Jesus tells rulers a parable about the Kingdom of God on earth by describing a farmer who plants a vineyard. He leases its care to tenant farmers who reveal themselves as both greedy and murderous, “This is (the farmer’s) heir. Come let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.” The tenant farmers represent the greedy and murderous rulers who scheme against Jesus and his Way. Jesus tells the rulers, “I say to you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”
Farming is used as a metaphor to describe greedy and murderous religious rulers because it unfortunately has such persons ruling it. Agricultural rulers have schemed against farmers and the land for generations hindering their fruitfulness. This includes Trump’s current Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue. Perdue ruled for nine years as Georgia’s governor and used his office not to help co-create the fruitful Kingdom of God on earth but instead to perpetuate the greedy and murderous Confederacy (He proclaimed a Confederate History Month). The original Confederacy’s rulers may have been defeated on the battlefield but they were victorious on the farm fields back home. They stole inheritances from poor whites and murdered black farmers while destroying any fruits of Reconstruction. For generations, Perdue and other supporters of the Confederacy were greedy for money and for murderous white supremacy. He took that greedy and murderous Confederacy with him to D.C. in the form of unqualified Confederate loving friends and lobbyists. Like the President who appointed him, Purdue lies about loving farmers because he routinely hinders their producing fruit and hinders our consuming nutritious food. Purdue hinders fruitfulness by refusing to implement needed climate action changes, also by supporting factory farms, opposing the Clean Air Act, and dismantling the Farmer Fair Practices Rules. He hinders nutrition by cutting food safety programs, libeling the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and cutting nutrition standards for school children’s meals (Betrayal at the USDA by Union of Concerned Scientists). Such actions are murderous during this time of Covid as millions more people are going hungry and applying for food assistance but Purdue, Trump, and McConnell in the Senate have undermined and/or blocked nutrition improvement efforts. A Confederacy of greedy and murderous white supremacists abusing people and the land will never bear fruit. A community of international small farmers who care for each other and the land will. Such is La Via Campesina, The Peasant’s Way, whose goal is food democracy. It is an international movement of over 200 million farmers from over 80 countries. It includes women, indigenous people, migrants, and agricultural workers who have all known injustices and pain. It also includes landless people driven off their farms, all of it done by a persistent and transnational Confederacy of greed and murder. The Confederacy controls sterile seeds, genetically modifies food, destroys biodiversity, uses land for agrofuel, and produces killer chemicals and food for export, as well as privatizing water, and so much more. But as the Gospel and its incarnation in La Via Campesina shows, the peasants persist, together, as a ‘people that will produce fruit’ for the Community.
This is our cause, “comprehensive agrarian reform to ensure that our peasants are no longer denied their right to work the land and to allow the fertile… earth to bear its fruits.” It is “necessary, especially when faced with capitalism’s voracious appetite. We are brothers and sisters united in a struggle for a better world, aspiring towards a healthy and just society where there is respect for the dignity of men and women.” (Oscar Reina – La Via Campesina)
Prayer: Spirit, help me be fruitful.
Question: What is the care I give to local farmers?
October 04, 2020 Gospel Matthew 21:33-43 Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time