God and Land

M. Douglas Meeks

M. Douglas Meeks is Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. He is author of Origins of the Theology of Hope (Fortress Press) end the forthcoming God the Economist: Tim D~trine of God and Political Economy. His current research is in the area of theology and economic theory. He is active in the ecumenical movement dealing with the farm crisis and land use.

The land is in trouble. Only now, for the first time in four hundred years, is a whole culture on the verge of new insights about the land. We are learning t h a t the land is not insensitive; it can be hurt. We are learning t h a t the land is not inexhaustible; it can be depleted. We are learning t h a t the land is not immortal; it can die. When the land is misused, unmercifully pounded, poisoned with chemicals, and mindlessly exploited, it makes its justified protest. The only protest the land can make, however, is to die. Its protest is what Rachel Carson called the "silent spring:' But the most important thing we are beginning to learn (who knows if we are learning it soon enough or widely enough) is t h a t if the land dies, so will we. The land is in deep trouble, and so are h u m a n beings. The land is in trouble because of the way we have thought about the land. Land has been made an object of science; it has been made mere stuff for the use of technology. When we seek to know the land scientifically we objectivize, analyze, particularize, and reduce it. Modern scientific thought follows the ancient dictum, "divide and conquer." We reduce the object of knowing to its smallest element. 1 We isolate the object of our knowledge so t h a t we can know its laws in order to have power over it. With our technology we apply our science in order to make the land serve our purposes. The land becomes a lifeless 16

object which is to be manipulated by our machines and our systemsY But the land is in trouble not simply because of science and technology but more deeply because of the h u m a n compulsion to power and domination t h a t lie behind science and technology. We cannot expect a genuine future for the land until we learn to t h i n k differently about the land2 Thinking differently about the land will mean t h a t we understand ourselves not as the dominators of nature, but as participants in nature; t h a t we see the land in its whole environment, not in its isolated objectivity or usefulness. In short it will require t h a t we overcome our alienation from the land t h a t has resulted from our conquering and dominating the land. 4 The land is also in trouble because of the way we have economized the land. We have made the land into a commodity as a precondition of establishing the m a r k e t society. The living land has been made to fit into the rigid laws of exchange, property, extraction, production, profit, and progress. Our civilization has come to value profit more t h a n the land and the people who live on the land. We cannot expect a genuine future for the land until we learn t h a t the life of people and of the land are the highest values of economy. There are m a n y different ways of approaching and valuing the land: tradition, wisdom, sci-

Meeks: God and Land

ence, experience, deduction, and induction. 5 Another way to approach the land is biblically and theologically. This is a crucial view of the land for two reasons. First, the Christian tradition is not without guilt in the near catastrophic situation of the land in developed countries2 Christians must critically retrieve the biblical origins of the understanding of God and creation in order to criticize the false and destructive notions of the Christian tradition. Secondly, our understanding of God must be changed precisely as we seek to transform our society's relationship to the land. The promise of land is the central promise given by God to the people of Israel. Thus it is no accident that God is thought of in connection with land throughout the biblical traditions and much of the Christian traditionY Land is a symbol of God's goodness, providence, and faithfulness. But it is also the field of the h u m a n rebellion against God. Whether and how the h u m a n being keeps the land will determine the character of the h u m a n future and of the h u m a n being's relationship to God. The modern technocratic consciousness will think it archaic to construe God and land together. I will argue, however, that a critical retrieval of the God-land correlation is crucial for regaining our bearings in the complex and cloudy issues of land ownership, use, and care in our time. One way of bringing together the problems we have with land and the difficulties of knowing God is by focusing on the notion of oikos. This Greek word means "house" or "household:' Its root, "oik" serves as the root for three major paranyms in our language: economics, ecology, and ecumenics. The contemporary problems of the land, I believe, must all be addressed holistically from these three perspectives. From the perspective of the Christian faith economics is concerned with the question whether everyone in the household will get what it takes to live. God intends to create a household in which the relationships of the household are such that all people have access to life. Economics is about livelihood. From the perspective of the Christian faith ecology is concerned with the question whether land will be given its rights. God intends to create a household in which God's creatures can live together in symbiosis. Will the land also have a home in which it can live and survive in relation to God's h u m a n creatures? Ecology is about the land's right to life and its right to be in living relationships with God's other creatures. From the perspective of the Christian faith

ecumenics is concerned with the question whether the world will become habitable. God intends to make the world into a home by establishing God's justice and peace. Will all the people in the world be able to live together in the world as a home? Every piece of land in the world is caught up in this question, for we are speaking about the great geo-political questions which wilt decide whether the world will survive the h u m a n capacity to destroy the world as a result of conflict over the land. Every land question has an economic, an ecological, and an ecumenical dimension. No land problem can be really solved until the interdependence of these dimensions is brought to bear on it. It is perhaps somewhat easier to begin with the fact that the land is being destroyed by foolish agricultural and mining practices, by chemicals, by machines, by misuse of water, by misdirection of natural processes. But these decisions are not merely ecological questions. They are economic. The land is threatened by economics, by the reduction of the land to the rigid laws of the market, by h u m a n captivity to progress, growth, speculation, greed, and profit. But these systems are not merely economic. They have to do with a distorted ecumenics in which some people want to shape the world in such a w a y that other people do not experience the world as home. The threat to the land is multidimensional and behind all of the threats is the h u m a n compulsion to power and domination. If the h u m a n compulsion to domination cannot be changed, there is no reasonable longrange hope for the land and the h u m a n beings who live upon it. Such conversion is a theological question. It has to do with what we view as ultimately powerful. That is the God-question. And this is the reason that it is crucial for those of us in the developed countries radically to deconstruct and reconstruct our view of God. For this I am proposing that we try to retrieve the biblical sense in which God is viewed as the Economist, the one who works for the household in which the land and all of nature, the h u m a n creatures on every land, and the whole world may find access to life. The Bible sees God the Economist first of all as the owner of the household we can call creation. 8 God had made Godself responsible for the life of this creation. Secondly, God is seen as an economist in the more usual sense of "economist" in the ancient world, namely, as a household servant or steward. God comes down to dwell among the slaves and to create for them another kind of household in which all can have access to the land and whatever is necessary for life (Ex. 3). In Jesus Christ 17

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God becomes a household servant and shows bodily what it takes for a household (an economy) that serves life instead of death, freedom instead of slavery (Phil. 2). Finally, God the Economist seeks out those persons who will live for God's ecumene. God's passion is for the world (John 3:16), so much so that God gives God's own life for the sake of making the world into a home from which none of God creatures will be shut out. And thus I am arguing that the question of the land belongs in the context of God's oikic work. L a n d as God's P o s s e s s i o n The biblical traditions all agree that the "earth" or "land" belongs exclusively to God2 But the biblical traditions constantly confound ancient and modern notions of land ownership by picturing God neither as an emperor with tyrannical rights to the disposition of property, nor as a landlord, land speculator, or real estate agent. God has a right to the land because God has called it into being. God has coaxed it into being with God's Word of righteousness. God's claim on the land has to do with God's having worked to bring it into being. More especially, God has an eternal right to the land because of God's suffering. Gerhard von Rad has taught us that the biblical accounts view God's creation of the earth on the model of the exodus. TM God's suffering to draw everything that is out of nothingness is like God's suffering to bring the people of Israel out of the nothingness of slavery. The New Testament understands that everything that is has been created through the crucified Christ. God's power of creation is none other than God's power of suffering love which ultimately will redeem everything from the power of death. Thus God owns the land in a way different from the displayal of ownership in the great theories of property. God possesses the land because of God's creative power of suffering love against the power of death. God owns the land because no one else could have brought the land into being, because no one else has the power over death which wants the land to fall into nothingness, because no one else can ultimately bring the land beyond everything that threatens it. For these reasons the land may not be denied God (Lev. 25:23). For these reasons the whole of creation exists to give God praise and to obey God's will. God is a strange "owner" of the land for another reason. God does not intend the land for

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his own exclusive use. God "owns" the land by giving it to God's creatures; God "owns" the land by sharing it. Because God possesses the land it may be used only for God's purposes. All other uses will threaten the fragile existence of the land, set as it is between the power of God's righteousness and the power of nothingness. The earth is intended for God's purposes of fruitfulness and well-being. No one else, no matter how strong or elevated, m a y usurp God's right to the land and its ultimate disposal. This theological claim precludes every claimed or imagined autonomy over the land, such as Pharaoh's claim: "My Nile is my own, I made it" (Ezek. 29:4). 11

T h e G a r d e n and the City The first picture of the "earth" or "land" we see in the Bible is the Garden of Eden. Ever since, the garden has been the h u m a n being's dream of safe land in which the h u m a n being can live without threat. And thus was set in motion the great romantic dreams of a golden age to which we really belong and to which ere long we shall surely return. The fertility cults, the m y t h of the founding of Rome, Rousseau's concept of the happy savage in the garden, Wordsworth and Emerson's love of the pristine sacredness of undisturbed nature have all elevated the notion of the saving power of original land. Cambridge represents the h u m a n dream of harmonizing nature and civilization. The twentieth century American dream of the suburb also intends to bring together the best of the city and the best of the land into a kind of perpetual life in the garden. But nowhere do we have a better example of a kind of life in which both the city and the land can be disregarded and forsaken than in the American suburban consciousness. The dream of the garden can be a romantic, dangerous, and life-denying picture of the land. The biblical picture of Eden is not a dream of the golden age, but an eschatological picture of how the earth shall be. The Garden of Eden is from the beginning a promise of what the land can be like: untrammeled, in harmony, interdependent. But the garden is not something to which we shall return. It is not the picture of the ultimate destiny of the creation. The original creation is "very good,' but not perfect. The original creation has within it the threats of death and nothingness, in the form of the symbols of night, sea, and storm, and the reality of sin in the form of h u m a n disobedience. From the very beginning, the creation, the land, is yearning for its ultimate redemption. The creation is

Meeks: God and Land

from the beginning looking forward to the new creation. Furthermore, from the beginning the fate of the earth is bound up with the preeminent creature, the h u m a n being. Therefore Paul says: "The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for the adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our bodies" (Rom. 8:19-23). There is no such thing as a redemption of the earth without the redemption of h u m a n beings, but neither is there a redemption of h u m a n beings without the redemption of the earth. But the earth is threatened not only by the power of death and futility, but also by h u m a n urge to dominance which is symbolized by the city. The first historical act "east of Eden" is a murder. Cain spills the blood of Abel upon the soil. The land is always implicated in and suffers from the massive hurt and oppression which only the h u m a n heart can dream. The murder is evidently the result of a conflict over the land and the fruits of the land. Even though God puts a mark of protection upon Cain's head, the m u r derer does not trust God's providence. Out of his guilt, his fear, and his anger Cain builds the first city. A city is land enclosed by fortified walls. A city is a h u m a n counter-creation. No longer trusting in God's providence, Cain makes his own creation. Everything in the city is an artifact. And the most decisive artifact is the fortified walls. The walls are meant to protect us from and shut out creation. Once the fortified walls are erected and trusted, creation becomes nature, the stuff we can use simply for our own purposes. Nature becomes an enemy, just as do all people outside the walls. Nature exists to be subdued and dominated. The land exists to be conquered and controlled. For much of the biblical traditions the walls become the symbol for the h u m a n pretention to power which separates h u m a n beings in their counter creation from other h u m a n beings and from the land, and in so doing separates them from God. I speak of the city not sociologically or geographically, but rather theologically. The city stands for h u m a n power: the h u m a n power of tool-making and technology, of politics, law,

police, and army, of economic systems of production and distribution, of planning and communication, of art and imagination, of science and dreams. The city represents the best in h u m a n beings and also the worst. It represents the human power over the land and the rest of nature. It also represents the exploitation and oppression of the land. The city represents the possible death of the land. One of the most amazing reversals in the Bible is the ultimate vision of God's new creation. The amazing thing is that God chooses the city, the h u m a n creation, as the form of the new creation. In the end God does not condemn the h u m a n project of the city but condescends and accepts what the h u m a n being has chosen. But it will be a new city; a city without fortified walls (Rev. 21-22). It will be a city which does not shut out the land but lives with it, recognizing the land's right also to praise its creator. The New J e r u s a l e m will no longer be at war with the land. But here in history we h u m a n beings live between the garden and the New City, between the creation and the new creation. And it is a history in which both the land and the city live precariously. It is a history in which both or neither will be redeemed.

The A m b i g u i t y of Land The biblical view of the land is not romantic. As soon as the earth is possessed, it has to bear historical conflict. Land becomes disputed and contested and causes division and conflict in the community. It bears the economic, political, and cultural conflict of h u m a n beings. It suffers from h u m a n power struggles. The h u m a n blood which is spilled upon the land and the massive h u m a n power which seeks to conquer the land threaten the very life of the land. Abraham is promised land (Gen. 12:1-6) and the Israelite slaves in Egypt are promised a "land flowing with milk and honey." But when they arrive in the promised land, it is possessed by the Canaanites. The problem is ownership. Others thought they owned the land. Ownership always leads to conflict about the land. And the land always groans from this conflict. Israel's land is to this very hour the subject of bitter and bloody struggle. And after the promised land was possessed it was not all it was cracked up to be. Golda Meir was fond of saying that the Lord led the people of Israel all over the Near-East for forty years to the only land without oil. The biblical traditions are replete with this ambiguity about land. An abiding hope of God's people is that there will be a time in which people "shall live in the houses they build, and 19

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eat the fruit of the vineyards they plant; they shall not build houses for others to live in, or plant for others to eat" (Is. 65:21). But the biblical traditions know about the ruthless violence which is connected with land. They know about Ahab's attempt to annex the land of Naboth. Naboth will not give the inheritance of his fathers to Ahab for money or exchange because the land belongs to God (1 Kings 21). The pitiful figure of the sulking Ahab is addressed by his wife, Jezebel, with one of the most telling questions in our memory: "Do you now govern Israel?" The implication is t h a t the strong, the rulers, should be able to determine property rights. Jezebel arranges for the murder of Naboth by inciting the false charge t h a t Naboth has cursed God and the king. The claims to and conflicts over property almost always entail God and patriotism, atheism and national betrayal. In North America atheism equals communism and communism equals atheism and they both are epithets for those who question the right of the powerful to own land. Jezebel to Ahab: "Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead:" (I Kings 21:16-16). Elijah to Ahab: "Have you killed, and also taken possession?" (19) Killing and taking possession. This is a theme which the h u m a n race seems to be bent on playing out over and over again. This view is dimly noticeable in contemporary economic theory. 12 "Ahab said to Elijah, 'Have you found me, O my enemy?' He answered, ~I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. Behold, I will bring evil upon you, I will utterly sweep you away, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel; and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam . . . for the anger to which you have provoked me, and because you have made Israel to sin" (I Kings 21:20-22). Those who live from the Bible will have the gnawing suspicion t h a t someone owns the land because of the illegitimate use of power.

The Christian Traditional Consensus on Land

There is a basic Christian consensus on the land r u n n i n g throughout the biblical traditions, the early Fathers, the medieval period, and the Protestant Reformation. Two assumptions of this consensus are particularly crucial: (1) Land is a gift of God given to all h u m a n beings in common. (2) If access to land is understood as 20

livelihood, then all h u m a n beings, qua h u m a n beings, have a right of access to the land. The Image of God and the Right to Land. According to the biblical creation narratives every h u m a n being is created in the "image of God." The "image of God" does not mean a piece of divinity, or a divine soul, or a rational mind within the h u m a n being. Rather the "image of God" is a calling, a commission from God. The notion of the "image" comes from the NearEastern practice of the emperor putting into the hand of an ambassador a medallion with the emperor's image on it. The image was to authorize and empower the ambassador to represent the will of the emperor to the outlying country or foreign lands. The ambassador is fully commissioned and authorized as long as and only as long as he represents the will of the one who sent him. Such is the relationship of every h u m a n being to God. To be created a h u m a n being means to be called to represent God's will to the creation. Being a h u m a n being is something like being a steward of God to the creation. The h u m a n being in the first instance is exactly like the animals, the trees, the mountains, the streams, and the grass. For the h u m a n being is also a creature, called into being. The h u m a n being is a creature with a beginning and an ending and is therefore an authored being. But the h u m a n being is different from the rest of the creation in one decisive way. The h u m a n being is called to represent God's will to the creation. Thus the h u m a n being has an eccentric existence. A cow is a cow is a cow and always will be a cow. A h u m a n being, on the other hand, can be h u m a n and can also be inhuman. The mystery of dehumanization has to do with whether the h u m a n being can keep the calling given by God to be God's representative or steward to the creation. The Jewish and Christian view of h u m a n rights is based on this notion of the image of God. Every h u m a n being has a right to whatever it takes to be the image of God, the representative of God to the creation. If you deny a person what he or she needs in order to be God's image, you rob t h a t person of his or her humanity and dignity. W h a t it takes to be God's image will be different in different societies and cultures. In almost every society, however, the right to bread, water, clothing, shelter, and intimacy have been considered inalienable rights. They are inalienable rights because they constitute livelihood, the right to life. In developed cultures today some rights would have to be added as basic, such as, education, meaningful work, democratic and civil rights. The criterion is the

Meeks: God and Land

same: What does it require for a person to be a h u m a n being, to be the "image of God" The Land Created in Common for All. From antiquity up to the modern world wealth or livelihood was fundamentally constituted by land. Livelihood m e a n t having access to the land and its fruits. It is control over the land t h a t remained the dominant form of property until the advent of industrial market society. H u m a n beings in the age of feudalism and to a large extent in mercantilism were marked by degrees of control over the land. The starting point of Christian thought in this entire period, however, was t h a t God had created all land for all h u m a n beings in common. God created h u m a n beings to share communally. There is a divinely given h u m a n right to the wealth of the world, to the land. G o d as E c o n o m i s t : T h e L a n d a n d t h e T o r a h We t u r n now to the Old Testament where we find the beginning point of much of the consensus on land in pre-modern times. The exodus is the initiating event of Israel's history in which through the act of righteousness God called the people of Israel out of the death which is slavery. The exodus is a thoroughly economic event. The word economy (oikos + nomos) means literally the "law or m a n a g e m e n t of the household" The basic question of Israel's history is the question which household or which economy it will live in. It is also the basic question of the land, for the health and future of the land will be determined by the predominant economy. Israel's history begins in Pharaoh's household, which is an economy of slavery in which the land does not fare well. The post-Exodus memory is t h a t one of Israel's children had been a great economist of Pharaoh's household. In the "land of affliction" Joseph, the lowly Hebrew, is blessed by God and is elevated to great heights. As Pharaoh's economist Joseph manages the land and the food stores so well t h a t he redeems the nation from famine. His economic work leads to his being called, "the lord of the l a n d " for, the Egyptians say, "you are like Pharaoh himself" (Gen. 44:18). The exaltation continues, as it would for an economist who solved our economic problems today: Joseph is called "father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt" (Gen. 45:8). All the earth came to Joseph, the great economist, to buy grain (Gen. 41:57). The livelihood of m a n y depended upon him, not least Jacob and all his family. When the brothers are finally confronted by the well-disguised Joseph, he gives a stirring definition of a true economist: "God sent me be-

fore you to preserve life . . . . And God sent me before you to preserve for you a r e m n a n t on earth, and to keep alive for you m a n y survivors" (Gen. 45:5b, 7). The work of an economist is preserving, keeping alive. It is about survivors. The French word behind our word survival (survivre) means to "live t h r o u g h " The biblical traditions treat Joseph as the first truly great economist, on whom "all the earth" was dependent and whose economics m e a n t survival. And, yet, according to the story, it was Joseph who laid the groundwork for the economic conditions under which the descendants of Israel suffered. His economic power grew into massive political power. He used famine as a way of centralizing power, gaining control over the land, and creating a labor force. The scriptures present a fairly sophisticated account of the economic processes t h a t led ultimately to the affliction of God's people. In some senses it is as insightful as the analyses of modern political economists. In the midst of extreme famine the people came to Joseph to buy food. When their money had run out, he required them to pay with their cattle and flocks and asses, their means of livelihood and work. And when money and stock were gone, he required their land in exchange for food. Finally when their land was gone, Joseph demanded their work and their bodies. "Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we with our land will be slaves to P h a r a o h . . "' (Gen. 47:19). "So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for all the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe upon them. The land became Pharaoh's; and as for the people, he made slaves of them from one end of Egypt to the other". Without money, without livestock and tools, without land, the people had only themselves and their labor to sell. "Economic miracles" often lead to conditions in which some become masters of the many. And thus people who live out of the Bible will have the suspicion t h a t if you don't have land, you are likely to be enslaved. For farmers who are losing their land today this will be no foreign story. Government figures show the following: In the 3 0 - y e a r period from 1919 to 1949, the rural population dropped from 6.5 million family farmers to 5.7 million; in the 30 years from 1949 to 1979, the drop was from 5.7 to 2.3 million. Thus in the crisis years of the period cited, which included the Great Depression and the Second World War, 800,000 families lost their land; and in the second period, a time of prosperity for 21

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most Americans, some 3,400,000 families lost their inheritance and their heritage. Government studies also note t h a t for every six farms lost a rural business goes bankrupt. TM The narrator of Genesis goes on to make a telling observation about the relation of Pharoah to the religious cult. "Only the land of the priests he did not buy; for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh, and lived on the allowance which Pharaoh gave them; therefore they did not sell their land" (Gen. 47:20-22). Here is expressed the suspicion prevalent throughout the pre-monarchal and prophetic traditions of the Old Testament t h a t those in charge of the economy and those in charge of the religious cult are m u t u a l l y dependent on each other. Economic oppression of people and ecological exploitation of the land cannot exist without its religious justifications. TM Thus does the tradition have to come to grips with a bitter irony: The conditions of slavery which the children of Israel were to suffer were prepared by the son of Israel. The greatest economist succumbed to a household management t h a t seemed to promise life but ended by serving death, an economy of slavery. The scriptures depict the situation in which Israel's history begins as an economic, an ecological, and an ecumenical catastrophe. Israel could not expect ever again an "economic miracle" from an economist the likes of Joseph. Since Joseph, Israel and the church have pondered the question, Is there a m a n a g e m e n t of the household that does not lead to slavery? "There arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph" (Ex. 1:8). Now the Israelites were integrated into the economy of slavery. The m i g h t y Joseph once dreamed up the economic design of the store houses. Now Joseph's people build the Pharoah's store houses as slaves. The taskmasters "made the people of Israel serve with rigor, and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field; in all their work they made them serve with rigor" (Ex. 1:13-14). The Israelites, as chattle of the Pharaoh's m a n a g e m e n t of the household, yearned for a new household and a new way of distributing what it takes to live. But their yearning did not mean t h a t they readily accepted the economic work of the God of Israel. In fact they resisted God's work of liberation from Pharaoh's household because God's economic work was strange even to slaves who, h a t i n g Pharaoh's household, had nevertheless come to believe t h a t it was an unchangeable destiny. "Once we were slaves." That is the beginning 22

of our story. There is no other economic fact so important to us. We were slaves because we had no part in the land. We first came to a knowledge of the Economist while we were yet in Pharoah's economy of slavery. The stench, the chains, the whip, the separation from the ones we loved, the lack of freedom to move and decide our future. These are the things we remember when we ask how we first came to know the Economist God. In Ex. 3:7-8b the liberating Economist defines his life radically differently from t h a t of the emperor God: "I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver t h e m . . . "' Thus begins the theme of God's dwelling with God's people. This is the one who dwells among the slaves, who makes his home among the forsaken so t h a t they can come out into a new home of freedom. This God has a domicile in a people who are no people. Such incarnation is attested by people of the Bible to be the ground of their future. God, the liberator Economist is set over against Pharaoh, the owner of all the land, and even over against Joseph, who became the ins t r u m e n t of the economy of slavery. The great event of liberation is leaving the household of hated slavery. The name of God becomes a narrative description of his economic act: "I am the one who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Ex. 20:1). God appears first and most centrally in God's history with Israel as one who liberates from a household or economy in which God's people cannot live. God is Economist as the One who brought us out of the economy of bondage. This God dismantles a household where people cannot be fully human. This God is interested in a new household whose distribution will make for life against death. This God stands against all justifications of slavery, against making people commodities for the economic process. This God wills to create an economy of freedom. The Torah K e e p e r as E c o n o m i s t Those who have been redeemed from the death of slavery are called to live in correspondence to this liberating Economist who will create a new household, a household of freedom. They become economists as "Torah keepers" The life question of the people of Israel is how to live in the household of freedom without falling again into slavery. The answer to this question is God's gift of the Torah, which will be the substance of the people's life. 15 The Torah is a kind of political economy.TM It is important to emphasize the creative and re-

Meeks: God and Land

demptive aspects of God's Torah. The law is God's power to create an economy of life on the basis of the costly liberation which God has graciously enacted for his people. The law as God's gift is God's power to protect an area of life. The law builds common expectations within the plural context of the community. The future is guaranteed not by I-Thou contract but by the binding agreement of the community. What is required for promise-keeping is that all put each other under obligation. It is not that two individuals can guarantee what each expects. Rather the realm of life created by the Torah, that is the multiple relationships of the community and land which are all subject to God's intention of life, is the guarantor of all expectations within the community. Life in God's household of freedom, then, means living in obedience to God's way of distributing righteousness. Keeping God's Torah economy is life; disregarding God's Torah economy is death. Those who live in the exodus community, in the household of freedom, learn in covenant faithfulness what the Torah requires in the distribution of what it takes for everyone in the household to live. Torah means guidance for the life of righteousness in God's household. The Torah intends to ground laws that defend the poor, for it is only in defending the poor and weak that order and justice can be realized in the society. "Laws favoring the weaker members of society demonstrate the ethos of the exodus experience wherein Yahweh delivered helpless slaves . . . . Poor and weak Israelites were given the identity of brothers and sisters to encourage society to care for them. ''17 This ethos is in conflict with the political, economic, cultural as well as the religious dimensions of the Cannanite ethos. The recalling of Yahweh's economic acts in the festival of Passover, the spring festival of weeks, and the fall festival of tabernacles brought into being a decisively different economic reality than comparable festivals in Canaan. The economic ethos of early Israel can be summed up as follows: You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. If you do afflict them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless (Ex. 22:21-24; cf. Deut. 24:17-18). The Covenant Code (Ex. 20:22-23:33), the Deuteronomic Code (Deut. 12-26), and the Holiness Code (Lev. 17-26) all protect the endan-

gered livelihood of the weak. They picture what is necessary for all God's people to have access to the land, to what it takes to live. They protect the land by establishing a just access to life. The laws which spring from the Torah are meant to preserve the political and economic equality which Yahweh means to create as deliverer of Israel. TM The Torah rests within the framework of Yahweh's promise that poverty will cease (Deut. 15:4-5). The fact that Israel rooted the defense of the poor in theology (that is, in regard for God's being and acts) rather than in the mere concern for order explains why its laws sought to afford greater protection for the poor than did those of Israel's neighbors. The motive for God's defense of the poor, the stranger, the orphan, the widow, and the needy is made transparent throughout the legal codes: Yahweh himself liberated his people when they were strangers and oppressed; therefore his redeemed people should show the same compassion toward the needy in their midst (Ex. 22:21; 23:9). The question of interest on loans is a good place to begin. The legal codes of the Near East (for example, those of H a m m u r a b i and Eshnunna) allowed enormously high interest rates. Israel seems to have been alone in condemning interest. "If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be to him a creditor, and you shall not exact interest from him: (Ex. 22:25; cf. Deut. 23:19-20). The problem with interest is that it leads to poverty and to various forms of slavery. Israel's experience was that interest was a means by which the needs and rights of h u m a n beings were violated with the result being life-denying poverty. "And if your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall maintain him; as a stranger and as a sojourner he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or increase, but fear your God; that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him food for profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God" (Lev. 25:35-38). Even when the introduction of a trade economy seemed to require interest on loans, the Torah laws placed strict regulations on the use and abuse of surety for loans. "If ever you take your neighbor's garment in pledge, you shall restore it to him before the sun goes down; for that is his only covering, it is his mantle for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate" (Ex. 22:26-27; cf. Deut. 24:6, 10-13; Deut. 15:7-11). The Torah sets limits on the oppression of the 23

AGRICULTURE AND HUMAN V A L U E S - FALL 1985

poor by restricting the right of creditors to seize t h a t property on which the poor depend for existence. The reason interest on loans was of such cruciality for God's household was t h a t it so often forced people to give up their land and sell themselves into slavery. When people are claimed as property this destroys the household Yahweh has intended by precluding Yahweh's own claim on his people. "For they are my people, whom I brought forth out of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him with harshness, but shall fear your God . . . . For to me the people of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God" (Lev. 25:42-43, 55). Insofar as interest on loans leads to loss of land and slavery Yahweh's own claim on his delivered people is denied and the economy of freedom is obstructed. TM F u r t h e r ways in which the Torah provides for the distribution within God's household of freedom in order to prevent loss of land and return to slavery are gleaning rights, travelers' rights, and the poverty tithe. The poor are given access to God's economy of life through the right to share in the land and its fruits. "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field to its very border neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God" (Lev. 19:9-10; Cf. Deut. 24:19-22; Lev. 23:22; Ruth 2). In the seventh year the vineyards and orchards are to be left untended not only so t h a t ground m a y be rejuvenated but also so t h a t the poor m a y benefit (Ex. 21:24; 23:10-11). The Deuteronomic law extends the law of leaving sheaves and fruit beyond the seventh year to each harvest time (Deut. 24:1922). The Deuteronomic law even permits the poor to enter the field before harvest, although the h u n g r y m a y merely satisfy their need and may not take advantage of the owner of the field (Deut. 23:24-25). These laws prevent the poor from begging for their survival and show t h a t God's claim on redeemed slaves means their right to the means of life. This right supercedes the right to own and dispose land and produce. 2° Crucial to God's economy in the household of freedom is the law of the tithe. The tithe exists for the sake of the poor's access to livelihood (Deut. 14:22-29). We often t h i n k of the tithe in our context as a means of supporting a religious institution. The tithe is a means of building up the household by m a k i n g certain t h a t no one is excluded from the livelihood of the household. The reason for tithing is the same as the one 24

which is repeated throughout the household codes: "You shall remember you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you" (Deut. 24:18, 22). Even if the poor are always present, "You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in the land" (Deut. 15:11). The tithe is Torah household redistribution of God's power for life; it is also the way in which the productivity of the land is blessed: "At the end of every three years you shall bring forth all the tithe of your produce in the same year, and lay it up within your towns; and the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are in your towns, shall come and eat and be filled; t h a t the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands t h a t you do" (Deut. 14:28-29; Cf. Deut. 26:12; 16:13-15). The tithe is t h a t which belongs to the poor. Hospitality is a central way in which God builds the household of freedom. The abundance of the feast (Passover, booths, and tabernacles) is m e a n t for sharing with the stranger and sojourner, as well as with the widow, the orphan, and the servants. Those who intend to live in the household of life against death are "Not to harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother but you shall open your hand to him, and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it m a y be" (Deut. 15:7-11). Almost all of the prophets are concerned with the replacement of hospitality in God's household by empty worship and malicious feasts. Isaiah puts together the worship of God and hospitality for the poor and stranger in this way: Is not this the fast t h a t I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall my light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am. (Isa. 58:6-9; cf. Isa. 1:12-17; Amos 2:6-7; 5:2124). True worship is living the economy in which God invites into the household all those who are excluded by the denial of God's righteousness. The Torah works against the disharmony of class and of great discrepancy in wealth through several institutions: the fallow year, the Sab-

Meeks: God and Land

bath year, and the jubilee year. In God's Torah household the amassing of wealth cannot be justified in the face of the poor who are excluded from what gives them life and future. One can neither take nor withhold from others what they need to contribute to the life of God's economy for God's people. The Jubilee Year of the Holiness Code, closely kin to the Sabbatical year, adds a further provision which makes it the most radical household command of the Liberator economist. Every forty-ninth year Yahweh requires the following so t h a t the household of freedom will not succumb again to slavery: 1) slaves are to be freed, 2) debts are to be cancelled, 3) the land is to lie fallow, and 4) the land is to be returned or redistributed to its original holder (Lev. 25:2324). Even if the Jubilee year cannot be proved to have been practiced, it has been remembered by Israel as what Yahweh desires. The blowing of the Jubilee horn (shofar) is in the story of Joshua the symbol of what brings down the fortified walls and the rotten economy of the city. At the heart of Torah distribution is the sabbath. The sabbath is basically about God's justice, about God's economy. The sabbath is the actual, historic presence of God's justice under the conditions of history. In the sabbath those ways in which h u m a n beings oppress and exploit one another come to an end. Work, property, and consumption cease to be agencies of domination. The household will stay free and will live only so long as the sabbath is kept. Jesus did not do away with the sabbath but rather radicalized it, including the Jubilee year (Lk. 4:18ff.). T h e Christian C o n s e n s u s on L a n d and the A g r a r i a n Tradition We are now able to summarize what the Christian tradition held about land up to the seventeenth century when John Locke's labor theory of property and the rise of the m a r k e t society began to undermine this synthesisY 1 Many of these points represent the pathos of the agrarian tradition in the modern world as it has attempted to m a i n t a i n the integrity of h u m a n community in relation to the land against near impossible odds. 1. God has an exclusive claim on the land because God calls it into being, suffers for it, gives it to God's creatures. No one else may make an absolute claim on the land. 2. God created the land in common (koina) for all peopleY 2 Through the Reformation the tradition refused to assert a n a t u r a l right to private property. All h u m a n beings have a right of access to the landY 3 There are no poor people by

God's design or by nature. Since God created all things in common, great discrepancies in wealth and access to land are the result of h u m a n sin, exploitation, and oppression. The distribution of property in land is by h u m a n fabrication. It m a y be just, or it m a y be unjust. If it is unjust, it should be changed. 3. H u m a n beings do not have the right to ownership of more t h a n they need. The goals of owning land are self-sufficiency and solidarity. The virtue of frugality serves the life of the community and the future of the land. All land and all wealth is m e a n t for the livelihood of the comm u n i t y (koinonia). Those who own more t h a n they need possess what belongs to the poor. If they do not give from their excess to the poor, they are "thieves" or "murderers." The ultimate damnation of avarice is t h a t it leads to isolation and loneliness: "Woe to you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land" (Isa. 5:8). 4. Since all land is a loan from God, the essential character of possessing land is the law of use (usus fructus). Except for the Roman conception of the Dominium ex iure Quiritium, a concept denoting absolute control over a piece of land and the air and the sky over it, most of the Western tradition up to the modern world held t h a t property in land gave one the right to use the land but not to dispose of it. 24 Ownership of land therefore cannot mean the right to do anything one wants to do with the land. The use of land must be determined by the intention of God for the livelihood of the community and for the life of the land. The Christian tradition up until modernity held, in concert with Aristotle, the principle: Hold all things in such a way t h a t they m a y be common for all. 5. Property in land is m e a n t to serve the livelihood of others, not their domination and exploitation. This is the basic reason that, in agreement with Aristotle, the Christian tradition through the Reformation condemned the injustice of usury. Basil, Aquinas, and Luther all point to usury as a way of enslaving the borrower. Usury damages the community and the land because of the "unlimited bosoms of the rich" (Basil). 6. The land and h u m a n beings, the land and the city m a y dwell together in harmony if justice is done. Justice requires recognizing and realizing the rights of all h u m a n beings as the "image of God" and the rights of the land which God intends to bear fruit for all of God's creatures. If the righteousness of God is not recognized and the rights of h u m a n beings and the land realized, the land will soak up the blood of 25

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warring human beings. For land and city there is this ultimate vision: For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the child shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord, and their children with them. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and the dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord. (Isa. 65:17-25).

Notes 1. Jiirgen Moltmann, Gott in der Sch6pfung: Okologische Sch6pfunglehre. (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1985), pp. 34ff.

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2. Roger Shinn, Forced Options: Social Decisions for the 21st Century (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984). 3. William Leiss, The Domination of Nature (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972). 4. Fritjof Capra. The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982); Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980), pp. 23-83. 5. This multifaceted way of approaching the land is epitomized in the work of Wendell Berry. 6. In his famous article, "The Historical Roots of the Economic Crisis," Lynn White accused Christianity of laying the conceptual and value groundwork for the destruction of n a t u r e in Western technocratic societies. 7. Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977). 8. M. Douglas Meeks, "Toward a Trinitarian View of Economics: The Holy Spirit and H u m a n Needs" Christianity and Crisis 40 (November 10, 1979), 307-316 (reprinted in Nordan C. Murphy, ed. Teaching and Preaching Stewardship [New York: National Council of Churches, 1985, pp. 179-195]); M. Douglas Meeks, "God as Economist and t h e Problem of Property," Occasional Papers Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, No. 21 (Febr u a r y 1984). 9. See the distinction made between "earth" and "land" by Walter B r u e g g e m a n n in "Theses on Land in the Bible," in Erets: The Church and Appalachian Land Issues (Amesville, OH: The Coalition for Appalachian Ministry, 1984). 10. G e r h a r d von Rad, Old Testament Theology. Vol. I. Tr. D. M. G. Stalkner (New York: Harper & Row, 1962). 11. Brueggemann, "Theses." 12. Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), p. 21: "The essence of property right is the right to exclude, and an organization which has a comparative advantage in violence is in the position to specify and enforce property rights. In contrast to the theories frequently advanced in the literature of political science, sociology, and anthropology, here the key to u n d e r s t a n d i n g the state involves the potential use of violence to gain control over resources. One cannot develop a useful analysis of the state divorced from property right." 13. J o h n Hart, "How Agribusiness is Destroying Agriculture," Christianity and Crisis 45 (April 15, 1985), 1 3 0 31. 14. N o r m a n K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology

of the Religion of Liberated Israel 1250-1050 B.C.E. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983). 15. Israel's very existence is Torah-existence. Torah is the essence of the covenant which invites and commands a hum a n ordering of life. "Living by Torah is Israel's grateful response to the covenant of grace made with Israel at Sinai by its Redeemer and Creator. The covenant is of grace because it is a gift of God's free love and is accepted by Israel as such. Living by Torah is by no means the way into this covenant; it is r a t h e r Israel's response to the gift of covenant. It is how Israel lives because of its election, and t h a t election is God's free gift." Paul van Buren, A Christian Theology of the People of Israel, (New York: Seabury, 1983), p. 76. If Torah is the reality of God's grace, t h e n it must also be said t h a t God's mercy is the sign of God's Torah. God's mercy is the means by which the true Torah is distinguished from the false law. 16. T h a t we are unable to see this immediately is due to the modern dualisms, including the law-gospel dualism, which have become second nature to us. We have left the

Meeks: God and Land

Law behind us, first, because we have assumed t h a t it has been superceded by God's grace, and, secondly, because we t h o u g h t the modern I-Thou relationships were better able to depict the contractural, exchange relationships of the m a r k e t society. Both assumptions have been dreadfully harmful to the praxis of the Christian faith. The Torah assumes and includes God's grace. Furthermore, Israel's ancient conception of the Law offers a better framework for genuinely valuing the pluralism of our society t h a n do the depleted schemes of ego-alter which have debilitated our imagination. 17. Robert Gnuse, You Shall Not Steal: Community and Property in the Biblical Tradition (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985), p. 17. 18. See Walter E. Pilgrim, Good News to the Poor: Wealth and Poverty in Luke-Acts (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1981), pp. 20-24. 19. If slavery should become a reality among God's people, the assumptions of slavery among Israel's neighbors may not be followed. The slave is to be treated like a wageearning guest (Lev. 25:40) and is to be released after six years (Ex. 21; Deut. 15) or fifty years (Lev. 25). The life of a slave is set on a par with t h a t of a free Israelite (Ex. 21:20-21, 26-27). 20. Gleaning rights are not voluntary acts of charity of the rich toward the poor; gleaning rights are the poor's right to livelihood. Isaiah responds to Israel's refusal to recognize these rights in this way: "The Lord has t a k e n his place to contend, he stands to judge his people. The Lord enters into j u d g m e n t with the elders and princes of his

people: ~It is you who have devoured the vineyard, the spoil of the poor is on your houses. W h a t do you m e a n by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?' says the Lord God of hosts" (Isa. 3:13-15). From the Holiness Code comes Jesus' quotation: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" because of who God the Economist is (Lev. 19:18). 21. See especially Locke's fateful a r g u m e n t in Two Treatises of Civil Government (New York: Dutton, 1924 [1970]), pp. 129ff. 22. Charles Avila, Ownership: Early Christian Teaching (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983; Redmond Mullin, The Wealth of Christians (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984). 23. Chrysostom queries: "From whom did you receive [that large estate], and from whom [did he receive it] who t r a n s m i t t e d it to y o u ? . . . The root and origin of it must have been injustice. Why? Because God in the beginning did not make one m a n rich and another p o o r . . . . He left the e a r t h free to all alike. Why, then, if it is common, have you so m a n y acres of land, while your neighbor has not a portion of it . . . . Is this not a n evil, t h a t you alone should enjoy w h a t is common?" "Epistolam ad Timotheum," 12, 4, PG, 62:562-563. 24. This Roman concept of the absolute ownership of land was the basis on which the enormous Roman latifunda were established and thus the principal means by which the patrician class gained dominance over the plebian class.

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