What makes land "holy"? We're used to lots of news and history about The Holy Land, but what is it that makes that land holy? For Christians it's holy because the story of Christ and the Christian faith are bound to the events that transpired in that place.

Now consider St. Paul's theology. He notes we're all members of one body, with Christ at the head (1 Corinthians 12). By that logic, the body of Christ and the corresponding story of faith is being carried out in many more places than just one geographic location in the Middle East.

If the land you are farming or from which your food comes is indeed "holy land," would you treat it any differently than you presently do? Would you treat the people who steward it and work it any differently than you presently do?

That's one question among a handful that I asked in interviews with local farmers and family members during my recent sabbatical. The congregation I serve (First Lutheran in Milford) afforded me a sabbatical which I chose to focus the study portion on faith at the intersection of fasting, food, and farming. As a local beekeeper, the tiny honey bee is where this blooming curiosity was first pollinated.

As of 2018, Iowa was the number one worst place in the nation to keep bees with a trending 250% decrease in colony growth year over year. Studies pointed to monocrop agriculture and heavy pesticide use as the source of increasing challenges to honeybee survival. If the environment affected honey bee colony growth that negatively, I wondered how was it affecting us? Care for the nutrition of the bees was leading me into a deeper sense of care for the same land that provides our nutrition.

Fasting was the first important step to give pause to focus on the gift God daily gives with food (Matt. 6:9-13, Gen. 1:29). All food comes at the cost of another part of creation giving its life, even if you choose to be a vegan! How might such an awareness shape our thoughts, our prayers regarding food, our grocery pursuit of cheap often nutrition-less products?

There's a reasonable chance I'll inherit some farmland management in my lifetime. What choices do I need to make to treat that land like the gift that it is, like "holy land?" How do I maintain a level of awareness and proximity to the land my food and other's comes from that doesn't allow me to take it for granted or to abuse it and the people who do the hard work caring for it by cheapening their labor?

Each question I ask yields a further abundance of questions, which has made this time of intentional focus feel more like a beginning than an ending but I'll close with a few encouragements.

First, the successful restoration of creation is not in our hands (Revelation 21), thanks be to God! Second, we're no less invited to take part in the restoration now. It won't be with one big choice that's set before us, but rather with a series of small choices over our lifetime and generations to come that we'll begin to see signs of that restoration - a foretaste of the kingdom come.

To anyone overwhelmed with where to even begin, the simplest choice you might make is to grow a vegetable (maybe even just some herbs grown in your windowsill).

With it you'll begin to appreciate the effort it takes to get food from the earth to your table. You'll have a concrete experience of how faith operates and how much of the miracle of new life is entirely out of your hands. Perhaps most importantly, you'll experience the abundant life that God can bring through the work he's called each of us to from the very beginning (Genesis 2:15).