Jesus tells a parable about the Community of God being a community of generosity. A farmer makes sure all farm workers benefit from a full day’s wage though not all work a full day’s hours. Not everyone likes the farmer’s generosity, “These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us” who worked all day. Capitalist owners do not like such generosity either. They work against precious wages being given to those they judge as undeserving workers. Society remains more ingrained in capitalism’s wage system than in a community’s generosity.
Working to secure a living wage within capitalism’s austere wage system is needed. Also needed is creating a new system, a generous living system, a generous ecosystem. This is specifically true in farming, a living ecosystem which is naturally generous but being depleted by a most ungenerous Big Agriculture. Big Ag is ungenerous because it robs the land and its workers for its own financial gain. Big Ag consists of a handful of multinational firms doing great harm. They are able to control food world-wide, deplete its nutrition, and apply chemicals and genetic engineering to it. Results include food borne illnesses and pollution that destroy nature’s living ecosystem. Heavily subsidized Big Ag also inhibits farmers from passing land person to person because it is being traded bank to bank. While Big Ag is destroying nature’s ecosystem and the fabric of life of those who tend it, groups of farmers are working to restore them. These farmers are creating a Community of Generosity, an ecosystem flowing from a generous earth and generous people.
Among the groups and people replacing Big Ag are Organic Consumers Association, Organics International, The Federation of Southern Cooperatives which grew out of the U.S. civil rights movement. Also included are small farms with often older farmers such as Paul and Leslie Spell and Norma Burns. Burns exemplifies farmers with no interested heirs who refuse to sell to Big Ag. Instead, she is finding a way to retire while generously giving over her land to young farmers who have lots of drive and ideas but little money. The transfer is usually done through a raffle system with a minimum number of participants (500), a small entry fee ($400) and a vision letter which is the decisive factor in being given the farm. Burns ensures Big Ag losses in its bid to buy up more small farms. She also ensures young farmers can live the life they most desire. “Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Prayer: Spirit, may I find big and small ways to be generous.
Question: How can I make more connections with local farmers to support them?
September 24, 2017 Gospel Matthew 20:1-16 Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time