In the 26th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy there is an ancient liturgy for the offering of tithes and gifts to God that may be among the most ancient words in the modern Bible. The liturgy instructs worshipers to put some of the first harvest of food, place it in a basket and go to a place of worship, and present it to a priest with specific words: “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” The priest will then take the basket and place it before the altar. Then the worshiper is to say, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.”

Many scholars believe these words to be part of a very, very ancient liturgy. They are older than those that appear in the Book of Genesis, including the creation stories with which that book begins. As far as we can tell, the most ancient answer to the question of where we came from is this brief telling of the story of Exodus. It is a way of saying, “This is who we are.”

Jesus of Nazareth, whose followers modern Christians claim to be, would have been familiar with Jewish liturgical texts. He was raised in the traditions of the temple and his parents were observant of religious traditions and participated in religious ceremonies. From an early age, he studied in the temple and learned the ways of the religion from leaders and elders. We who claim the identity of Christian, have accepted that history and tradition. As a Christian who also is a student of Hebrew scripture, I have grown accustomed to telling that story as my own.

From those roots the Christian Church grew. Along the way, there were disagreements about faith and divisions within the church. The part of the church that is my spiritual home has roots in the early church. in 1054, when the Eastern rite split from the Western rite in what has been called “the Great Schism,” the Christians whose legacy I have inherited went with the Roman Church. When the Protestant Reformation began in 1517, our people became part of that split from the Roman Catholic Church. When a group of Puritan refugees from England came to form the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, our church grew out of their movement.

Our story is not only the story of divisions within the church. We also carry the legacy of historic unions of religious groups. In 1931, the Congregationalist united with the Christian churches. After that union, our church continued to be active in ecumenical conversations and in 1943, we adopted the Basis of Union with the Evangelical and Reformed Church which led to the union that formed the United Church of Christ in 1957. I was ordained a minister of the United Church of Christ in 1978.

So if you trace my personal religious history backwards, I come from people who trace our roots back to the ancient texts through Protestant, Catholic, early church and Jewish communities. The early church was a single body longer than it has been divided. We were Catholic longer than we have been Protestant.

So I also claim as part of my spiritual heritage, the history of monasticism that flourished in Medieval Times from the 9th to the 15th centuries. Martin Luther, often credited as the founder of the Protestant movement was part of a monastic community. Monasteries consisted of between 20 and 400 monks or nuns. They were part of the intellectual elite, as most learned to read and write. Their shared life made them into efficient economic units, often growing their own food and in their heyday, many monasteries were rich. Many monasteries produced foodstuffs that were marketed for cash income including cheeses, wines, beer, and brandy. Tradition holds that a Benedictine monk who was also a botanist, Dom Bernardo Vincelli, founded a distillery and began producing liqueur as early as 1510. Benedictine religious members have been in the wine business since even before that date.

The mix of religion and potentially addictive, mood altering substances goes back a long way.

So I guess it shouldn’t surprise me to read an article about the “Sisters of the Valley,” a group of nuns in California who support their community by growing and selling cannabis. Although this group of nuns doe not represent any official religious group, they choose to live a kind of monastic lifestyle that is right on the edge of the law. The Sisters of the Valley grow their plants in Merced County, and their operation is not technically legal. Even though marijuana use is legal in California, California cities and counties have banned various marijuana businesses, including the growing of cannabis. At the sisters’ abbey they produce a variety of hemp-based medicines and salves, including super-strength CBD oil. Prior to the pandemic, their business was growing $1.2 million per year.

I don’t expect cannabis to become connected with contemporary monastic movements. And I have chose a life that is vastly different than that of a monk. Still the stories of monks and nuns producing alcohol and cannabis products are vaguely interesting to me. It would be interesting to know whether producing marijuana products will become a new source of income for religious communities.

Still, I can’t quite imagine a group of nuns harvesting their marijuana plants, taking a bit of their harvest each year, presenting it to a priest and saying as the priest puts the plants before the altar, “A wandering aramean was my father . . .”