4th Comm. question - farmers

[Ploutos]

A little backstory: I have a friend, now in his early 70s, who retired about a decade ago and bought a farm. He now dedicates himself almost exclusively to his animals and the other farm duties. He shows little interest in anything else, including his wife, and essentially will not leave the farm, even missing out on his son's wedding a few years back. Among other things, he does not attend church anymore - at all. His reasoning is always the same - too many [self-imposed] farm duties that must be attended to.

In case it's not sufficiently clear from that short synopsis, there's obviously a much deeper problem going on here, and many of us (his wife included) have come 'round, with varying degrees of certainty or assertiveness, to the conclusion that he is not a believer and that his identity rests almost entirely, not in Christ, but in his collection of farm animals.

But, for the purposes of this post, I have a more specific question as regards the Sabbath. I have to think (note the sardonic tone here) that an inspired book which was written for all people and ages has surely taken into account a vocation which has been the livelihood of a substantial portion of humanity across the majority of its existence. Surely, when God wrote the 4th commandment, he was aware of the ever-so-slight possibility that somewhere, someday, there might be someone tasked with the care of farm animals.

So my question is: what have farmers done on the Sabbath throughout history? While it doesn't in and of itself address the issue of my friend's spiritual state, I'd like to have some sort of answer for him next time the issue arises, and sadly this pale city boy can't draw from his own experiences.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Jesus makes reference to a Jewish habit, without apparent criticism, in Mt.12:11, "He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?" It comports with the accepted duties of the day to do works of mercy. Farm chores are actually necessary for the well-being of the creatures, and these do not depart for the 24hrs of sabbathing.

I know farmers myself, which as Christians strive to limit the works they perform on the Lord's Day to that which cannot be deferred. I imagine the believing Jews of the OT period did likewise.

I took the following from Gill's Commentary: where he makes this note in connection to the Mt.12 passage.

It is said of Hillell (i), that​

"he sat by a window to hear the words of the living God, from the mouth of Shemaia and Abtalion; and they say that that day was the evening of the sabbath, and the winter solstice, and the snow descended from heaven; and when the pillar of the morning ascended, (when it was daylight,) Shemaia said to Abtalion, brother Abtalion, all other days the house is light, but today it is dark, perhaps it is a cloudy day: they lift up their eyes, and saw the form of a man at the window; they went up, and found upon him snow the height of three cubits; they broke through and delivered him; and they washed him, and anointed him, and set him over against his dwelling, and said, very worthy is this man , "to profane the sabbath for him".'' (i) T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 35. 2.​

(Hillel was a famous Jewish rabbi who flourished right about the time of Jesus' birth)

 

[De Jager]

In our Dutch Reformed circles there is a big history regarding this question, specifically because so many of our members had dairy cattle, and lactating cows must be milked every day or they will go ill. The simple answer has always been that you do what the animals need to survive, but nothing more. You don't take wheat off the field. If it looks like a good day for harvest because it's sunny today and rainy on Monday it doesn't matter; you leave it on the field. You don't maintain your tractor on Sunday, you don't do anything beyond what is required to care for the animals. In terms of working around the church service times, in fact many of our churches had 10 AM and 7 PM services specifically because it allowed the dairy farmers to do their morning milking (at around 6 am) and their afternoon milking (at around 430 pm) and still make both services. If a farmer has so many livestock that the chores take so long that he can't attend, or is unwilling to try and move his milking times a bit, it shows a spiritual problem.

 

[Jack K]

A farmer knows the difference between the necessary daily chores that provide basic care to sustain his animals, and other farm work. My dairy-farmer uncle was a staunchly Reformed sabbatarian. He always did the milking and he fed and watered his cows, but he rested from his other farm work unless there was an emergency with one of the animals or a calving that required immediate attention. It was similar with the Dutch Reformed family farm my dad grew up on. The animals got fed and watered, eggs were gathered, a little necessary cleaning might get done—the daily chores, but that was all.

The Sabbath is a particular blessing in a farming society, where there always seems to be more work one might do to make the farm produce more. It was given to release us from this burden, not to impose a new burden of neglectful care on our animals. So, animals should receive basic care.

 

[Ploutos]

Thank you. I guess I don't need to be a farmer myself to respond to his excuses. I could simply point out that there have always been Christian farmers, that where there's a will there's a way, and that if he'd like to hear some more on the topic I'd be happy to cut-and-paste or direct him to some sources.

Of course, that would lead straight to the root of the problem, which is that he doesn't want to, and doesn't want to talk about it. That said, it's a blessing to ME to have the input given in this thread, if for no other reason than my own benefit and instruction.

 

[Jack K]

In our Dutch Reformed circles there is a big history regarding this question, specifically because so many of our members had dairy cattle, and lactating cows must be milked every day or they will go ill. The simple answer has always been that you do what the animals need to survive, but nothing more. You don't take wheat off the field. If it looks like a good day for harvest because it's sunny today and rainy on Monday it doesn't matter; you leave it on the field. You don't maintain your tractor on Sunday, you don't do anything beyond what is required to care for the animals. In terms of working around the church service times, in fact many of our churches had 10 AM and 7 PM services specifically because it allowed the dairy farmers to do their morning milking (at around 6 am) and their afternoon milking (at around 430 pm) and still make both services. If a farmer has so many livestock that the chores take so long that he can't attend, or is unwilling to try and move his milking times a bit, it shows a spiritual problem.

Yes, as a child I was sometimes in the Listowel area during haying season. There was often some Dutch Reformed dairy farmer working like mad on Saturday to get his hay in because he wouldn't do it on Sunday and rain was forecast for the coming week. I myself spent a few of those Saturdays on a hay wagon, helping as best I could. My uncle called those rush-to-get-the-hay-in Saturdays "putting the body in the tomb," recalling Christ's hasty burial described in Luke 23:54-56.

 

[JP Wallace]

My charge is in a farming community and I agree with all the answers above - the farmers in our congregation do only what's necessary and of course respond to emergencies (just as Jesus says they rightly should) - like cows having difficult calvings just at the time of worship and so forth. No crops harvested, tractors only started to feed animals etc.

 

[Ye_Olde_Heidelberger]

So my question is: what have farmers done on the Sabbath throughout history? While it doesn't in and of itself address the issue of my friend's spiritual state, I'd like to have some sort of answer for him next time the issue arises, and sadly this pale city boy can't draw from his own experiences.

I looked into this very question from a historical perspective a few months ago. I'll paste a few of my findings below, although they are mostly limited to experiences of English Christians.

The Sunday legislation of Emperor Constantine in 321 allowed farmers to take advantage of favorable weather conditions to carry out fieldwork:

On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for grain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.

The early medieval view of the Sabbath was far more restrictive. In 538, the Council of Orleans strictly forbade all labor, with a few modest exceptions for cooking food, feeding livestock, and harvesting crops threatened by an imminent storm. Early English law followed the Frankish custom, which conceived of Sunday as a day of abstinence from all servile labor. However, according to Robert Mannyng – a historian writing in the early fourteenth century – the rule against working was often ignored since the Anglo-Saxon Sunday observance began at midday on Saturday.

Sabbatarian movements of the late Middle Ages generally followed Aquinas’ model that distinguished between the moral and ceremonial aspects within the Sabbath commandment. Aquinas observed that all people were bound by natural law and certain moral obligations discoverable by human reason. He argued that Jesus “annulled the sabbath only in the superstitious meaning given to it by the Pharisees,” and defended the Decalogue against those who asserted that it was subject to dispensation. Citing an instance of a battle taking place on the Sabbath in 1 Maccabees, Aquinas concluded that works of mercy and necessity were always compatible with the Sabbath commandment and did not constitute “servile work." English parish records from the fifteenth century cite the most common reasons for absence from mass as ploughing, hedging, carting hay, binding barley, and taking corn to market. There was also some tolerance toward other essential and itinerant work, as supported by the anonymous fifteenth-century commentary on the Decalogue, Dives and Pauper, which permitted millers, pilgrims, and fishermen to labor. A curious aspect of late medieval English non-attendance records, however, is that they generally omitted those who looked after animals.

The 1552 Act for Keeping Holy and Fasting Days, a document decrying the “profane uses” of the Sabbath, maintined this late medieval custom:

It shall be lawful to every husbandman, labourer, fisherman, and to all and every other person, or persons, of what estate, degree, or condition he or they may be, on the holy days aforesaid; in harvest or other time of the year when necessity shall require, to labour, to ride, fish or work, any king of work, at their free wills and pleasure.

The 1552 Act and its definition of works of necessity was later adopted in the Act of Uniformity (1558), and supported by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who conceived of the fourth commandment as existing in ceremonial and moral parts.

It's a complicated issue, and bear in mind that I am not necessarily endorsing these statements wholesale. I agree with the other commenters that while there are parameters to be found in church history to justify agricultural labor when crops or animals are under threat, the normative disposition of the farmer should be one that avoids greed and seeks the good of their neighbor and the preservation of the land, animals, and hired workers by supplying them with proper rest.