Jesus spent his life in nature. He consistently identified with nature. He used nature in his parables. He used it for metaphors when teaching people about life. Jesus is speaking about nature, sheep and shepherds specifically, and about life in general this Sunday when he says, “A thief comes only to … destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” Thieves destroying life are many. Thieves are those who destroy life by taking it through gun violence, the death penalty, abortion, and war. War also includes the war being waged against nature. War is being waged against nature by industrial agriculture. Industrial agriculture is specifically robbing humanity of life in all its abundance.
Industrial agriculture and its poisons are an offshoot of the war industry. The war industry concentrates on and/or produces enemies to fight. It is disposed toward inflicting suffering on those it targets as enemies. The war industry devises weapons – biological, chemical, conventional, and nuclear to kill the enemies it targets. Industrial agriculture does the same. It treats nature like an enemy. It treats farms like factories and crops like products; objects used for financial gain. It targets each for suffering by developing all manner of poison for use on them. Its herbicides and pesticides kill and keep killing as they infest lungs, air, soil, and water. Industrial agriculture is thus a thief. It is robbing the earth of its creativity. It is robbing plants of their nutrition. It is robbing us of a participation in nature’s power and therefore our own. Jesus’ way of abundant life cannot be suppressed. Abundant life sprouted this past week in Vermont. Thieves from industrial agriculture who have been destroying food were offset by people wanting a more abundant life. Those in favor of abundant life worked in communion to pass political legislation to stop the thieves. The law now requires industrial agricultural companies, which have spent millions destroying nutrition and our knowledge about it, to label food if it has been morphed into a genetically modified organism (GMO). Reality tells us such laws may be reversed at the whim of plunderers in the war industry, and its many manifestations like Industrial Agriculture. Reality tells us too that community organizing by disciples to diminish the destruction of nature and make abundant life possible will endure more so.
Abundant life continues to transform the world.
Prayer: Creator of all Goodness, thank you for the abundant life with which we are blessed.
Question: To what life-giving way do I give myself?
May 11, 2014 Gospel John 10:1-10 Fourth Sunday of Easter