Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.”
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, September 4, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
God knows what the land needs. Modern farming practices have moved away from nurturing the land toward using whatever chemical means necessary to force it to produce constantly. The results have been devastating to the environment, including being a major contributor to climate change. There is a movement to change this, returning to earlier practices of nurturing the land through a variety of means so that it can rest, and then produce in a sustainable way. Not everyone is on board, of course. Our economic system demands constant production and growth, to the detriment of… well everyone and everything.
God calls us to examine our ways of dealing with the land, and commands us to give it rest.
How do my patterns of food consumption contribute to unhealthy farming practices? How might I change this?
