"The purpose of the farm, we would come to learn, was not how much produce we could grow but rather how we listened and grew in Christ-like relationship with all creation," the author writes. Photo: Contributed
For the last four years, I have placed a jar of soil at the altar on Thanksgiving Sunday so that the land and our relationship with it—and not just the produce from the land—are part of our offering. This is soil we have listened to, tended and nourished. It is soil our children have blessed every spring and fall. It is soil that has cultivated us as children of God just as much as we have cultivated the land.
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, something quite extraordinary happened. Our church, St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, in Kelowna, B.C., engaged in a process of listening deeply to the Spirit, and the Spirit called us to rediscover the mission of church as signs and witnesses of God’s Kingdom. This call was to rearticulate our parish mission and restructure our parish life (integrating 11 standing committees into three “circles of ministry”), and it also returned us to the land.
God sent two newly retired organic farmers who moved across the country mid-pandemic as the borders were shutting down, found St. Andrew’s worshipping on Zoom and became part of the church. By Easter 2021, a neighbourhood family gifted us plots of urban farmland and “The Gift: St. Andrew’s Farm-Garden” was born. We would treat the land, each other and ourselves as gift, all grounded in God’s gift of Godself in Christ Jesus. The purpose of the farm, we would come to learn, was not how much produce we could grow but rather how we listened and grew in Christ-like relationship with all creation. We would farm organically and regeneratively, seeking the health and integrity of the soil and then donate what that land would grow to those living in food insecurity in our city. What came as gift would be given as gift.
Working with the land over the last four years has taught us much about being church in the midst of ecological and ecclesial crises. Pruning 2610 m of raspberries and blackberries taught us how to drastically prune our own plans (and assumptions!) without seeing this kind of pruning as failure. Watching as the (very stale) Covid-19 reserve sacrament we had buried at the farm grew an entire row of oregano taught us to see miracles. Companion planting—planting seeds together that help each other grow—taught us to cultivate the soil of our church life and inspired our writing of a multi-generational confirmation program. Rejoicing as neighbouring parishes and friends came to be part of the farm taught us that the work of the Kingdom is not about ownership but shared responsibility and so we removed the name of our parish from the name of the farm, replacing it with a summary of our learning: “From seed to cupboard: all is gift!”
Meeting the cutworms, the voles, the cabbage moths, heat domes and wildfires year after year continues to teach us that we don’t have enemies but rather partners in the art of growing. We’ve learned that steadfastness, not resilience (the ability to bounce back to what was before) is what is asked in these times; that while compost and green shoots may be helpful images for the life of the church, not everything goes in the compost and green shoots require both time and a discerning eye to know what is a weed and what is a fruit-bearing plant. All of this has taught us that God will cultivate the church into what God needs it to be if we listen and respond, if we risk and are willing to be on our knees (not just on the farm). Anglican and ecumenical partnerships with the farm continue to grow alongside ones with community service organizations and local schools. Through home deliveries and our cathedral’s food bank, organic food is shared with families, seniors, newly arrived refugees, adults with diverse abilities and our unhoused neighbours each year. The Vancouver School of Theology even partnered with The Gift Farm-Garden to offer a summer course, “Where Theology Meets the Soil.”
The Spirit is asking us to move from a church culture of programs and roles to one of disciples in community, from a busy, results-oriented way of being in our churches, and in our lives, to a gift-oriented way of being with all of creation. We believe this call is not just for St. Andrew’s but for the church as a whole. God reconciled all things to Godself in Christ (Colossians 1:20) and being in a Christ-like relationship with the land, as well as with one another, is essential to our ability to witness to the resurrection and to God’s Kingdom at this time in the life of the church. When our churches across Canada celebrate Harvest Thanksgiving, may our celebrations be about more than harvest, about more than what we can produce (and consume) from land and even about more than offering the harvest to God with our gratitude. May they be about Christ’s call to inhabit all of our relationships—with the land, with each other and with ourselves—as signs of the Spirit’s work of new creation.
From seed to cupboard all is gift, so keep choosing God’s Kingdom!