A Biblical
Perspective on Land
Scriptural perspectives on the land usually have to do with
the Land of Promise, Canaan, given to the Children of Israel
(Exodus-Deuteronomy; Joshua). The prophets used reminders of the promise of the
land as part of their call to faithfulness on the part of God’s People:
Jeremiah, for example, makes it clear that the people have used God’s promises
in an illegitimate way to allow unfaithfulness and idolatry to flourish. Consider
Jeremiah 22, in which the prophet equates the people with the land, while warning
them that they will lose the land.
The passage we read from Deuteronomy 26 contains the
profound statement: “My father was a wandering Aramean.” The “father” referred
to was Jacob, renamed Israel, who went to Egypt during a famine as a small
family (Israel and his twelve sons and their families) and came out of Egypt in
the Exodus “a great nation, numerous and powerful”. Deeper than their identity
as the “people of the land” was their identity as “God’s people”.
This fact helps us to understand the way that the New
Testament refers to God’s people, using the idea that we have a Sabbath Rest
(Promised Land) beyond the bounds of this world (for example, Hebrews 3 and 4).
A post-biblical writer put the basic idea of our citizenship in Heaven eloquently
in the Letter to Diognetus (written by Mathetes – “a disciple” – sometime in
the second century):
Christians are indistinguishable
from other men either by nationality, language or customs. … And yet there is
something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as
though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens,
but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their
homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign
country. … They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of
the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven.
Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. …
The people’s relationship to the Promised Land is seen
clearly in the Jubilee Laws of Leviticus 25. You remember the basic idea of the
Jubilee Year: Every 50 years, all land returns to its original owners and all
Jewish slaves are set free and return to their families. We can think of it
like this using the founding of Steinbach as a model. In 1874 eighteen families
laid out their plots to form what is now the city of Steinbach. Their
properties were laid out in narrow strips crossing the creek that ran parallel
to what is now Main Street. If Steinbachers had practised the Jubilee, in 1924
all properties would have been restored to the original 18 families. The same restoration
would have taken place in 1974, and we would be expecting the next Jubilee in
2024.
The Jubilee year,
then, teaches us the principle of radical restoration. Wealthy people gave up
their excess wealth, and those who had become poor had their lands and their
dignity restored. The simple movement of property in the Jubilee may be impractical
(we have many more people in Steinbach today than the original 18 families),
but the principle of radical restoration remains.
Concealed beneath this
clear truth lies another equally powerful truth. Hear verses 23 and 24: “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine
and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. Throughout the land
that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the
land.”
One reason for the Jubilee Year was that the land (which
they appeared to own) was God’s, not theirs. So in verses 14-16 we read: “If
you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take
advantage of each other. You are to buy from your own people on the basis of
the number of years since the Jubilee. And they are to sell to you on the basis
of the number of years left for harvesting crops. When the years are many, you
are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the
price, because what is really being sold to you is the number of crops.”
This understanding is basic to a scriptural understanding of
the land. Genesis 1 and 2 makes the human pair God created stewards or caretakers
of God’s creation. Creation itself still belongs to God, but we care for it.
Psalm 24 rings out clearly: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof;
the world and they that dwell therein.” Jesus tells parables about masters who
go away and leave their belongings in trust with stewards or caretakers. When
the master returns, he demands an accounting for what he has left in trust.
When Jesus will return at the end of time, he will also call us to account for
what we hold in trust –not just for our deeds, but for the earth itself.
Mennonites and Land
Two weeks ago, Gerald Gerbrandt reminded us of our history.
We are a people who have moved many times – in the case of Russian Mennonites,
from Holland to Prussia to Russia to Canada and several countries in the
Americas. In many of these places we established colonies, implying our
ownership of the land around us. Certainly, here in the East Reserve we have
taken possession of our homes and farms and fields; we live here and we are at
home here.
At the same time, we retain an awareness that we are
citizens of Heaven before we are citizens of Canada. Our membership in
Mennonite World Conference reminds us that we belong to a great host of people,
so that Mathetes (in the Letter to Diognetus) might say of us:
[Mennonites] are
indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs …
yet … [t]hey live in their own countries as though they were only passing
through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities
of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland,
wherever it may be, is a foreign country.
If we take this insight seriously, we do not own the land to
which we hold title. It belongs to God. We are stewards, and the title we hold
is the title to care for our home and our lands as servants of God.
Indigenous Realities
At this point, we face a problem. You know that our
government (and therefore we ourselves) made treaties with the indigenous peoples
of Canada (which we have failed to honour). One of the basic aspects of those
treaties is the possession of the land.
This piece of land where we worship this morning was a part
of Anishinabe territory. On August 3, 1871, the Anishinabe people signed Treaty
1, giving the settlers encroaching on their lands permission to live here. I do
not know enough to describe in depth how the Anishinabe understood the treaty,
or how the government understood the treaty, but I can see the basic outline of
what happened.
Within three years the first Mennonite settlers came to
Steinbach and laid out the village according to the line pattern they brought
with them from Russia. Others can explain the history that followed with more
authority than I can. Rather, I make two basic points.
·
One: The indigenous understanding of the land
closely parallels the biblical understanding we noted earlier. They knew that
the Creator God owns the land. They knew that they had permission to use the
land, but that it was not their possession.
·
Two: We can conclude readily that the indigenous
peoples of Canada did not intend to give ownership of the land to the settlers
who were moving in, if only because they did not see such ownership as theirs
to give. As stewards of the land, they could give visitors permission to use
the land – but that is a far cry from simply giving the land itself.
I suspect that the Mennonite land-owners understood little
of this indigenous perspective. Once we have title to land, we assume the land
is ours. Lois and I have paid properly for our house and property; we see it as
our property. Yet, properly understood, God owns our house and the land, and we
live here because the Anishinabe people welcomed us and shared the land with us.
What Should We Do?
What should we do with these realities? It does not mean
that those of us who come from outside North America should simply leave. Arthur
Manuel writes in Unsettling Canada:
When we speak about reclaiming a
measure of control over our lands, we obviously do not mean throwing Canadians
off it and sending them back to the countries they came from—that is the kind
of reduction ad absurdum that some of
those who refuse to acknowledge our title try to use against us. We know that
for centuries Canadians have been here building their society, which, despite
its failings, has become the envy of many in the world. All Canadians have
acquired a basic right to be here. … At present, we are asking for the right to
protect our Aboriginal title land, to have a say on any development on our
lands, and when we find the land can be safely and sustainably developed, to be
compensated for the wealth it generates. [End of chapter one.]
Finding a way forward means that we find a path that
embraces the rights of Canada’s First Peoples, as well as of those of us who
have come to Canada over the last several hundred years. We are here together,
and we must live together. I suggest a few basic thoughts as we do so.
1. The earth – Canada – belongs first to God. We do not own
anything, even when we hold title to it. “The earth is the Lord’s”, and we are trustees
who care for the earth until Jesus returns.
2. Just as God gave the land in the OT to the Children of
Israel, God gives a place for all people to live. God gave the land first to
the First Nations of Canada. When our Anabaptist ancestors came to Canada, both
First Nations and the Canadian government gave them – and therefore also us – a
place to live.
3. This means also that we give up what is sometimes called
“the doctrine of discovery”. This doctrine is the legal basis that the
government of Canada has used to claim sovereignty over the land of Canada. It
suggests that much of the land around us was essentially empty when the first
Europeans came to Canada, and they simply occupied the land that they found. This
is the old idea of “finders keepers, losers weepers”. The fact that we live on
Treaty One land is sufficient indication that someone was here, and that the
land belonged to them as much as any human beings could be said to own it.
4. In some sense, all of us are settlers – God has given us
a place to settle down and live on this earth. Therefore, in an ultimate sense
God owns the land on which we live. First Nations in Canada got here first and
received land from God. We followed. Therefore, we must live in justice and
peace with each other as stewards of the piece of land God gives us.
5. As long as the first inhabitants of this land are
dispossessed and struggling, we cannot live at peace in God’s land. When our
Indigenous friends tell us of the hardships of life on the reserves, we know
that their pain is our pain and their loss is our loss. Our lives are bound
together, and we must find a way forward together.
Conclusion
I come back to the Scriptures. In Deuteronomy 26, it is
clear that God has given the people all that they need to live well. They were
wandering nomads, with no place of their own, and God gave them what they
needed. God does the same for us and for Canada’s Indigenous People, and God
wants us to participate in bringing into reality the fullness of life God has
for all of us.
In Hebrews, it is clear that a Sabbath Rest remains –
something beyond this world. We are still wandering nomads, never fully at home
here, whether as Mennonites or as Indigenous People. The truth is that we are
all Indigenous people – but our true home is in Heaven, and we are all Settlers
– in the places here on earth that God has given us. I have no answers as to
how we live justly with each other; I can only say here that we do so in
relationship with each other.
The promise of the New Jerusalem is not a reason to ignore
the struggle for justice here – as though it will all be alright in Heaven, so
we can ignore injustice on earth. Rather, the promise of the New Jerusalem
lights the fire for us to work for and with each other, because we know that
God will prevail, no matter how deep and painful our failures are on earth. We
are going to Heaven together, First Nations and later arrivals alike, and we
belong together there and here.
Steinbach Mennonite Church, 28 October 2018
Deuteronomy 26: 1 to 11; Hebrews 4: 1 to 11
