PROMISED LAND ?

                                                  Rev. Curt Johson

                                                     June 14, 2009

To build a little nest somewhere out in the west and let the rest of the world go by

The reason the song was popular was because it expresses a universal desire.

Everyone wants a home Everyone needs a home.

It is not, how ever, that simple. in fact the sentiment behind that song is the same sentiment

that produced and perpetuates the greatest of Bible myths.

The sentiment behind the promised land. Everybody needs a home every body wants a home.

A snug little place that protects us from the tribulations of this world

A place where we will not feel alone. Where we will be surrounded by the familiar Where moth does not corrupt and rust does not corrode. surrounded by the familiar Where moth does not corrupt and rust does not corrode. But rust does corrode and moth does corrupt.

That sentiment was reasserted in the United States treatment of native Americans in the 1800s.

The battle of the Little Bighorn was for years called the massacre of the Little Bighorn.

It was said that Custer and his army were massacred by savage indian bands led by their generals

Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse Turns out, however, that it was a battle ,the last battle in a long and protracted war.

Now the beginnings of that war go back long before there were cowboys and indians. The reason it was called a massacre was because embedded in the minds of white settlers,

White miners, the white adventurers was the idea of the savage red man out to get the innocent white traveler, settler, farmer cattleman.

They were afraid that the next massacre would be them. The next scalp would be theirs. It never dawned on most of them that maybe they were the savage beasts . and that they were the intruders and that the red man was merely doing what they would do if their homes were threatened and their families and their way of life.

Now what happened was a perfectly human thing. It wasn’t right but it was human It has been happening since there were humans on the earth. There is this conception held by most peoples of the earth that we own the earth. or at least a part of it.

It is our heritage to own it. It has, somehow, been given to us. at least a little piece of it.

A sweet little nest somewhere out in the west and let the rest of the world go by. A snug little place that protects us from the tribulations of this world A place where we will not feel alone Where we will be surrounded by the familiar. Where moth does not corrupt and rust does not corrode.

Our own scriptures and the scriptures of others as well develop and perpetuate the mistaken concept. that some how at least parts of the earth are ours. given to us by a god-our manifest destiny,

Now having said this you can not put the blame on people for wanting to escape subjection, for wanting to leave slavery, for wanting to be freed from oppression.

That after all is the story of the Hebrew people in Egypt. It is what is behind the old spiritual

Let my people go. The bible story however, is very clear it says that this is not such a simple accomplishment,

In moving from slavery to freedom the Hebrews followed that same ancient pattern of civilization  In order to make a new home they destroy the home of the people already there.

They come to the conclusion that there must be a place for them in this world. Not a wrong conclusion. everyone wants a place in this world

Everyone wants a home. They came to their new home their promised land but the trouble was someone else was already living there. So they did what such settlers always do, they killed the people whose home they were occupying. and that trouble has been with them and us ever since. The Balfour declaration written in 1918 declared that a home land should be secured for the Jewish people It suggested Palestine

In 1948 The United Nations, appalled by the holocaust and the genocide perpetuated against the Jews, reaffirmed that declaration and partitioned Palestine thus creating the modern state of Israel.

I remember when it was done. I actually heard the declaration live on the radio. and I along with most everyone else I knew, was thrilled that finally something was done. The problem that was never addressed in this glorious declaration was that some one else was already living there. and no one considered that. and so the homeless created homelessness. The rejected became the rejectors.

That was exactly what was behind the battle of the little big horn. Gold discovered in the Black hills was the tinder point But the Oregon trail was the cause of the ethical problem that plagued America.

There were far more settlers who rode the Oregon trail and the

Bozeman trail than their were miners in the black hills. Each of them searching out their sweet little nest somewhere out in the west to let the rest of the world go by.

The problem was and is that the rest of the world does not go by. You see behind all of the policies was the idea if you could get rid of the Indians the problem would vanish. If you could protect if you could fortify If you could save you own home everything would be all right. It never worked then, It never worked for Hitler. and it won’t work now. Because everybody needs a home and everybody wants a home. and a home is not tent in a refugee camp crowded with the displaced.

The concept of a promised land is a great concept. It started out peacefully with Abraham under the oaks of mamre. It grew to epic and disastrous proportions after the exodus When the hebrew people attempted to secure  their home by massacring the others  who were already living there.

They never succeeded. their short history in palestine was one of murder, slaughter, warfare, conquest, imprisonment, and exile. Let me suggest to you

that there is no promised land no piece of real estate to call our own No snug little nest somewhere out in the west or the east or the north or the south and the promised land is not a place at all.

The promised land is found instead in the statement made to Abraham And repeated throughout the generations to various peoples to all peoples of the earth And the statement is this and I shall be your God and you shall be my people and I will not leave you nor forsake you, for I am with you forever.

The promised land is, as are most biblical statements, a metaphor for the presence of God. If the promised land is a place a piece of property a group of friends It does not exist. It vanishes.

Oh the promised land exists but it is not a place. It exists within each of us. It exists as a sense of there being something greater. It exists as a sense of being a part of. it exists as a sense of being at one with the mountains and of being loved and cared for no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the locations in which I find myself.

Some people call that a sense of the presence of God. Some people call that the sense of the presence of Allah. Some people don’t call it anything but still experience it. and some people like me call it a sense of being in the presence of Christ.

But no matter what you call it. That is the only promised land that exits That is the only promised land the lasts  That is the only promised land that will be with me

when the house is gone and everything in the world changes.

That is the promised land. That is still with me when I leave the rest behind. And I rest finally in the arms of whatever is eternal and whatever is the good.

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