One of the most significant themes from Hebrew scripture that many Christians overlook is that of the land–a land with which God promises to bless the people. Perhaps that aversion contains some awareness of just how problematic it has been when Christians have laid claim to some of those “land” promises in the Old Testament, as with “manifest destiny” and the genocide and displacement of indigenous Americans. It’s certainly true that worldwide, land disputes are almost certainly the most common factor at the root of violent conflict. But for those who follow Jesus, is there any way to hold on to the promises of God intending blessing through land –without killing our neighbors? Or does any claim of divine title lead to violence?
Consider, for example, the disciples’ question just before the Ascension: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6) As we read that passage regularly from Easter to Pentecost with our evening prayer group, following the prayer liturgy in Take Our Moments and Our Days, members of our group kept asking why the disciples were so slow to realize that Jesus wasn’t going to fulfill their political ambitions. They seem to be asking for Jesus to be “a king like the other nations,” even after the cross and resurrection.
But wasn’t the disciples’ question, in all likelihood, drawing on the promises concerning the land? These were Jewish believers who had recognized in Jesus the fulfillment of hopes for a Messiah–and tried their best to follow along as he had subverted so many expectations, taking a road that led to a cross, instead of a coronation. Nonetheless, most every other hero or savior of their faith story was tied to a restored relationship with the land:
- Abram followed God’s call to give up settled life and journey to this land.
- Moses led people out of slavery, back to the promised land.
- Judges restored Israel’s independence when other nations threatened to oppress them in the land.
- Prophets conveyed God’s judgments of drought or famine, severing the blessing of the land, and brought rain to restore it when relationship with God was restored.
- Even Cyrus of Persia is named a Messiah, God’s anointed, because he allows the exiles in Babylon to return to the land.
For anyone steeped in that story of the faith, the land is a central piece of understanding salvation! The full picture is complex, involving responsibility to tend and keep the land (as with the first garden), and freedom from oppression only in submission to God’s laws, but it’s undeniably recorded in Scripture that God intended the land to be a blessing for the prosperity of God’s people.
If the disciples are still observing that they and their fellow Jews are not restored to freedom and prosperity in their land, with each one able to “sit under their own vine and eat from their own fig tree,” are they not right to think their salvation is incomplete?
Perhaps, some might argue, these promises concerning the land are eschatological, and will only be fulfilled as Jesus returns in glory. Just look at examples like the resurgence of violence in Palestine, we might say, and surely we can see that intractable conflicts over land are not going to be fully resolved with justice until such a time as God rules the Earth more directly.
But Jesus’ observation that “the poor will always be with you” does not negate any of the commandments directing our resources toward alleviating poverty. And neither do the difficulties and conflicts of land absolve us of figuring out some way to understand and accept the blessing that God still intends “the land” (here meaning “whatever portion of this planet Earth we are called to live on”) to be for us. Yet because of our sin, that task will be immensely more difficult.
As we, God’s image-bearers on this planet, expressed our creative power in technological advancement without concern for our impact on the rest of God’s creation, we are now reaping the results of human-caused climate change intertwined with the worst of racism and violence:
The accelerating rate of expansion of the Sahara Desert, as with other examples of desertification, contributes to instability as it undercuts livelihoods, and helps create societal conditions in which groups such as Boko Haram thrive.
In Syria, a five-year drought tipped the country into a civil war, which (on top of its internal death toll and displacement) led waves of refugees to flee into Europe, who became fodder for racist scaremongering used as political leverage to take significant strides backward in terms of human rights.
Human encroachment on all wildlife habitats increases the likelihood of the transmission of disease; while not traced with certainty, this is likely part of the story of the origins of COVID-19, which has ravaged the globe. But such a crisis is filtered through injustice in a multiplicity of ways: while the U.S. enjoy easy availability of vaccines at this stage and poorer nations struggle, internally to the U.S. we’ve seen the greatest regression in life expectancy particularly for Black and brown-skinned people who had the least ability to shelter during the pandemic.
The list could go on and on–and these are just the recent examples. Unpacking one’s own more particular history is another challenge, but a necessary step in coming to a healthier and more complete story of our relationship to the land, particularly for a white Euro-American like myself.
In Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization, Elaine Enns and Ched Myers investigate the “landlines, bloodlines, and songlines” of the history in Elaine’s family and tradition, Mennonites who fled Russia only to end up on indigenous land in Saskatchewan. Striving for a more complete and complex picture of the stories of families and traditions amidst those who had already been living in their particular land, this story does not ‘solve’ the problems of historic injustices, but invites readers to participate in dismantling simplistic and false narratives, recovering from racism, and even to practice reparations.
Considering our own Brethren history, and writing from here in the Miami Valley, while we have been ‘proud’ of our non-participation in the military that was directly involved in genocide and displacement, the Brethren didn’t seem to think much about the native peoples that had been here before as we moved in to turn the forests into our farms. To the best of my understanding, the house that my wife and I bought last year is on land that was formerly inhabited by Hopewell, Adena, Myaamia, Shawnee, and Osage peoples, among others. And yet, it’s quite difficult to find members of those tribes around here today; a story heard on our local NPR station just this summer (2021) indicated it was the first time that the Adena people had officially been invited back for the traditional summer solstice celebration at Ohio’s famous Serpent Mound.
How, in light of all the troubled history, all the violence, all the racism, all the disasters of human-caused climate change, can I accept “the land” I live on as a gift and blessing from God–is this how God wanted to bless me?!
As a group connected to our church was discussing Jemar Tisby’s How to Fight Racism, one of our white members was puzzled by what she saw in his diagram for white racial identity development. In particular, she noticed that at the final stage of maturity, designated “integration,” the column for self-identity read “Positive views of European American ethnic identity and of whiteness are internalized.”
“How,” she asked, “am I supposed to feel anything positive about being white, when I’m so well aware of all the ways that whiteness has been and is still being used to oppress others? Does Tisby really mean that we should feel positive about being white?!”
Yes–contrary to the misinformation swirling about critical race theory–our group assured this member that it is actually Tisby’s intention that white folks come to a place of positive acceptance of their own identity, alongside affirmation of others and practices that establish justice and equity across our diversity. It’s not easy to journey through all the muck of our racial history and still arrive in the end at a positive sense of identity for a white Christian, but that’s the intention.
I don’t think I have come as far on the parallel journey in my relationship with the land. If I were to be simplistic in my affirmation that God intends land to be a blessing for me (uncritically accepting the demographics of my neighborhood, ignoring the history of my watershed, taking for granted the abundant produce of the earth easily available to me in grocery stores, and assuming that everyone else had the same access to resources that I have at my disposal), then rather than truly accepting God’s blessing, I would be participating in the unjust, callous living that leads biblically to exile. Affirming the land as a blessing in an alternative way–a way that has taken stock of history, violence, racism, and climate destruction in the land; and yet still comes around to a positive self-identity in receiving the land’s blessing–isn’t easy.
We’ve got a garden of sorts this year, the first that my wife and I have had space to really do so. We try to go biking and hiking with our kids, and get them involved in activities of the congregation and elsewhere that speak to caring for creation (and normalize a greater diversity than most of the classes they’ll have at the elementary school). I try to follow the lead of folks like Katie and Tim Heishman in creating less waste and having less of a negative impact on God’s beautiful Earth. I’m involved with the district’s Climate Justice group, headed by Mark Lancaster, trying to galvanize more churches to better our care for creation.
Many of these feel more like an attempt to patch the holes we’ve already torn, or to start healing from harm done, rather than the fullness of really thriving in the enjoyment of God’s blessing. Nonetheless, I think they’re an important part of finding our way out of the histories of abuse in God’s land and back toward being able to receive the land as a blessing in greater freedom.
I don’t have “my own vine and fig tree,” as that recurring phrase suggests, but we have finally hung up the hammock that my older sister brought back from her trip to Chile years ago. So as I wrap this up to take a nap in “my backyard,” I’ll keep musing about what it means to accept this place I live as a sacrament of God’s blessing, intended not just for my solitary prosperity, but for the blessing of a community extending to all God’s children–my human sisters and brothers, and creatures beyond.
I think I’m going to side with the disciples: if we’re not living in the land the right way, then perhaps we haven’t been fully saved.
When will you restore the land, Lord Jesus?
When will God’s people be brought back to the right relationship God intends, in the land that is meant for the prosperity of the community of creation?
Caleb Kragt is a minister 2/3 time and 1/3 stay-at-home Dad. He and his wife Allie have just moved into their first house with kids age 3 and 6. Caleb and Irvin Heishman are co-pastors for the West Charleston Church of the Brethren in Tipp City, Ohio.
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