Blessing the Market

The farmer's market opened in the church parking lot last evening, cutting the ribbon on its eleventh season. An idea that sounded silly to me when it was first suggested, the market has grown and matured over the years to such an extent that the only thing silly about it has proved to be me. Because of devoted and diligent leadership, the market has become something of a model in the state, used to pilot various county and state programs eventually implemented in markets throughout Iowa. Our manager even spoke at a national conference last year. The market isn't large. While the Downtown market has hundreds of vendors and tens of thousands of visitors each week, twenty or so faithful vendors pull into our parking lot every Wednesday afternoon throughout the season to serve a rebirthing neighborhood.

So why would a church sponsor a farmer's market? That was the question I couldn't initially get my mind around. Part of the answer has to do with access to quality food, which in our neighborhood hasn't always been easy. But the larger part of the answer has to do with community -- creating the space in which people from a dizzying array of nationalities, a cacophonous mixture of languages, the full life-cycle of ages, and a wide spectrum of economic means can come together, shop, eat, sit and enjoy the music, or simply walk around and "window shop" on a lovely summer evening in safety. Again, that last part -- safety -- hasn't always been easy to find in our neighborhood through the years. Which is finally to say that what gets sold is secondary. What gets experienced is sacred.

And so we began yesterday with a blessing. It is, after all, a part of a church. Just before the opening whistle, vendors poised and customers pacing, I took up the DJ's microphone, called for attention, and began...

"The opening words of scriptures sacred to many speak of God’s creative authorship and ingenuity; of God’s Spirit sweeping through great nothingness and calling into being this great, wonderful “is-ness.” All that is – the soil and all that grows from it and rains down on it; the seas and all that swim in it; the bugs and birds and finally us. And God looked over it all and declared it very, very good.

And turning to us, God said, “here is beauty and nourishment, enterprise, community and joy; and you are responsible for it.”

I like to think of this market as one way that we are carrying out that assignment – honoring the fruitfulness of the earth and the creativity of our hands that must, I’m convinced, have something to do with what it means to be made in God’s image; and celebrating the community of one another by creating the space and the occasion for it to flourish.

As we cut the ribbon on this 11^th season of the Drake Neighborhood Farmer’s Market, let us offer a word of blessing:

God of Sower and Seed, of artisans and cooks, of vendors and buyers, we give you thanks for the soil and all that grows from it. We thank you for those who cultivate it and tend it and beckon from it the staff of life. We give you thanks for those by whose hands it is harvested and boxed and brought to market; those by whose hands it is turned into meals and snacks and served; and those who, so nourished and fed, turn their energies to creation in varied forms – basket and bread, soap and health, honey and song and art in varied forms.

We give you thanks for this market, and those on both sides of the stalls. We give you thanks for the community experienced, the intersection of colors and countries and appetites and hopes. May we see in each other the gift of your face, and so finding, and so receiving, know and indulge in the real of harvest of life.

Bless, then, this market and all who gather here, all who direct traffic here, all who manage and set up and tear down, all who shop and all who sell, all who come for supper and all who simply sit and enjoy the sun, the music, the company and the wonder of your manifold goodness. Prosper this effort, and through it, all those whose life it touches. Amen.

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