My grandma had an expression that she used when she considered someone to be sensible, reliable, and with an earthy wisdom that comes from, rather than the study of books, experience of life. She said of such a person: ‘He knows his spuds’; or was it, ‘She knows her onions.’
Sadly, in Britain today, it’s getting harder and harder to find anyone who knows their spuds or knows their onions. A brief internet search tells you that an alarming number of children growing up in the UK today can’t recognise basic vegetables such as carrots or cauliflowers, and do not know that chips are made out of potatoes and that bacon comes from pigs.
The newspapers, of course, usually report this with gleeful delight, citing it as evidence that we’re all a bit thick nowadays, that schools and families aren’t what they used to be, and that we all eat too much fast food. Some of this is probably correct. We certainly eat too much junk. But the reason a child cannot recognise a carrot is, I think, deeper still. It is essentially a spiritual issue.
Let me explain what I mean.
By the word ‘spiritual’, I do not mean some private, ethereal, inner realm of consciousness which is separate from things earthly and physical, though I’m well aware that this is precisely what most people mean when they use that word.
Christianity is a very earthy and physical religion. We don’t observe divisions between things physical, mental, or spiritual. We see human beings, for that matter, the whole of creation as a totality, physical and spiritual, woven together.
So, when we use the word ‘spiritual’, we are speaking about the whole of life viewed from the perspective of God and therefore to be understood and lived out in the way that God intends. This is not only right and true, it is the only way of happiness, sustainability, and prosperity.
It is, therefore, not far-fetched to say that all our problems – and I will come on to some of the problems assailing our world and our church in a moment – begin when we break the connections between ourselves, our neighbour and our environment, that is, the earth itself.
What’s this got to do with children being unable to recognise vegetables?
Well, everything actually. It is a sign that life has become disjointed, that we have allowed a separation to get so wide that we’ve even drifted from that which is most basic: the food we eat, the ground we till, the seed we sow.
If you don’t know what a carrot looks like, how will you possibly know what a plough is for? Or how very important soil is? And how will you ever really love the earth or care about the well-being of your neighbour in another land? This is the bind we’re in. Children grow up not knowing where their food comes from, yet at the same time, we demand an ever-ready supply of any meat and veg we fancy, regardless of the season or of the environmental damage that is done by flying strawberries round the world so that we can eat them on Christmas Day. Or sweeping away vast tracts of rainforest so that cattle can graze and we can eat cheap burgers.
Let me tell you a story – sadly, a true one – that illustrates this miserable predicament perfectly.
A few years ago, well, quite a few years ago, when I was the Bishop of Reading, I was shopping in Waitrose in Wallingford on the Thames. It’s a pretty little market town on the Thames. It was late August, possibly early September, and in this Waitrose, they were selling punnets of blackberries – blackberries, not blueberries, not bilberries, not mulberries – blackberries. They were selling them at £5.50 a throw.
And people were buying them. They were billed as a luxury seasonal item. But as I queued at the till at the Waitrose in Wallingford-on-Thames, from the actual window of the store, as I queued at the checkout, I could see blackberries growing in the alley that led down from the shop to the river.
You could, if you wished, pass them as you returned to your car, brandishing your £5.50 luxury seasonal item and pick a whole bucket load for free. But you didn’t.
It is, I think, the same as the person who returns from work, puts their ready meal chicken tikka masala in the microwave for three minutes and then sits down to watch MasterChef for an hour.
We have forgotten who we are. We have forgotten where we come from. We think everything will be fine, but it won’t because we don’t know our onions.
This is why today’s debate on rural affairs and farming in the Diocese of York is so important. For all of us!
Thank you, Easingwold Deanery, for bringing this motion to us.
Food is a spiritual issue. Farming is hard work, but it is also a spiritual activity. It is about inhabiting the world in a way that is sustainable, beautiful, respectful of the environment and fruitful not just for us, but for generations to come.
I hope as a result of today’s debate and as we raise awareness on these issues, those of us who eat and shop – i.e. everyone! – will make a renewed effort to support our farmers and, for instance, to buy local food wherever possible.
Moreover, some children won’t recognise carrots because of food inequalities – food inequalities that we know very well in some of the deprived urban parts of this diocese, which means fresh vegetables are, for them, so very scarce. That’s sadly why we still need our food banks and all the other ways we work with others to support those communities in our diocese.
And when we are buying tea and coffee, bananas or other foods that do not grow here, let us make sure we buy fairly traded products so that we know that farming communities in other, often impoverished, parts of the world – suffering because of the climate change we have largely been responsible for making – are supported and enabled to flourish fairly.
At the same time, I hope we can find ways of educating people – especially children – about the joy of the food on their plate and where it comes from; how to cook, and how to notice and enjoy the rhythm of the season. It’s rhubarb season in Yorkshire right now. What could be more fantastic than a big bowl of Yorkshire rhubarb for breakfast? In this way, we can look forward to Brussels sprouts at Christmas and free supplies of blackberries in September and not expect to have them every day.
In this, we will all need patience, courage, perseverance. The human race has drifted from its roots. It is therefore unsurprising that we are bearing little fruit and that the world around us is confused and conflicted.
Which leads me to reflect on another important issue for our life together, not our connection with the land and with our neighbours across the world, but our connections with each other as that part of the body of Christ which is the Diocese of York.
Because we too are a beautiful, fragile and complex ecosystem. We are parish and deanery, church plant and chaplaincy, ordained and lay, rural and urban, coastal and suburban, high church and low church, and middle of the church, and swinging from the chandeliers charismatic church, conservative and progressive, richly resourced and shockingly under-resourced, able and disabled, replete with opportunity and left behind. Because we are the people of God, that new humanity made by Christ’s shedding of his blood on the cross, we are a people whose identity, purpose, and belonging are found in Christ, not in the other markers of identity that so often lead to silos and division. The flourishing of every one of us and the flourishing of all our parishes, chaplaincies, and communities of faith across the diversity of the diocese we serve depends upon our honouring and recognising the face of Christ in each other and working hard to accommodate each other while remaining true to the gospel we have received. But since that gospel is about barriers of separation broken down, going the second mile of love, and because, again and again in the gospels, we see the lengths to which Jesus goes to count people in, then we must surely do the same. Furthermore, to live Christ’s story is to be this interdependent, interconnected body of Christ. This is what we are baptised into and which we will celebrate again in the Paschal mystery in a few weeks’ time. It is what we celebrate and renew each time we make Eucharist together – for though we are many, we are one body because we all share in one bread.
This also carries responsibilities: theological and organisational responsibilities to ensure every bit of the Church is valued and included. It also has challenging and particular responsibilities around how we behave to one another and speak of one another and of what we model to a more and more divided and polarised world.
But it’s also going to require huge generosity. A generosity of will, one towards another, and let’s cut to the chase, a generosity of wallet. A generosity of will and wallet, which reflects God’s generosity to each of us in Christ. Let me put it – I’ve been in Yorkshire a while now, so as you know, I have been given the (it slipped off the list of the fruits of the spirit) gift of bluntness. Let me be blunt.
Most of the financial challenges we face as a diocese could be solved overnight. Overnight, if even a proportion of us gave a bit more generously. I’m so grateful for those who work in our finance team, our parish giving advisors, and of course, my colleagues in the leadership team, for all they do to bring in with you the Free Will Offer, which pays for our ministry.
Sisters and brothers, we must dare to be more ambitious, not just balancing the books, which right now itself feels out of reach. But imagine if everyone in our churches felt called to give just a bit more generously, there is so much more we could be doing to live and share the story of Jesus Christ with others, which, by the way, is our core business. And we then would be writing the next chapter in the long story of God’s love for this place, these places, these communities, building a sustainable future. Even if everyone in the diocese gave the equivalent of the cost of one cup of coffee a week, most of our financial problems would be solved.
And I do see this flourishing ecosystem in the countryside as well. I see, especially at this time of the year, even driving in my strange journey all around York to get here this morning, I love seeing at this time of the year the hedgerows just beginning. There’s like a murmur, isn’t it? There’s like a murmur of life on the hedgerows at the moment as you drive along. Small seeds planted in the ground just beginning to emerge. We follow a God whose love for us is so immeasurable, so profound, that it reached even into death itself. And because it is the love of God, rose up with a hope and an ambition whose surfaces we have barely touched, whose depths we can barely imagine.
Oh, Diocese of York, next year, 2027, we will celebrate Paulinus baptising King Edwin 1400 years ago, which was the beginnings of an ordered church life, the building of a little wooden church in York, and then remember and celebrate all the other baptisms that Paulinus administered in the rivers that cross our county, and we will commit ourselves again to being a church which gives generously, which lives sustainably, which delights in God given diversity, and which shares the gospel of Jesus Christ and grows.
Finally, as the Middle East finds itself plunged again into a war of ill-defined objectives, strutting vanity, appalling misery and intense suffering, we, the followers of Jesus Christ, remember our vocation to be a beacon of light, a tiny handful of yeast of hope in the sufferings of the world. We cry out again and pray for peace, for humanitarian aid. For the observation of international law, so easily ignored and even ridiculed by those who cannot see beyond their own swaggering ambition for power and have even plundered the Christian faith to justify their actions.
Writing to his diocese last week, my friend and brother bishop, Archbishop Hosam, the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, wrote this, “I call upon the global church to join us in urgent, unceasing prayer. We implore God to protect the innocent – the mothers, the children, and the elderly – who are caught in the crossfire of this ‘Operation Epic Fury’ and the subsequent ‘crushing responses.’ We pray specifically for ‘sound mind’ for the leaders of the United States, Israel and Iran, that they might recognise the futility of this bloodshed and turn back from the precipice of a global catastrophe… (and) we must offer each other the sanctuary of Christian love… let our message be the unchanging promise of Christ’s peace.”
To do this, and to counter the hateful narratives that divide our world, we need a strong Church. But by ‘strong Church’ I mean strong in the faith of Jesus Christ, showing again the power of undefended, sacrificial love, humble service, and steadfast obedience to the one who is the Prince of Peace.
The patience, forbearance, ingenuity and wisdom of the countryside and of farming can help us here – help our whole culture connect with the earth of which we are made and of whom God calls us to be stewards.
As a nation, this means moving towards a position where we are better able to supply the food we need. Therefore, we need government policies that support farming and support sustainable and affordable food production. Equally, we need to be aware of the global and political issues that affect our environment and communities in other parts of the world who suffer because of our greed and complacency. We need to remember the poor.
In Passiontide, we remember that on the cross, Jesus died for our sins. We also acknowledge that it was our sins that put him there. So, too, we must remember that it is our corporate and collective sinfulness that is destroying the earth and which contributes to, and sometimes creates, the debilitating and destructive conflicts that engulf our world. What we need, dear friends, is not an epic fury, but the epic peace, the epic equity, the epic forgiveness that we find in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Our God is a God of unity and peace; of grace and truth; of mercy and justice; a God of town and country, earth and heaven, mind and spirit, the UK and Europe and all the world; and when we catch hold of the all-encompassing generosity and inclusivity of the Spirit of God then we will work well together to build a sustainable, prosperous and peaceful future. As my grandma used to say, we will know our onions. Amen.