Curate’s sermon 9.3.25. Deuteronomy 26.1-11

Land
On one of my recent YouTube journeys I discovered Japanese minimalist living. In particular, I have come across a guy who lives in what looks more like a box than a flat. 7 square meters, tiny bathroom, bed, folding desk, chair, washing machine and virtually no kitchen, because he doesn’t cook. I was watching a thorough tour of his tiny flat with a sense of challenge and protest. I think I would quite like a fridge and a kettle, and maybe some plants. And some space for my jigsaw puzzles. And for my books. At the same time, it got me thinking: how much space do I really need?
Once we have the extra space we tend to fill it and get so attached to it we struggle to imagine what it is like not to have it. And often the next phase is needing even more space because we need more room for stuff. But if we were to strip away everything that is unnecessary, perhaps a few square meters is, after all, enough?
Our Old Testament reading today has a surprising link with the Japanese youtuber: in a nutshell, it is about the space we occupy and about how we do it.
In our reading the Lord gives the Israelites the land flowing with milk and honey, a good and generous land, for them to prosper and to be happy, which means so much after the hardships the people have endured in Egypt. Finally, there is a place to belong, somewhere to call home (at least in the foreseeable future, because they are not going to get there until the following book of the Bible). It is looking wonderful for the Israelites, but we know that this is not how it is going to be. In order to enter and take the land the Israelites slaughter the Canaanites who live there, which, we are told, is sanctioned by the Lord – I think, one of the most problematic passages in the whole Bible. Then Israel itself goes through divisions, life under occupation and in exile, being scattered around the world, getting close to being annihilated during the Holocaust and finally returning to the same land only to have a brutal dispute over it yet again. It seems that the land, which was meant to be flowing with milk and honey, for centuries has remained only a promise of a good life and instead has been a place of great suffering. Today, it is ploughed by exploding bombs and watered with human blood.
The Palestinian scholar Naim Ateek, who was personally affected by exile from his home, speaks of the dangers of extreme views on the idea of possession of land, including Zionism, which started to emerge in the wake of the Holocaust and further grew after the state of Israel was created in 1948. Seeking to solve the dispute theologically, Ateek promotes an idea of ‘inclusivist’ rather than ‘exclusivist’ God, who invites us to share the land and to be good neighbours. He warns against the dangers of holding on to the land as a possession too tightly. I dare to add that his ideas have not been heard, at least not just yet. Decades of conflict and extreme pain on both of its sides have tangled the problem into such a tight knot it is difficult to see how it can ever be untangled.
And this is not the first time we have seen human brutality and selfishness when it comes to dividing up the land, and unfortunately not the last. Humanity has been through the age of imperialism and, God knows, may be on the verge of it again. Today, it seems that Russia is no longer a problem just for Ukraine. The prospect of having to defend their land – and the lives of people living there – is currently entertained by other European nations. Looking back, glorification of ownership of as much land as one can only accumulate has brought more problems than rewards. The Romans and the Ottomans are well gone, leaving behind a history of bloodshed. The British Empire fell apart leaving a bitter aftertaste among the once conquered nations and in Britain itself. We all are aware of the consequences of imperialist ambitions of the Nazis and we have not even yet seen the full effect of the collapse of the Soviet Union. But what all empires of one kind or another have in common is that they all have ceased to exist. In the light of this, I choose to live with an absolute certainty that any new efforts to claim more land for the sake of some abstract greatness not even counting lives in the process will fail, but what will it cost us in the meantime and who will we become if we find ourselves, yet again. In a world pulled apart by imperialist ambitions?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a questionable character but nevertheless a great philosopher, argued that humans, in general, started to have problems when they settled and left behind a nomadic lifestyle. As soon as a fence was put up and this side of it was called ‘mine’ and that side ‘yours’, hostility emerged; there was suddenly something to divide and to fight over. Rousseau blames civilisation, private property and a settled lifestyle for all our problems. Possession of land, for him, is a great corrupting force.
But in the Old Testament, despite Rousseau’s warning, the Israelites clearly do end up possessing the land. The meaning of this possession, however, needs to be unpacked a little. The Hebrew root used in verses 1 and 2 is נתן. It is a common verb and means ‘to give’, ‘to set’, ‘to put’, ‘to commit’, ‘to entrust’ and a number of other things. In many places in the Bible, it appears to be linked with action. For example, in Genesis 23, the land is given to Abraham to be used for burial. The tablets of the law given to Moses in Exodus 31 are, in essence, a seal of the covenant. In Genesis 3, the woman is given to the man so that a partnership can emerge. Even in Genesis 1.16-17 the sun and moon are given to give light upon earth. In each of these and many other verses, something is given to serve a purpose or to invite a response. In the same way, in Deuteronomy 26, the land is given not just because the Lord feels like it, but because it has an intention, a use and a responsibility that come with it. In our reading the people are told to give the first fruits of the land to the Lord in gratitude. The following verses, which we have not heard today, include an instruction on exactly how to use the land: the fruit of it is to be given to the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, the most vulnerable in the society; and the people are to live a good life and to keep the commandments in order to continue dwelling there. Possessing the land is not the point, but using it for the benefit of the disadvantaged is. Property, in God’s view, comes with an obligation to serve others. The land, whatever it says in documents, licences, wills and deeds, is ultimately the Lord’s, together with literally everything else we have. It is given to us for a time and with trust that we can use it well.
I am not a socialist and am not going to call for abolition of private property. I am not a politician and, as much as I would like to, I do not know how to solve the conflicts in the Holy Land, in Ukraine, or anywhere else. What I am is a Christian who likes to read the Old Testament, as well as the New, with attention so I can hopefully learn some lessons, seek to correct my ways and live in the hope that beyond war and suffering there is the peace and prosperity, goodness and justice open to us in this world, not just the next. These are the things unseen by dictators and aggressors, conquerors and imperialists, who branch out to claim more and more because what they have somehow is not good enough. They are missing the trick: the land flowing with milk and honey is any land when it is used for the benefit of all and to the glory of God. ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God’, as we just sang, the kingdom not of this world, the kingdom with no land and not attached to material things. What is it that we seek? How do we live on the land we have been given? Amen