs
I’m used to and the learning curve has been steep. In fact, I started keeping a
list of all the things I’ve learned since moving here:
1.
Weeds are plants
that are growing in the wrong place.
2.
Dirt is soil
that’s in the wrong place.
3.
Steer are
castrated bulls.
4.
The name for a
female pig who has not had a litter of piglets is called a gilt.
5.
Horses need coats
during the winter to keep them warm. Cows do not need winter coats because they
have more fat.
6.
Sunflowers bloom
for about two weeks.
7.
A field that I
think is empty, or lying fallow for this season, is actually growing hay.
8.
Corn that appears
to me overdue for harvesting is actually being left in the field to dry out to
become animal feed.
9.
A Judas sheep is
one that has been trained to lead the other sheep to the slaughterhouse.
Those are just the highlights
from the past two years. I can’t wait to learn what y’all will teach me next! I
expect this list to continue to grow. I’m related to some farmers, but it’s
different living in a farming community.
Now, you may have noticed in our Genesis reading that God
was the first farmer. After God made the heavens and the earth, after God made
Adam, God planted a garden in the east, in Eden. God grew trees in the garden
and made sure there was a river to provide irrigation. And once God got it all
set up and started, then God put Adam in the garden to work it and take care of
it. The original Hebrew words for “work it” and “take care of it” are avad and shamar. They literally mean “to serve” and “protect.” So in the beginning,
God’s idea was for people to serve and protect creation. It sounds a bit like
being a police officer, to serve and protect. When my kids see a police officer
out and about, they often ask why the
police officer is there. I tell them that police officers’ job is to make sure
we all stay safe. Adam’s job was to keep the garden safe, to grow it, cultivate
it, and protect it from things that might destroy it. They may say that prostitution is the oldest profession in the world, but in fact, it's actually farming, since Adam’s job was
to be a farmer.
Psalm
8 also says that God made us to be farmers. God made human beings “rulers over
the works of [God’s] hands; …put everything under [our] feet: all flocks and
herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the
sea…”[1]
We were given the task of being stewards of creation, taking care of it,
serving and protecting it. Overall we’ve had some mixed results at being
successful with that, but one of the corners of creation where that is being
done well is right here. More so than in cities and suburbs, one thing we
understand well is that we are co-creators with God and given the
responsibility to take care of creation. God put us in charge over creation.
How well are we doing? How are the animals? How are the crops? I know, because
I’ve learned, that planting time is coming up. Some of us have already been out
in our gardens; soon it will be time to be out in the fields. God put it all
under our care. What a responsibility! What a privilege. Not everyone gets to
be a farmer. If we only had farmers, there would be no computers or hospitals
or churches! God does not call everyone to be a farmer. God has clearly called
this community to be one centered around ag life, to work the land and take
care of the animals.
What’s
interesting is that in our Gospel this morning Peter is also told to take care
of animals, specifically Jesus’ sheep and lambs. This reading comes right after
last week’s with Thomas and is commonly thought of as Jesus reinstating Peter.
During the events on Holy Week, if you recall, Peter denied that he knew Jesus
three times. Here, Jesus asks Peter three times if Peter loves him, once for
each denial. While denying Jesus had to
hurt, Peter broke down and wept afterwards, it also must sting that Jesus asks
three times, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter gives the same answer
all three times, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” It’s like a
conversation with a young child where they ask you a question, you answer, and
they repeat the question again. You may either answer again, or you may say, “I
already answered that. Do you remember what I said?” To which the answer is
invariably, “No,” which is why they’re asking again. This happens a bit with my
four year old. However, Jesus is not four years old. He has not forgotten
Peter’s answer nor did he fail to listen to Peter’s answer. Jesus asks three
times, Peter answers three times, and Jesus gives the direction three times to
“Feed my sheep.”
We
know from earlier in John’s Gospel that Jesus is the good shepherd, who lays
down his life for the sheep, the shepherd who protects the sheep from the wild
animals, the shepherd who knows his sheep and his sheep know his voice. In this
case, we are the sheep. After all,
people are part of creation, too. We need taking care of, serving and
protecting. Things try to destroy us, also. We need nurturing and cultivating
so that we might reach our potential, just like any crop or animal.
Jesus
tells Peter, “Take care of my sheep.” Even in the fishing scene that comes
right before this conversation, Peter is emerging as a leader among the
disciples. He wants to go fishing, and the other disciples join him. After
Jesus’ ascension, Peter becomes the leader of the early church and apostolic
succession, the uninterrupted transmission of spiritual authority, is linked
all the way back to him. The Catholic Church, which we trace our Methodist
roots back to via the Church of England, considers Peter to be the first Pope. Peter
was a shepherd, not of sheep that say “baa,” but the sheep who are God’s
people. Ag life does not mean we have nothing to do with people. It means that
just as we cultivate the land and crops and animals, we also are called to
nourish and serve and protect the people in our community.
Feeding
Jesus’ sheep is a tangible way of showing our love for Jesus. It’s putting our
faith into action. After all, the single idea the book of James is most known
for saying is that “faith without deeds is dead.”[2]
You can’t have faith without acting on it. Then it’s not faith, it’s just an
idea. But real faith compels you to act, convicts you to live differently, to
serve others, to be good stewards of all of God’s creation. While most churches
have a fondness for food, y’all really like feeding people. The wagon gets
loaded up each month with food for St. Michael’s food bank. I ask for candy for
the Easter egg hunt and you provide an abundance. Two different people asked me
this past week if we were continuing the youth group bake sale this Sunday,
because they wanted to contribute to it. There is something special to y’all
about Jesus’ words to “feed my sheep,” to take care of people, in particular by
feeding them. And feeding sheep, whether the ovine kind or the people kind, is
living out your faith.
Farming
is a vocation, just like being a nurse or doctor or teacher or lawyer or pastor.
They’re all calls that God places on your life, and you either respond or you
ignore them. Y’all have clearly responded. Why else would you get up at 3 a.m.
to milk cows? Why else would you put in long hours of near backbreaking work to
produce something from the land? Chickens aren’t any more likely to say thank
you than little children are. But God has called you to this work. God has
given you the tools you need to do it. God’s given you a pastor who had never
lived in a farming community before and occasionally gets culture shock or asks
silly questions, like “What’s beef field day?”. But in an ag community, you’re
not just taking care of the land and the plants and the animals, you take care
of the people, too, and I don’t want you to lose sight of that.
The
world needs farmers. Always has, going all the way back before Adam, to when
God planted the first garden. The world needs food, both the physical kind and
the spiritual kind. The mission agency I served with in Nicaragua before
seminary is called Food for the Hungry. Its goal is to end physical and
spiritual hunger worldwide. The name comes from Psalm 146, the Lord “upholds
the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.” It is through you
that God gives food to the hungry; through your work both in the field and
outside of it. People are hungry, not just for food, but for opportunity, for
resources, for their humanity and dignity to be recognized. We have a big job
to do. It begins in the garden and it ends in the kingdom of heaven. Y’all have
been uniquely gifted and placed and called to help meet those hungers, one
person at a time. That’s why we’re here. That’s why Lisbon is here. This
morning we’ll come to the table and be fed ourselves and then we’ll go out to
feed others, serving and loving in the name of Jesus.
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