Stewarding is an interesting word, one that today’s world doesn’t utilize much. One that we should utilize more. It demands a sense of responsibility and care for a thing that ownership and progress have, in recent years, seemed to ignore.
What is Stewarding?
Stewarding is, generally, understood to be:
The managing or looking after of another’s property.
Oxford Dictionary
In a world where ownership is lauded as the epitome of success, and utility seems to be the only stipulation for the land and its resources, stewarding isn’t even a thought. But should it be?
Could we be approaching homesteading and land maintenance all wrong?
I would endeavor to say, that, for the vast majority, the answer is yes. Between the modern view of ownership and the historical, Christian view of stewardship there are many discrepancies. God gave the command:
The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.
Gen. 2:15
God put us in Eden to steward the land. Plain and simple.
God created us to tend the garden, in original perfection, yes, but even still today, for those of us who work the land, that call still rings true. We are to ‘cultivate’ and ‘care’ for it.
We are not to debase and mutilate it; stripping every last drop of fertility from its soil and purity from its waters.
To digress for a moment…I’m not saying that owning land is wrong. In fact, I think individual land ownership is a very good thing!
What I am saying is that, frequently, when we own something our mindset towards that thing is one of domination and utility. And that is the mentality I’m warning against.
What do others say?
“The estimate is that we are now losing about 1 percent of our topsoil every year to erosion…most of which is caused by agriculture”
D. R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, 2nd Ed.
“With the world population projected to grow to 9.6 billion people by 2050, feeding the people on our planet will undoubtedly be a considerable challenge.”
Eric Verso, Topsoil Erosion
“Almost half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with chemicals known as “forever chemicals.”
CNN
“A new study is enough to take your breath way: Nearly no place on Earth is free of air pollution, it found.”
U.S.News
Are we living out our call to steward the land?
Everywhere you look, the headlines are talking about pollution. The professors at universities are screaming about finding new, more efficient methods of agricultural production because the earth won’t be able to meet the needs of a growing population by 2050.
While, simultaneously, they are lamenting the loss of topsoil due, in a large part, to those ‘more efficient’ practices!
What are we doing? Should we be scared? Is this what God had planned when He told us to steward the earth and care for it?
I think we need to take a hard look at what’s going on globally within the agricultural realm and seriously scrutinize what’s happening.
Currently, in the United States alone, we use 21 tons of chemical fertilizers each year to “help sustain high crop yields.”
That’s not saying anything of the amount of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides utilized to also help maintain those same yields.
I think it’s important to digress here, for a brief moment…demonizing the individual farmer, while tempting, isn’t properly placing blame in this situation.
Corporate agriculture leadership and academia taught us all that this was the only way to do things. That this was progress, that this was necessary.
While I think it is fair to recognize that these individuals have been left ignorant of their own choosing, they were indoctrinated to such a degree that complete understanding of their role in soil and environmental degradation is left wanting.
The remedy
Back to my main point. Would the Creator have designed a world in which fertility was dependent on synthetic human inputs? Would He have created a world that could not reasonably sustain the lives He deigned to fill it with?
I think not!
The only thing lacking in this world’s ability to sustain the human and animal population is the stewardship with which we, as people, have tended the land.
We became obsessed with the desire for more. More food, more comfort, more convenience. Nothing could stand in the way of progress, or so we believed following the wake of the industrial revolution.
Now we’re being forced to face the consequences of our decisions. The reality of demeaning the land which we were called to steward.
We have to wake up and understand that, in order to fix the mess we’ve created for ourselves, we must return to a sense of stewardship for the resources God has so graciously placed in our lives.
There’s a natural order to the world, seasons to mark the changes. As stewards, we have to work within these established boundaries and work to build fertility within our soils rather than stripping it away.
We have to develop a mindset of care and temperance rather than domination and greed. But, above all, we must learn that sacrifice over instant gratification and comfort and love over desire are the way to begin understanding the model set before us.
“It will be as when a man who was going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one – to each according to his ability. Then he went away. Immediately, the one who received five talents went and traded with them, and made another five. Likewise, the one one who received two made another two. But the man who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money. The master of those servants came back and settled accounts with them. The one who had received five talents came forward bringing the additional five(…)His master said to him “well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share in your master’s joy.” Likewise the second(…)Then the one who had received the one talent came forward and said, “Master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter; so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back.” His master said…”you wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter? Should you not then have put my money in the bank so that I could have got it back with interest on my return? Now then! Take the talent form him and give it to the one with ten. For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
Matt.25:14-29
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Love this reminder thank you!
Tending is such a beautiful word. We are trying to not be as heavy handed on our acreage these days. There is so much to learn. Taking it one step at a time.