Pastoring the Land

It is the farmer’s job to care for the land.

Before interviewing Chris Jackson, I’d have said the primary job of the farmer is to tend each crop, each plant. The plants are what live and die. The plants are what the farmer brings to harvest. The plants are what I take home and prepare in my soup. But the seemingly obvious truth Chris laid bare is that the plants cannot live without the land. It is the farmer’s job to care for the land.

Chris and Jenny Jackson own and operate Jenny Jack Farm in Pine Mountain. Because St. Mark’s partners with Jenny Jack as a pick-up spot for their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), I’ve had many conversations with Jenny. Writing this article gave me a great chance to sit and talk with Chris.

It soon became apparent that, though I understood the enormous toil that goes into running a farm, I didn’t understand the starting point for that work. Chris talked about his farm the way I might talk about my church. A big part of my job is to care for the people of this church, individuals, and groups. Fundamentally though, I am not a pastor to individual people, but to the community and to the church of St. Mark’s. In that same way, Chris looks first to the health of the land, and then to the health of each crop, each plant.

The priest is a pastor to their church. The farmer is a pastor to the land.

When Chris and Jenny first started their farm work, they did most of it themselves. They packed up a van and drove to various markets in Atlanta. Chris told me that those Atlanta drop-offs were a fine living and that they could undoubtedly have expanded their work there. But instead, they made a different choice. They wanted a deeper connection between the land they pastor and the people eating their food.

The tag line for Jenny Jack Farm is Nourishment From Land & Community. Every farmer pays close attention to the land, but Chris and Jenny have decided that they want the produce of that land to stay close by. They want to know the people they are feeding. Instead of selling at Farm to Table restaurants or wholesaling to bigger markets in Atlanta and beyond, they have formed relationships with those nearby. They have made neighbors out of the entire Chattahoochee Valley area, from LaGrange to Columbus to Auburn, all from their beautiful little farm in Pine Mountain.

Chris told me that they have kept the farm small on purpose. They are still farming their original acreage. Through rotation and improved methodology, they can keep the soil fertile and productive. The operation could expand, but then Chris and Jenny wouldn’t have as much a chance to know the people who are eating their produce! In a world where more is always the expectation, Chris and Jenny have kept their focus tight.

Talk to a farmer or a preacher, and stewardship is a word that will arise over and over again. We are both aware that we didn’t create our patch. That land in Pine Mountain was there long before Chris and Jenny began farming it, and it will be there long after they are gone. I am the 25th clergy person to serve here at St. Mark’s. This church precedes me by nearly 150 years and will, God willing, last many hundreds more after I am gone. We are caretakers, stewards of the places we love. Farmers and clergy know this well, but it is a good reminder for us all.

Just as the farmer and the preacher are stewards of their land or their church, we are stewards of this life God has given us. One way to care for our life is to eat good food. That can be incredibly difficult in our society. We are always on to the next thing; we are perpetually over-scheduled. When we travel, we tend to savor our food; it becomes part of the memory of our trip. When we are working and taking children to activities and worn out from the day, food is one of the first things we sacrifice. We prioritize our activities and our schedules over our food, picking up drive-through rather than face an hour in the kitchen.

We are nostalgic about small farms. We have a shared memory of farming, only a generation or two back. I can tell stories of my grandmother sharecropping; my wife can tell stories of growing up on her grandfather’s chicken farm. Chris was quick to say that this cultural memory means people really value the work that happens on the farm. People know just enough about the work to understand how hard it is.

I wonder if hearing the story of a farm in Pine Mountain might cause us to wonder about our choices in our lives. Farming, as I learned in my conversation with Chris, begins with the land. Nothing can grow without it. There is no quick fix for bad soil; instead, a long process of tending and caring for the gifts we already have, the nutrients already buried within.

Slowing down is not easy. Slowing down, ironically, often involves more challenging work. We have to prioritize; we have to offer our time and our money to the things we value. Really, wherever we are putting our time and our money IS what we value. Jesus said something about that, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Chris and Jenny treasure their farm; they treasure their community. Farming is not glorious or romantic; it is work. But they have chosen this particular work as a way to be involved with and connect with this particular community. They are pastors to their land.

What are you a pastor to? What are you a steward of? What’s your priority?

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