Sermon Notes
World Food Day 2015
Chapel of the Holy Apostles, Church House
A brief word from my favourite novelist, poet, essayist and Kentucky farmer,
Wendell Berry…
What I know of spirit is astir
in the world. The god I have always expected
to appear at the woods’ edge, beckoning,
I have always expected to be
a great relisher of this world, its good
grown immortal in his mind.
(The Satisfactions of the Mad Farmer)
I have titled these reflections, “Bread and Math” for reasons that I hope will soon
become obvious.
You may recall that in late July we heard a reading from the Hebrew scriptures
that pre-saged the gospel story for that same Sunday.
“Someone” – we don’t know who – from Baal-shalisha brings the prophet Elisha
the “first fruits of the harvest” in the form of 20 loaves of barley bread and some
“fresh ears of grain” to share with 100 people. Elisha’s servant does the math and
insists it’s not enough.
There are leftovers.
Almost 900 years later things on the food security front aren’t looking good when
someone, this time an unnamed child, offers 5 loaves of barley bread and 2 fish to
feed 5,000 hungry members of the Jesus Fan Club. Again, the math geniuses
among Jesus’ disciples insist the numbers don’t add up. And then we heard…
“Jesus took the loaves, and having given thanks, distributed them to those who
were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied,
Jesus told the disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be
lost.’ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves,
left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.”
1
In other words, there are leftovers.
I am the first to acknowledge that the math I learned over 40 years ago, bears no
resemblance to the “new” math that my son, Robin is learning in grade six. I can
hardly wait ‘til we get to the “new” algebra – NOT! So I am quite prepared to
accept that God’s math is also way beyond my understanding. How is it that such
abundance can emerge out of what seems to be such scarcity?
It is an established fact that there is enough food in the world today to feed
everyone – with leftovers. Yet about 800 million people – that’s about 1 in 9 – will
go to bed hungry tonight. There are all sorts of reasons – political, economic,
environmental – for that math, some of which I like to think I understand; others
of which are beyond my comprehension.
For the past two years I’ve been privileged to learn from some of those who are
trying to change that math. Together with my colleague, Sheilagh McGlynn, I’ve
been working to develop educational processes and resources for PWRDF’s threeyear food security campaign. That work has come to be called “Sharing Bread,” a
name coined from Jean Vanier’s 1998 Massey Lectures: “The word
‘accompaniment,’ like the word ‘companion,’ comes from the Latin words cum
pane, which mean ‘with bread.’ It implies sharing together, eating together,
encouraging each other to continue the journey of growth and the struggle for
liberation…”
Last summer and again this past July, Sheilagh and I gathered with members of
our volunteer networks, interested Anglicans and overseas development partners
at the Sorrento Centre on the shores of Shuswap Lake in central British Columbia
for a week-long exploration of food and food security in our lives, our
communities, in Canada and globally. In March, we took a delegation of our
volunteers to visit our Cuban development partners who had joined us at
Sorrento last summer to look at the ways in which the Cuban churches are
responding to the food security needs of their communities and country. And
next summer we hope to visit the Tanzanian partners who joined us at Sorrento
in early July.
I want to share a few, brief stories to illustrate the food security work that
PWRDF has accompanied for many years and is learning about – and being
enriched by – through this educational and fundraising campaign. But let me
begin here in Canada where stories and experiences of addressing food security
2
abound: At Sorrento we were joined by Candace Aitkens, a lay leader in the parish
of All Saints on the Magdalen Islands, tiny specks of land off Québec’s Gaspé
Peninsula.
Candace lives on the 2 km square patch of land called Entry Island that is a short
ferry ride off the southwest end of the main island. It is one of two Anglophone
communities on the Magdalens. There are 62 people resident on that island. The
last two children left the island at the end of the past school year. In her early
40s, Candace is now one of the island’s youngest residents. Entry Island is a dying
community that will, in all likelihood be gone within the next 15 years.
Two years ago, with the support of the islands’ young Anglican priest, Jeffrey
Metcalfe, All Saints applied to the Anglican Foundation for “seed” money to start a
parish garden. You see, Jeffrey and Candace had done the math. Sitting around
people’s kitchen tables it was clear that averting the community’s demise was not
possible. And there was a lot of anger and depression among Entry islanders
about that.
But those conversations also revealed that Entry Island was fertile and that in
years past, it had actually produced enough food to supply the main island. All
that had disappeared with the commercial fishery, Employment Insurance, a
monetized economy, and the loss of a sense of community. So the question
became, how to “live well” as a community for the next 15 years. A parish garden
seemed like a good place to start. Candace described how the garden, now in its
second year, along with bee keeping, is bringing the community together in small
but important ways. Children come back from the main island for planting and
harvesting days. The one remaining farmer on the island has provided
equipment and support. The elderly who cannot participate are offered produce
from the garden none-the-less. This year fruit trees were planted. There is
abundance, not scarcity. New math.
We were also fortunate this summer at Sorrento to be joined for a day by Bishop
Mark MacDonald. He was also leading a course that week and so our two groups
came together to explore issues of food security in Indigenous communities in
North America. Bishop Mark drew on his long years of experience living among
the Navajo of the U.S. Southwest and the Inupiat and Inuit of Alaska, as well as his
years as National Indigenous Anglican Bishop.
3
As you know, Bishop Mark is a great storyteller: “I have a friend,” he said, “who is
a Presbyterian pastor in Barrow, Alaska where there has been a battle over
subsistence rights. She said, “I’m so tired of translating… when we talk about
‘subsistence’ white people just don’t get it. In English subsistence is ‘just getting
by.’ In Inupiat ‘the animal gives itself to you, you are thankful and IT is
abundance.’” So subsistence = abundance. New math, or perhaps better said,
ancient math.
Geoffrey Monjesa is the development coordinator for the Anglican Diocese of
Masasi, in southeastern Tanzania. PWRDF has been in partnership with the
Diocese of Masasi since the mid-1980s. Geoffrey also joined us in Sorrento,
together with Joyce Mtauka, a farmer and community leader who has been a
beneficiary of the diocese’s food security program.
As part of a five-year “Preventive Health and Food Security” project funded by
PWRDF and by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and
Development (DFATD), the program seeks to both diversify and increase farmers’
yields through seed production and certification. 20% of farmers’ crops are
donated to their village’s seed banks for distribution the following year to other
farmers in the community. Those farmers, half of whom are women, are in turn
required to do the same with the number of those benefitting each year tripling:
from 1,155 in the first year to over 90,000 by the fifth year of the program! New
math, new abundance, food security.
Joyce knows everything there is to know about cultivating cashew nuts – among
numerous other crops and livestock – and shared her cashew nut harvest with us.
Best cashews I’ve ever tasted! Together with the rest of our group she visited the
Sorrento Centre Farm where Farmer Dave Wides spoke to us about the place of
this market garden in the larger Sorrento community, shared his perspectives on
faith-based farming and reflected on “finding God in the garden.” Joyce took notes
– lots of them – and took home to Tanzania kale and beet seeds; crops not grown
there, but which we might see growing in her garden when we make a hoped-for
return visit to the Diocese of Masasi next summer.
There are so many stories to share, but I will conclude with the words that Bishop
Mark concluded his presentation to us: “The night before Jesus died he gathered
his people together and talked about food security. It was and is a simple yet
complex teaching. He received the bread and a cup of wine, gave the blessing,
broke the bread and shared it. In Genesis we have the story of how humans
4
abused food and then tried to hide from God. In Jesus’ teaching we learn how to
eat our way into heaven. This is also an Indigenous way of understanding that
our lives have everything to do with receiving, blessing, breaking and sharing; the
four directions. Treating your food as a sacred thing is what Jesus was talking
about… It’s holy communion. It’s the food security act of our faith!”
As we gather at the communion table, may we share (barley) bread, cum pane…
And my math suggests there will be leftovers!
Amen.
5