Excerpt from The Field at Anathoth—A Garden Becomes a Protest published in
Orion,
July/Aug. 2007. Read full article
Agriculture offers a way for churches to seek the salvation, the shalom,
the welfare of the place to which they’ve been sent, which is what I
think the gospel writers were describing when they spoke of the Kingdom
of God. Live locally, eat locally, serve God by serving your neighbor.
This is no Earth-shattering revelation about how to Achieve World Peace
or End Poverty; rather, it’s a small act of witness, a way of living in
place that, if practiced, might begin to repair some of the damage we
have inflicted upon our neighbors, the fertile soil, and ourselves.
Agriculture offers a way for churches to seek the salvation, the shalom, the welfare of the place to which they’ve been sent, which is what I think the gospel writers were describing when they spoke of the Kingdom of God. Live locally, eat locally, serve God by serving your neighbor. This is no Earth-shattering revelation about how to Achieve World Peace or End Poverty; rather, it’s a small act of witness, a way of living in place that, if practiced, might begin to repair some of the damage we have inflicted upon our neighbors, the fertile soil, and ourselves.