Earth Day - Sermon

“Until All are Fed”

Have you ever had really big dreams?  Have you ever imagined really making a significant change in the world?  When I was in the eighth grade, I remember sitting in the school cafeteria with a few of my good friends and talking about some of the world’s problems, most significantly world hunger.  There is nothing like seeing pictures of malnourished children to tug at your heart strings.  So, we sat there, all of thirteen or fourteen years of age, trying to solve the problem of world hunger.  I decided that I was going to join the Peace Corps.  I would go to Africa and figure out a way to help feed the people.  I held onto that dream of joining the Peace Corps all the way through college, when someone suggested that maybe I should look into VISTA, the domestic Peace Corps.  Sure, I could go to another country, but we have plenty of problems and issues right here in our own back yard. 

So, instead of journeying to Africa, I was sent to Bradenton, FL.  And instead of solving the world’s food shortage and the issue of hunger, I was assigned to teach English as a Second Language to Migrant Farmworkers.  God sent me in a whole new direction, and although I was not working directly with the world food crisis, I was exposed to American Farming in a whole new way. 

I am only one generation removed from a farming family.  My mother grew up on a farm and my aunt and uncle still live on the family farm in Iowa.  I spent many a weeks in the summer playing with my cousins on the farm, learning about planting and harvesting, rotating the fields, the dangers of flooding versus droughts, and the cycle of life and death.  I can no longer snap beans then to be brought back to my aunts living room, sitting on sofa with my cousin, snapping bucket upon buckets of beans getting them ready for her to can.  When the whole Y2K thing happened, I said, what better place to be than the farm.  We have enough canned food down in the cellar to get is through whatever technological disaster they are predicting. 

The large corporate farms in Florida introduced me to irrigation systems and planes that flew overhead with pesticides.  I saw how migrant families worked long hours and were paid by the pound of what they picked.  I visited their homes in the migrant camps and saw that this was not how people helping to put food on my table should be living.   I’ve seen how farming and transporting food has a deep and negative impact on our environment. 

Food, from small farms to vast corporate entities, we buy it, we consume it, our very lives depend on it.  And I have learned, there truly is an abundance of food.  Once, when I was in the eighth grade, I had a very grand dream of being a part of ending world hunger.  Over the decades, I have learned that I am not alone in this dream and that there are numerous organizations and agencies out there doing their part to feed the world such as Heifer International, Save the Children, Unicef, and the Presbyterian Hunger Program, not to mentioned the countless soup kitchens and food banks scattered all over our country and the world.

This year, the Earth Day theme suggested by our denomination is:  Sustainable food.  Although the New Jersey farming season is rather short, we are blessed to live in an area that has farms not too far away.  My mouth just waters thinking about New Jersey corn in the summer.  And our local farms are doing their part to help us get in the habit of buying local through the numerous Farmers Markets that are located in our county.   

My grand dreams from the eighth grade are still with me, but I am much more committed to being involved with local agencies that are bringing food to the hungry, such as the Community Food bank, America’s Grow a row, and Faith Kitchen.  When I read the statistics that 40% of our food is actually thrown away, I know we can do better.  There are ways to mobilize resources to prevent food from being thrown out and to get it on the tables of people that need it. 

 A few years ago, I came across this song:  Until All Are Fed and it just really struck me.  I listen to it every so often as a prayer.  One of the versus is this: 

On the green, green grass they gathered long ago. To hear what the Master said. What they had they shared - some fishes and some loaves. And they served until all were fed.

Until all are fed we cry out. Until all on earth have bread. Like the One who loves us each & every one... We serve until all are fed.

It was there, on the green grass or on the rocky soil, or on the beach, that Jesus is teaching and his disciples are concerned that there are just too many people to feed and that the cost will just be too much for them to try and buy food for all the people that have gathered.  Jesus tells them to take what they have, which does not hardly seem to be enough, a few loaves of bread and fish, and what was once scarcity becomes abundance.  Until all are fed. 

Famine and scarcity to abundance, in our faith stories, God works through the fears that there is not going to be enough and brings abundance.  Pharaoh was greatly disturbed by his dreams, all is well during the good times, the times when the fields produce enough to go around, but what happens in times of scarcity?   When people don’t have food, the social systems that order life will break down.  Pharaoh’s very empire could be destroyed if there are seven years of no food.  Fear drives this story and rightly so.  But because God has shared that there will first be years of abundance before the famine, Joseph becomes the ears to hear God’s presence and mobilizes the empire to store food for the time of need. 

On the green, green grass they gathered long ago, they shared some fish and some loaves and they served until all were fed.  This time, they did not have the barns filled with stored grain, they only had a few loaves and a couple of fish, and yet, they served until all were fed.  Scarcity to abundance, echoes throughout our scriptures and continues into our world today.  How are we doing to feed the people of the world today?  We serve until all are fed.  We serve learning new ways to mobilize resources, such as modern day gleaning where we partner with grocery stores and convenience stores to repurpose food that would have been thrown out.  And yes, this is an incredible gift to our planet earth as well.  By seeking ways to keep that 40% of food out of landfills, all of the energy that was used to produce that food goes to its proper purpose, feeding people. 

Our God of creation has put natural systems into order that allow this precious planet that we live on produce an abundance of food so that all can be fed.  We, as a part of God’s creation, tend to get in the way.  In our own small way, we can seek to be less wasteful, we can buy local when the food is available, and we can begin to educate ourselves more on food and its impact on the environment.

Our denomination has a program called:  Presbytery Hunger program and it  is committed to the belief that life should be lived simply so that all can simply live. The everyday choices we make in our individual and family lives is a very personal matter, but they also have global implications. Understanding what causes hunger in the world is central to finding solutions. PHP encourages families, individuals, and church groups to evaluate their own needs and develop new ways of  caring and sharing of the world's resources in obedience to the gospel.

From this is a program called:  Earth Care Congregations – in which congregations seek to grow in their stewardship of God’s creation.  There is an inventory quiz to see how well your congregation is doing, and resources to guide a congregation into becoming more Green or better stewards of God’s creation.  If anyone is interested in this, I was thinking over the summer, we could have some conversation groups on Earth Care and how we can grow as a congregation in sustainable living.