Jesus is sharing a final meal with friends in this Sunday’s Gospel. During the meal, “he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take it; this is my body.’” The celebration of the Real Presence of God within the gifts of the earth is the seed of a still growing communion. Unfortunately, that celebration happened under a looming attack by Judas and other opponents. It is the same for us today. We celebrate our communion with the earth and her gifts under a looming attack by betrayers and opponents.
Betrayal and opposition today can come in the form of Militarism’s capitalists who physically deny the earth’s gifts of seed and food for people. This denial is especially critical across the continent of Africa. A capitalist program implemented in 2012, The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, was formulated by the Group of 8. It consists of financial high priests from the wealthiest capitalist nations. It is supported by U.S. President Barack Obama as a means to feed Africa’s starving people. As is usually the case with capitalism, the program mobilizes private capital for rich multinational corporations to make common people suffer. Hunger and poverty will not end but rich African rulers will receive aid and investment to change helpful laws into harmful ones. The changed laws will provide agribusinesses like Monsanto, Syngenta, and Unilever control over land, seeds, and markets. But hunger and poverty are the direct result of people having their land, seeds, and markets controlled by the high priest class. So too with this capitalist program, farmers’ land is being stolen. Farmers’ seeds are now forbidden by law from being saved or shared. Farmers’ access to local markets is being blocked. Corporations respond to the people’s consequential suffering from hunger and poverty by outsourcing former owners, driven to hunger and poverty, as field labor to surviving land owners. This means former owners who are now impoverished laborers become serfs in debt to corporations. Nothing about agribusiness’ abuses gives witness to an affirmation of the sanctity of the earth and her gifts. Among those who do give witness are: Victoria Adongo of the Peasant Farmers’ Association of Ghana; Mamadou Cissokho, Honorary President of the Network of Farmers and Agricultural Producers of West Africa; the East African seed bank – Ethiopia’s Institute of Biodiversity; and Global Justice Now which just this past week released the short film, ‘Whoever Controls Seeds, Controls the Food System.’
The affirmation of earth’s sanctity is renewed in every small farmer, gardener, and grower who, for family, friends, neighbors, and strangers alike, is fully present in the work of their hands and the fruit of their lands. They are each in their devotion to creation blessed, broken, and shared.
Prayer: Spirit of Creation, may we receive the earth as a gift.
Question: What practices do I have that appreciate the earth as a gift?
June 7, 2015 Gospel Mark 14:12-16; 22-26 Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ
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