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Dear friends,
Do you ever think about our relationship to our location, to our place? Many of you are deeply connected to the land here. While the land is important to our lives, my sense is that we often don't think much about it. We normally go about our lives -- our jobs, our daily tasks -- without too much thought about our relationship to place, to the land, to our geography. The place and the land we live in is like the program running in the background of most of what we do.
Thinking about this got into my mind earlier this week while I was on a quick run to clear my head. As I was looping back home, I passed by Mark Emgarten. I almost didn't see him at first, since he was about 3/4 of the way into the ground repairing something that needed it. I can't recall what he said the problem was, as usually my runs are times when I'm thinking about several other things. By the time I got home, it had escaped my mind.
What struck me, however, was that Mark was literally standing in the earth. The reason he was standing in this hole in the ground was because it was part of his job. But, I think there's more to it than that. One does not stand four feet in the ground to fix something unless one has some level of care for the ground you're standing in. Mark was there because it was his work, yes, but I suspect also because the ground he stood in, this place, matters. He's not interested in just allowing whatever problem he was fixing to go on being a problem, uncared for. This place matters and so he was at work on it.
Mark's example is not an isolated incident. Toby Muller plants trees. Bill Nelson, Jim Zimmerline, Bryce and Brock Littler, Cash Emgarten all mow grass. These are just a few that come to mind. Many of you are farming families, who work with the land, with hogs, with cattle. Yes, these are all sources of income. Some of these are ways of making our dwellings more hospitable.
But deep beneath these tasks is something about our humanity. Each of us are planted in a place. God has put us here. And at the core of our humanity, we are made to be caretakers of our place. Standing in a hole in the ground is not what it appears. It, and tasks like it, is one of the more noble things we can be doing. Why do I think this? Because Scripture's story tells us this.
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This place-caring work is how the story of Genesis 2 is meant to come alive in our lives. I find it interesting that what most Christians get out of the creation stories is whether and how Genesis 1 fits with science. Genesis 2 hardly ever gets talked about. We need to move past that and read these stories for how they're supposed to be read: to form our lives. It so happens that these stories tell us something of what our lives and what resurrection life is all about. Resurrection life, a way of living that is called to life by God to follow in the steps of Jesus, is a return to the beginning, or "Recapitulation" as the ancient pastor and theologian Irenaeus put it. Return to the beginning through Jesus Christ.
Every day we all wake up to a world we did not make. It was here before us. It's a world of God's making. The first task in Genesis 2 -- the task of humanity -- is to "till the ground" (Genesis 2:15). We're made to look out for and be attentive to the needs of the place God has put us. Fundamentally, this is what humanity exists for, if we're going to use Genesis and the story of creation as an indicator of what it means to be human.
To live the resurrection life is to live with the outlook that every day we wake up new in the garden. That's where Jesus called Mary's name in the gospel of John right after his resurrection. Remember, this is where everything begins for us, too. Every day we awaken to this same God who planted us in the garden, the place he has made for us. This means that our place matters. Standing in four-foot holes, digging in the mud, planting trees, mowing lawns. It all matters. And farming. Of course farming. This land-caring is God's work in us. Being attentive to place is to live as if where you are planted is the garden. It is to see your work as the work God has given you to do in his garden.
Is this Iowa? No. You're in the garden of God.
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One point of significance about this is that our lives of trust in God, of belief, are not simple and abstract. And it's way more involved than just a simple admitting that you believe in Jesus. So often it seems in our culture -- especially our popular Christian culture -- we like the abstract, universal slogans and ideas about faith and God. These make things seem easy and applicable.
But, the honest truth is that life, faith, God -- none of it is easy, universal, or simple and applicable. It involves all of our lives and attention to our places. Being attentive to place means there are things that need attention, and you might need to dig a hole in the mud to get to it. Sure, the life of faith could be a life of simple, universal slogans if you want that. But that is just the commercialization of faith. A false advertisement of what's not real.
The reality of Jesus Christ -- the reality of God becoming human in time and place -- does not work that way. The incarnation of Jesus means that the particularities of place and life in a particular place matter. And life in one place is not the same one day to the next, nor is it the same as life in another place. God's garden is large, and dynamic, and every part of it has different needs. The life of faith changes everyday with the needs of the place. You can't predict it. You can't really plan it. You can only wake up to it and be attentive to it and follow where God leads.
This word, I suspect, does not exactly align with the ways of our culture. We in our culture have nearly made it an art to plan, to predict, to create efficient, scalable, and applicable steps to somewhere. We want to keep on moving. Sometimes this is fine. But there is nothing quick, efficient, or scalable about the life of faith that is attentive to place. I suspect maybe this was part of the problem in the first garden. Adam and Eve took their eyes off the place and started setting sights on bigger things.
When we dismiss the importance of place, we dismiss the main thing God has made us for and we lose who we are. Jesus in the garden reminds us. Faith isn't abstract rules and theological truths. It's not climbing the ladder. It is about being attentive to the Spirit of God coming alive in the smallest tasks of our place.
If I ever start preaching or teaching in a way that is full of abstractions and theologizing that doesn't "land" in your lives in this place, you have the green light to call me out. If I ever come across as making faith easy, some five-step scalable project that Christians can master, it's your job to tell me to stop. The gospel -- the good news of God for us -- matters nothing if it does not find meaning in our place. If it can not mean something in four-foot deep holes in the ground, then it means nothing.
In defiant hope,
Pastor Kyle
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