“This Land was Made for You and Me.”

August 16, 2009
Tim Schmucker

Jeremiah 29: 1,4-7; Romans 8:18-25.

TUMC summer series “All God’s Creation”        

 

Please stand and join in the sermon introduction:

This land is your land, This land is my land,

From Bonavista, to Vancouver Island

From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lakes waters,

This land was made for you and me.

“This Land Is Your Land”, Woody Guthrie’s 1940 ode to the land we call home, is a timeless celebration of “creation” – our home. The second verse:

As I went walking that ribbon of highway

I saw above me that endless skyway

I saw below me that golden valley

This land was made for you and me.

Land. Soil. Home. For you and me. Creation. All God’s creation – our summer theme. Creation for all.

            The prophet Jeremiah would have approved. In fact he may have wanted to include a copy of Guthrie’s folk song in his letter to the exiles from Jerusalem now in Babylon around 600 BC., who were hearing from false prophets that they’d soon be heading home.  Jeremiah, chapter 29: 4Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, … Seek the peace of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its peace you will find your peace.”

            In short, Jeremiah’s word to those exiled was: settle in for the long haul, for this land is your land. Work for its peace, for in its peace, you’ll find yours. This Land is Your Land. However, Guthrie, in a much less familiar verse, expresses his reality that “this land” is more for some and less for others.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

A crucial question: Is this land made for all? Apparently not then, as many stood in line, hungry. Yet at least there was a relief office, a welfare office, to stand in line for. … Ahem, “welfare”. I confess that the word welfare has some less than positive connotations; I learned growing up that it was for others, not us. “Social assistance” – now that’s a more neutral term. Right? Ummm…

Let’s look again at Jeremiah’s letter to the Israelites in Babylonian exile. His charge to them is that they work for the peace of land that is now their home. Seek its peace. The Hebrew word used here is “shalom,” a Hebrew word many of us know. Seek the shalom of your new land, for in the shalom of your conquerors, you will find your shalom. Most Bibles translate shalom as “peace”. But the NRSV, which we usually use here at TUMC, translates “shalom” as “welfare”. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  Then perhaps we ought to call our welfare offices, our social assistance offices “shalom offices.” But I digress.

So in Woody Guthrie’s land, there was a relief office, a shalom office. Well, that’s a start. And perhaps it’s even more that a start; it’s an indication of the groaning of creation Paul talks about in Romans 8 and that Jodie and Doug so poetically expounded upon last Sunday:

The Apostle Paul says that all creation waits with eager longing. The whole creation has been groaning in labour pains, ourselves included. Why? Because creation isn’t finished. It’s still filled with imperfections, those “dapple things” Jodie and Doug said. Calling them dappled “imperfections” is of course kind; we could also say that creation is still filled with pain, with destruction, with injustice, that it’s far from finished. Our role in creation then, as co-creators with God in the crafting and ordering of the world, is far from completed. All creation is groaning, Paul says, sometimes as with birthing in our struggles toward wholeness; other times with the pain of destruction and oppression.  For example:

            For the last five years, 8-14 Ontario Mennonite high school students have spent their summers with MCC in Guatemala, in our ENLACE program. One of their most incredible and troublesome experiences has been visiting the massive garbage dump just outside Guatemala City, and talking with those who live and scrounge there. Just
two weeks ago, one youth there this summer wrote tersely: “look at garbage. take pictures of garbage. feel bad for people working in garbage. be frightened by hundreds of massive human eating vultures that live in garbage. say goodbye to Eddie as vulture carries him off into the sunset…. Joke. Have to process this garbage later. Too much garbage now.”

Neither the apostle Paul nor Woody Guthrie would find a welfare office in Guatemala.

Creation groaning. So far from wholeness. Whose land? Made for whom?

            Maria, her husband Cesar, and their three small children live in Colombia’s north, in a province called “Sucre”. Cesar is an unskilled construction labourer, Maria makes empanadas to sell on downtown streets. When Cesar has a full week of work, and Maria’s sales are good, they have just enough to get by. However, work and empanada sales are often not enough. So, an important part of their family’s survival are the political elections that seem to happen yearly. Municipal, provincial, national. You see, in this region of Colombia, where feudalism is alive and well, the candidate who offers people the most pesos for their vote, receives Maria and Cesar’s. Vote buying is widely practiced and known. The candidate with the deepest pockets wins the election, and becomes part of the oligarchy’s running of the province as their personal fiefdom. Maria and Cesar don’t complain, of course. At least it provides them with extra money to ward off hunger.

And they call it democracy. And they call it democracy.

            There’s a larger system at play here: global finance and economics. Bruce Cockburn, Ontario’s own poet, singer-songwriter scathingly exposed the International Monetary Fund and World Bank twenty years ago for their policies that caused tremendous suffering in Global South to the benefit of the rich oligarchy there and here in the north.  [CD song intro – to .30]

Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

And Cockburn summarises: [2.07-2.17] And they call it democracy / And they call it democracy / And they call it democracy

Unfortunately, the farce of democracy doesn’t exist only in Colombia, in the “third world”.  Just ask young black adults in inner city USA whether they’ve felt they could make their voice heard at the level of policy makers. Hopefully, Obama is changing that deep sense of disenfranchisement. Or closer to home, let’s ask aboriginal people in Ontario’s north, perhaps those of Kashechewan First Nation on James Bay, 400 kms north of Timmins, where much of the community was evacuated just a few years ago due to extremely high E. coli levels in their drinking water, where teen suicide is a regular occurance – 21 in one month two years ago. Do they have a political voice? Do policy makers in Ottawa make their plight a priority? No doubt these all ask with Guthrie: “Is this land made for you and me? “

            Creation is groaning, crying out. This land surely isn’t made for me.

            More personally, and on a judicial level, my sister-in-law, Marta Barreto, has been the victim of extortion in Bogotá. After suffering years of abuse and unfaithfulness, Marta recently took steps to end her marriage. Her husband, a well-to-do businessman and landowner, began to hide his assets. So immediately, Marta’s lawyer had a judge freeze all asset transactions until the divorce proceedings took their course. Yet a month later, Marta’s lawyer discovered that the estranged husband was legally penniless; he had bribed a superior judge and was able to transfer all assets out of his name. Marta and her two teenaged daughters (Derek and Christopher’s cousins) were forced out on the street and are now living with my mother-in-law.

Creation is suffering. Is it just futililty, using Paul’s words? When will it be free of its bondage to the decay that causes pain and injustice? Will the eager longing for redemption soon become cynical despair?

            It was exactly ten years ago tomorrow that a massive earthquake hit Turkey. The disaster left over 17,000 people dead –that’s the official number; many sources say over 40,000 died!! With tens of thousands injured. Tens of thousands of buildings, both houses and businesses, collapsed or were badly damaged. Thousands of low rise apartment buildings collapsed like pancakes, killing thousands while they slept. 600,000 were left homeless. Yet, many buildings (civil and religious) were not damaged. Blame for the high human cost very quickly fingered 1) unscrupulous building contractors who blatantly ignored Turkey’s modern building code, and 2) building inspectors and government authorities who received bribes and turned a blind eye to builders using more sand than cement, and more rebates than rebar…

  • Living in and off a garbage dump.
  • Disregarded by policy makers.
  • Unable to rely on the courts for fairness.
  • Suffering and death from building construction that puts profit before safety.

Creation is groaning, moaning, crying out for wholeness. Just who was this land made for anyway? We’re not dealing with simple dappled things here, slight imperfections. This isn’t about creation’s warts and thorns that have inherent beauty in their dappleness, but rather her wounds and scars that cause much suffering and pain, and result in despair and futility.

  • For those eking out an existence in Guatemala’s garbage dumps, this land wasn’t made for them.
  • For Maria and Cesar in the Colombian province of Sucre, creation is groaning in pain. No birth on the horizon.
  • For Kashechewan First Nation in northern Ontario, they wait in eager longing for the liberation of creation.
  • Paul says that creation is groaning as she waits her redemption, waiting for us to participate in God’s re-creation and ongoing crafting and ordering of creation. Those who suffer creation’s brokenness are waiting, groaning under the weight of her wounds.

And it is here that we better understand Jeremiah’s charge to the exiles “to seek the shalom of the land where I have sent you, for in her shalom you will find your shalom”. As we work toward the shalom, the welfare, of the land we are in, we not only find our own shalom, but are creating it. This builds and increases the shalom of all – this is the anticipated birth that creation is groaning for, the re-creation., the redemption of creation. So creation is also our life together and how we structure it. We are co-creating, groaning, birthing a more complete creation, moving creation toward her fullness, participating in her ongoing birthing.  Our public institutions and structures are part of creation, and we have a fundamental role in strengthening them as part of God’s ongoing shaping and re-creating. We are co-creators with God.

            Some of you will remember my dear Colombian friend Ricardo Esquivia. He gave a kingdom report here at TUMC about two years ago when he was in Toronto addressing the Christian Peacemaker Teams Congress.  Ricardo is a leader in the Colombian Mennonite Church and the founder of Justapaz, a Colombian Mennonite organization that works for peace and justice. He is also a member of Mennonite World Conference’s Global Anabaptist Peace and Justice Network. A human rights lawyer, Ricardo has been a fearless and tireless peacemaker in Colombia for decades. He’s had to flee for his life numerous times. In  2005, he received the “Peacemakers in Action Award” by the international Tannenbaum Center. While this award doesn’t have the stature of the Nobel Peace Prize, it’s just as important!

            Ricardo has used a pitcher of water to illustrate the need for social structures and order as a foundation for peace and security, for shalom and well-being. “The water in this pitcher represents peace”, he says. “But it needs some kind of structure to hold it.” That structure, Ricardo calls, “institucionalidad.” Institutionality refers to the structures that a society puts in place so that everyone is given the opportunity to flourish and live lives of dignity, of shalom. It represents the ordering of creation without which peace and security – shalom – cannot thrive. Strengthening, growing, establishing, ordering those structures is creation work.

  • It’s a welfare system or shalom system that provides a dignified life to those who find themselves without the means to eat healthily and pay the rent.
  • It’s a political system that is of all people and for all people.
  • It’s a judicial system that judges fairly regardless of the depth or shallowness of your pocket.
  • It’s a civil system that ensures compliance to codes designed to protect us when we’re on the 5th or 25th floor of a building, when we drive over a bridge, when we drink tap water.
  • It’s a health system that is based on need rather than profit.
  • It’s a policing system that is moving, albeit so slowly, toward protecting all members of society from harm, and with little or no lethal force.
  • It’s an economic system, both national and global, that balances rewarding initiative on the one hand with “to each according to her or his need” on the other. Both in the context of fair trade and a level playing field.

And so, if sermons have punch lines, this is it: when we — as individuals and as church — work at building and strengthening the civil, political, judicial, social, and educational institutions and structures of our land and our world, we are participating in the ongoing birthing of God’s creation; our labours are as those of a woman in labour – much groaning, sweating and swearing, oh but what a glorious result! We are ensuring that all can sing “this land is your land, this land is my land.” Through having sought shalom for all, we will have found our own shalom. When we work for the common good through strengthening our public systems and institutions, along with civil society that engages it, we also benefit from a stronger and more just social fabric of our land. And we find peace in a land that is mine and yours. In Jeremiah’s words, we must seek the shalom of our land. In Paul’s prose, we groan in the ongoing birthing of creation. And in Woody Guthrie’s verse, we make sure this land is made for you and me and everyone.

Making this land for all. Seeking the shalom of our land, our world. Groaning in co-creation with God. We do this individually as we work in health, education, engineering, law, social services, construction, and even garbage collection. (Anybody got a good solution for the infestation of fruit flies in our kitchens?) On a larger scale: three examples:

First, after the earthquake in Turkey, the International Centre for Sustainable Cities, a Canadian partnership between government, the private sector and civil society organizations, participated in a project there to improve the capacity of architects, engineers and public officials to design and enforce building codes and standards of practice. The project involved a multi-stakeholder delegation from Turkey visiting Toronto and Vancouver to meet and learn from their counterparts. A second phase involved training workshops in Turkey with the key government officials, academics, architects, engineers and construction professionals. Dr. John D. Wiebe of Winnipeg is on the Board of Directors.

Secondly, when Ricardo Esquivia was here two years ago, he shared how the Mennonite church in Colombia participated in the legal and judicial framing of the process of paramilitary demobilization. The laws and enforcement mechanisms would have been much weaker and much less effective without the involvement of our sister churches there. Not that the result was flawless; he still had serious concerns. Yet, the National Commission of Reparation and Reconciliation was formed and began its work. Special prosecutors were also created to oversee this process, and tribunals have begun, and the paramilitary commanders have started to tell part of the truth. Plus there’s a focus on education and training with political and judicial tools for the work of reconciliation. Ricardo himself has been quite inv
olved in the strengthening the National Peace Council which forms spaces or bridges of encounter between the State and civil society. This is participating in the ongoing birthing of creation, a small piece of shalom work that nudges Colombia toward being a land made also for Maria, Cesar, and my sister-in-law Marta.

And we do this close to home also. For the past two years, Mennonite Central Committee Ontario has been advocating tirelessly at Queen’s Park for fairer social policies for the marginalized people we walk with; we advocate for a poverty-free Ontario. We’ve given significant leadership in several coalitions in pressing the Ontario government to hold fast to its commitment to a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy. Such was our expertise that Hon. Deb Matthews, Chair of McGuinty’s Cabinet Committee on Poverty Reduction, was in direct contact with us during the process of crafting the legislation. Our concerted advocacy and high level collaboration with government resulted in a much improved legislation and subsequent all-party support. A small yet significant shalom step toward First Nations people and other marginalised folk being able to sing “this land was made for you and me.”

Lastly, back to Latin America, this time Paraguay. An appropriate place to end this sermon, given our Mennonite World Conference there last month. Like the Israelite exiles in Babylon, Mennonites did not arrive in Paraguay planning to seek shalom for the whole country. Indeed, the first decades were spent in isolation and poverty. They quickly discovered the Chaco was called “the green hell” for good reason: the land was flat and dry, the wells – no matter how deep – only yielded salty water, the grass was too bitter for livestock, there was no stone for building and the scalding sand lashed everything in its way.

Several initiatives resulted in economic development that has benefited the whole country. First, MCC in collaboration with the US government, helped build a 480 kilometre road connecting the Chaco to Asunción, reducing isolation and the cost of transport. This made possible the tremendous growth of the colonies’ dairy industry. Twice Paraguayan Mennonite leaders came north to get loans from brothers and sisters in Canada and the US. Then came a $1 million development loan from the US government, followed by substantial loans from Germany. With these funds, Mennonites bought equipment to process raw milk into cheese and later yogurt and ice cream, logs into lumber, and peanuts into cooking oil. Today the colonies produce about 80% of the country’s dairy products. Also early on, Robert Unruh, an MCC agronomist in Paraguay, experimented with African buffelgrass. The grass worked like magic, fattening cattle quickly which resulted in the growth of ranching on desert land.

And economic development was just the start. Two Sundays ago, we heard from the TUMCites who went to Mennonite World Conference about how Paraguayan Mennos have given back to their adopted country. Over 50 years ago, they opened “Kilometre 81”, the leprosy hospital where they treat and rehabilitate people with this debilitating disease. Over 6000 Paraguayans have been patients there. I must add that Kilometre 81 has a special place in our family’s heart as that’s where daughter-in-law Damaris was born and spent the first 8 years of her life.

Even with Km 81, Paraguayan Mennonites couldn’t have envisioned the extent to which they’d one day be asked to give to their land. Their seeking shalom for all was just beginning. In 2003, an adherent of a Spanish-speaking Mennonite church in Asunción was elected the country’s President. His wife was a member and lay leader of their congregations. Upon election, President Duarte immediately appealed to Chaco colony Mennonites for high-level assistance and expertise. And they were prepared to respond. You see, for the previous 20 years, the Chaco province had a Mennonite governor. That growing political involvement led Paraguayan Mennonites to think more seriously about how they as believers might participate in government. After working at it for nearly a decade, they arrived at a position paper in February 2003 that defined politics as “service of the well-being of all” while calling for radical faithfulness to Jesus Christ. It also encourages service that will improve education, health and economic well-being, and efforts aimed at justice and against abuse of authority and corruption. Then three months later, Duarte was elected Paraguay’s president. When he formed his government, he invited four Mennonite leaders to assume senior roles within the national government, two to ministerial positions.

So Ernst Bergen became minister of industry and commerce. He agreed to serve reluctantly. When President Duarte approached him, Bergen went to his church, asking “How will I sin more, by saying yes to serving in government or by saying no?” He is now credited with successfully fighting corruption and turning around the Paraguayan economy. And Andreas Neufeld was named deputy minister responsible for revenue collection and taxation. His role was to help create a basic and corruption-free system of taxation, something that has eluded Paraguay until recently. Bergen and Neufeld didn’t have political ambitions. Neufeld recently said: “I pray that at the end of it all, it can be said that I’ve been a faithful follower of Jesus.”

building and strengthening our world’s institutions and structures

groaning in the ongoing birthing of God’s creation

“this land is your land, this land is my land”

Seeking the shalom of the city

Redemption

New creation

Amen.