Mishpat in Agriculture

Dearly loved people of God,

Don’t look now, but spring is really here. I live in the country. All week we could see, smell, and hear fieldwork being done: spreading manure, plowing, harrowing, seeding. Today is a good day to pray for planting and agriculture.

Those fields that lay empty all winter – the ones that were full of ice and snow the last time we had a prayer service scheduled – are now bustling with activity, raising clouds of dust. The brown, deadened pastures and hayfields are greening up. Many farmers are tired from long hours, but pumped to be working the fields in the sunshine.

I’m not a cash-cropper. There’s a process to prepping the field and seeding it. There’s a dance with the weather as you watch the forecast for rain and wind, sunshine and heat units.

Farmers learn at ag-college and in apprenticeships how to do it. It’s part science; part art. So I’m intrigued that in God’s Word through Isaiah, the Lord takes credit for instructing people on how to farm. A skeptic might say, “that’s just like God to claim credit for every mystery.”

But how do people figure out how to sow and how to reap?

Isn’t it trial-and-error? Experiment and see what works? Study the design, the effects of moisture, heat, light, and nutrients. If God has designed the creation – and I believe he did – then he has designed optimal growing conditions that are revealed as we work and study.

So really and truly, God does teach farmers what works. As designer and Creator, God knows how things work best. What is true out in the field is also true in the rest of life: in all areas of life, God has instructions for the best outcomes.

There’s an interesting word that gets used in vs 26. Talking about a farmer, God’s Word says

His God instructs him and teaches him the right way.

(NIV)

The right way is “mishpat.” Ä Usually this Hebrew word gets translated “justice.”

Each language has its own way of thinking. Thinking in Hebrew is different than thinking in English. The Hebrew idea of mishpat, justice, is doing things in right ways so things flourish – both in life and in the field.

Doing things in the “right way” in agriculture doesn’t mean there’s no room to experiment. On the contrary. Innovation might reveal a way of planting that is even “righter” than the way you’ve always done it.

God’s people’s failure to live in right ways lies behind this passage. Earlier in this chapter Isaiah calls out the leaders of Israel. They’re missing the mark in terms of justice. They aren’t living up to God’s benchmark of righteousness.

God reproaches his people in this description of farming practises. If scientists and farmers can figure out how to grow crops the right way, folks should be aware when they’re missing the mark for right living, for justice, for righteousness. Justice and righteousness ought to be obvious by trial and error – according to God’s Word in the book of Romans. This is how God’s Word explains it there

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

(NIV)

That’s why God holds all people accountable for being godless and wicked. God has made himself plain to all people.

And the Israelites had a head-start. They benefit from special revelation. After God rescued them from slavery, after God promised that he’d live with them, he’d be their God and they would be his people, he showed them in the 10 Commandments what justice and righteousness looks like.

That’s why Isaiah’s call to repentance is so strong here. Isaiah is speaking to people who should know better.

But the sad reality is that none of us – whether this is your first time in church nor if you have gone to church since you were knee-high to a grasshopper – none of us live up to God’s standard of right-ness. I don’t; do you?

So the warning of judgement in this passage is for us too. We read about God’s judgement earlier in

I will make justice (mishpat: right ways) the measuring line

and righteousness the plumb line;

(NIV)

The bad news: we don’t live up to that measuring line. If you check your life against the plumb line of God’s righteousness, we don’t stand straight. We don’t always live in God’s right ways. That’s God’s point in his words through Isaiah.

If you plough a 100 acres this week and again next week, if you plough it every week in May, June, July, and August, are you going to get a crop off that field?

Won’t the structure of the soil be destroyed?

Won’t wind and rain cause severe erosion?

Will you get any return for all the time and fuel you invest in ploughing that field so often?

Farmers are shaking their heads. That’s not the right way to farm!

It’s the same with our behavior. Our lifestyle is never going to be fruitful if we ignore God’s call to:

· Honour our father and mother

Honour our father and mother

Resist hatred and defend the life of our neighbour

Reserve sexual intimacy for marriage

steal

Tell the truth about our neighbour

Be content with the stuff God has entrusted to us and to be genuinely happy for the blessings our neighbour enjoys

But that’s the exact problem. Adam & Eve got all humankind going down the path of disobedience. They put all of us on a collision course with death and damnation. We’re doomed by sin and there’s nothing we can do to rescue ourselves.

So God came and rescued us. That plan of redemption is mentioned earlier in

In that day the Lord Almighty will be a glorious crown,

a beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people.

He will be a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment,

a source of strength

to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

(NIV)

These verses point to Jesus. He was successful in living in God’s right ways.

In love and mercy, he shouldered our guilt and sin at the cross. God the Father took our punishment and put it on God the Son. Jesus died there so that we can live without guilt or shame.

Jesus has conquered our enemies of sin and death so that we can live with God; so we can live for God. A big part of our calling is caring for God’s creation. That’s what we were created for; that’s what we’ve been redeemed to do.

So we strive for excellence in caring for the land, the water, the air. We want to follow the right ways of cropping, the best practises for animal husbandry. As we make our living, we strive to live up to our calling. We go all-out to do our work with integrity before people and before our Creator.

And then, we also find the joy in our work. We find pleasure in the sense of accomplishment, the tired mind, the tired body of a hard day, a full night of labour.

We find joy and pleasure in God’s creation: the sun, warmth, the animals, the remarkable production of crops and productivity of animals. Even awe at the power of the wind when it gusts up to 110 km/h.

Out of the blue I got a text from someone. They were watching the birds and marvelling at the way the flapping wings of a little bird created swirls and patterns in the dust and light chaff.

God’s creation is good. It’s being redeemed. We enjoy God’s providence. Enjoy the way it works: Marvel and worship

Use God’s design and teaching to earn a living