Adapted from Timothy R. Eberhart, Rooted and Grounded in Love: Holy Communion for the Whole Creation, Wipf & Stock, 2017.
A sower went out to sow wheat in central North Dakota. His farming operation, though twelve times larger than the 160-acre homestead his great-grandparents settled in the late 1880’s, is considered small. In May, he purchased seeds from Agripro Wheat, a subsidiary of Advanta, the sixth largest seed company in the world. In early April, with his John Deere tractor and Case IH seed drill, he planted 350 bushels of wheat across a thousand acres of land, burning approximately a gallon of diesel fuel per acre and contributing carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Over the course of the growing season, he applied a combined total of a hundred pounds of nitrogen (Terra Industries) and phosphorous (The Mosaic Company) per acre and sprayed 32 ounces per acre of Monsanto’s Roundup pesticide, 25 ounces per acre of a rust fungicide (Bison), and another 25 ounces per acre of a scab fungicide. Each spring, the fertilizer runoff from his fields drains into the Missouri river, which flows through the Mississippi and down into the Gulf of Mexico, creating dead zones in the marine ecosystem. The pesticides he applies have been directly linked to rises in asthma, allergies, attention-deficit disorder, fibro-myalgia, and cancer in both farmers and consumers. In August, he used his John Deere Combine to harvest the wheat, which he loaded onto his Ford grain truck for transport to the grain elevator. On that particular day, the market price for wheat was $4.00 a bushel. With input costs (including seed, fertilizer/chemical, fuel, machine repair, marketing, soil sampling, and loan/interest costs) running about $140 per acre, and with wheat yields averaging around 40 bushels an acre, he netted around $20 an acre, or $20,000 total. By the time the grain companies, millers, food retailers, and marketers were paid, the wheat farmer made approximately .5 cents on a $2.00 loaf of bread sold at the grocery store. Although he continues to work between 70 and 80 hours a week and despite farm payments that subsidize his planting of commodity crops like wheat, soybeans, and corn, one year of unfavorable weather, market fluctuations, or a health crisis in the family could lead to his bankruptcy.
There was a landowner who planted a vineyard in Chile’s Copiapo Valley. Following General Augusto Pinochet’s bloody military coup in 1973 and as part of the liberalization of the Chilean economy, counter-agrarian reforms were implemented by the Pinochet regime whereby lands that had been subdivided and given to peasant farmers by previous administrations were returned to wealthy plantation owners. Central to these reforms was the opening of Chilean society to the global market economy by way of a series of societal “shocks” recommended by the University of Chicago economist Milton Freidman. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, governmental subsidies supporting cash crop agriculture and foreign investments from the U.S. encouraged large landowners to shift from traditional domestic crops such as wheat, milk, and sugar beets to grapes and other fruits for export. As a result, wealthy landowners who planted vineyards in Copiapo Valley flourished under Pinoche’s government, which from 1973 to 1990 tortured its citizens, “disappeared” political dissidents, and assassinated over 3,000 Chileans, including many peasant leaders. Since 1990, Chile’s democratically elected governments have tried to temper the massive social inequities caused by export agriculture with tariffs and wealth redistribution programs, but the benefits of economic growth have continued to flow primarily toward large-scale landowners. As a result, more and more small-scale farmers have lost their land to financial insolvency and been forced to sell their labor as temporary workers during fruit harvest, as industrial laborers in Santiago’s maquiladoras, or as undocumented low-wage workers in kitchens, fields, and hotels in the United States. Since the ’90s, Chile has been the leading exporter of fresh fruit in the Southern Hemisphere and a major exporter of wines, grape juice, and grape concentrate.
On a Sunday morning in the United States, a congregation of Protestant Christians is gathered to participate in the sacrament of Holy Communion. Following the confession of sins and a litany of thanksgivings, a pastor raises a loaf of bread—bread baked with flour ground from North Dakota wheat—then breaks it, and recounting Jesus’ words to his disciples at the last supper, says, “Take, eat. This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And then, lifting a cup of wine—wine fermented from grapes crushed in Chile—the minister continues, “Drink from this, all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
How should this meal be described? Is it holy? Do the many elements and relationships gathered together, blessed, and consumed make this a holy Communion?
God’s invitation to join in the love feast of Holy Communion resounds at the very heart of the Christian faith and life. Come and eat, taste and see, drink from this, take and eat, do this in remembrance of me. In accepting this summons, we discover the true purpose and end of all creation, which is fullness of life in God. The God who is Father/Mother, Son, and Holy Spirit is love, and the love of God is perfect, complete, whole. It is holy. God’s holiness is God’s perfect love shared with the world that all might enjoy life in complete abundance (John 10:10). Holy Communion is thus the feast of wholly loving life together, and the invitation is simply this: “Come, for everything is prepared” (Luke 14:17). The Host invites everyone with gracious love. The Spirit of the feast joins all together in convivial love. The Bread and Cup nourish every body as love enfleshed. Guests are assembled in mutual love. And the Head of the banquet blesses its commencement through creative love. Faithfully accepting God’s call means participating in the divine love actively gathering the whole of creation into the abundant life of Holy Communion.
God’s call to share in the abundant life of loving communion is given in the form of a meal invitation. So, too, the unholy nature of modern economic life together is centrally embodied in a meal—the agro-industrial meal. Since the processes involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of food traverse economic, ecological, political, historical, cultural, and personal spheres, the defining structures and characteristics of a society are revealed in how it gathers together to eat. Eating is one of the most basic processes binding us together with others and with the world. As such, if our eating is disordered, much else will be disordered, as well. In fact, nowhere is the unholy nature of the global market economy more evident than in our modern food system. The story of our present agro-economy, when fully told, includes coerced land enclosures, the decimation of small communities, the degradation of natural ecosystems, the commodification of seeds and plant genes, and the enormous concentration of socio-political power and wealth in a handful of transnational agribusiness corporations.
How, then, are Christians to gather in the love feast of Holy Communion amidst a global food system marked by so many unsustainable and unjust social, economic, and ecological relationships? I believe Christians are called today to join in the perfecting love of God by participating in charitable and just modes of economic life, beginning with holistic agro-economic practices that share in the holiness or wholeness of God’s love. In a holistic economy aligned with the holiness of God’s love: The earth is a commons accessible to all. The exchange of goods fosters social and ecological health. Productive activities are integrated into nature. Neighborly partnerships are localized in cooperative communities. And people are free to enjoy the just fruit of their labors. This is the abundant feast of God’s holiness. Holy Communion is the feast of wholly loving life together in which all of creation is made whole, and the invitation is simply this: “Take, eat. Drink from this, all of you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
Timothy Eberhart is the Robert and Marilyn Degler McClean Associate Professor of Ecological Theology and Practice at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and Director of the Center for Ecological Regeneration