The Earth is the Lord’s: Nothing is Secular

THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S

Nothing Is Secular

Win Mott

The Earth is the Lord’s

Nothing Is Secular

Copyright © 2018 Win Mott. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

The subheadings The Earth Is the Lord’s and Messy Christmas appeared previously, in a somewhat different version, in FC:Forward in Christ magazine.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Chapter 1: Owning the Earth

Chapter 2: Restoring Stewardship

Chapter 3: The Lord’s Measured Pace

Chapter 4: The Body of Christ

Chapter 5: Build Bridges, Not Walls

Chapter 6: Ethics of the Eucharistic Life

Chapter 7: Gloryland

Chapter 8: Conclusion

Bibliography

Preface

From philosophers of old to modern politicians and the populace in general, the world has been divided into categories of sacred and secular. In this view, God and church are in charge of the former, and the latter is the realm of finance, government, public schools and everyday life. But the Bible asserts a different view, best summarized in the words of Psalm 24: The earth is the Lord’s. This means God owns everything. There is therefore no secular realm. It is an illusion. Scripture corroborates this in sundry places, especially if ownership can be achieved by creating something.

In many quarters, it has been assumed that the earth has no prior owner. With this view, its various parts can therefore be claimed by whoever first appears to stake the claim. In practice, of course, territory can be, and often has been, claimed simply by the exercise of superior force. Nevertheless, most human legal systems recognize legitimate rights of ownership which, at least in theory, supersede the concept of might makes right.

For Christians and many others, it is seen as a false assumption that the earth has no prior ownership, as noted above. If the Lord owns the earth by virtue of having created it, the whole presumption of modern society of a secular existence apart from God is incorrect at its most basic level. Christians would further note that the claim is made stronger by the Lord’s continuing exercise of ownership through maintaining a presence among us, as well as the entire course of salvation history which is the process of restoring the earth, mankind included, to the paradise it was previously intended to be.

The modern possibilities of nuclear annihilation and ecological catastrophe focus our attention on the question. If the human species is the lord of the earth, unchecked, the outcome appears to be dubious. Christians are called to a prophetic role in the present day, to promote a reorientation, a rediscovery that the planet is owned by the Lord. It can survive, and we can survive, only by conforming our worldview to understand the divine ownership and its meaning for our care of the earth.

This small work explores the consequences of doing that and altering our worldview accordingly. The impact is significant and widespread. If there is no secular, but only the Lord’s sacred creation, our role as the stewards of the earth on behalf of the Lord expands exponentially. It includes how we view the environment, politics, our employment and enterprises, vocation, families and marriage, church practice and structure, animals, our fellow humans, the meaning of our present life and our eternal future, the whole of our existence as individuals and as community. The prophetic voice of the Christian community, the body of Christ, is badly needed right now. Some have already spoken with clarity. Our united witness is important.

Unless you have a better idea for the future of the earth, I would urge you to join in.

Acknowledgment is due to Fathers Jonah Kelman and Michael Jarrett for their significant help in putting this book together. Nevertheless, the mistakes and shortcomings herein are entirely mine, and not their fault.

Chapter 1

Owning the Earth

THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S

The psalmist in Psalm 24 begins with a simple, clear and comprehensive statement: The earth is the Lord’s. But in case there is any doubt, he adds, and everything in it (or in the more poetic translation, and the fullness thereof). Just to make sure you don’t misread an exemption for yourself, as a creature and not a thing, he further clarifies, The world and all who live in it.

There are many difficult, complex statements in the Bible. This is not one of them. In real estate terms, it is a clear title; the earth is the Lord’s. I can’t imagine how anyone could think the psalmist himself meant anything other than that the earth belongs to the Lord, the whole enchilada of it. It is a remarkable statement in an era when the other nations all had national and tribal gods. Most would not have thought it necessary or possible for their gods to own the whole earth. There was a fair amount of our gods can beat up your gods. But few thought of divinity as monotheistic, comprehensive, and universal. Israel’s theologians mostly arrived at a different idea. One can already see the path into the future leading to the God of Israel being the God of all the Gentiles as well.

Thus, if you accept that this Scripture is not a lie, it means the earth was, still is and ever shall be, the Lord’s. The context of Psalm 24 is as an entrance processional into the temple. Many religions see their temples as a micro model of the world. Israel is no exception. In Christianity also, the church building is often called a temple, and represents itself as a micro world. Especially in the East, it is populated with the saints of history and often other people and creatures as well, including a ceiling painted as the sky with the stars, and the Pantocrator, the Creator of all, presiding from above.

It would appear most people see a church as a sacred space and can say therefore, The church is the Lord’s. Even our not very pious governments refrain from taxing it, based on a remembered ancient thought that it is the Lord’s, so they should keep their hands off. Those who serve in its precincts are also given a sacred status. They are set apart with a special call, expected to live more sacred lives, and, when there was a US military draft, were exempt from it. A percentage of income, a tithe, is solicited from others to support these sacred spaces and people. Church day, Sunday, was also set apart, when the ordinary routines of life were to be suspended and ordinary people were scrubbed, dressed up and made to behave. For example, to this day, by law in New Mexico, the liquor section of the supermarket must be roped off on Sunday mornings, to prevent the populace from profaning the Sabbath, at least until church services have all been concluded.

Do you see what is wrong with this picture, beyond just the simple hypocrisy of it? If the temple is a micro model of the earth, it is different only in scale. The temple is the Lord’s precisely because the earth is the Lord’s and his temple. The fullness thereof is all sacred space and all who dwell therein are sacred creatures, humans included. Our culture divides the world into categories of sacred and secular, but the psalmist does not. All creation is God’s, created and owned by him, with clear title. Secular is an illusion of mankind, a squatting on property one does not own.

The division into sacred and secular goes back many centuries, with roots in pre-Christian pagan thought. It is accepted as a basic assumption, not simply by secularists, but by a large number of Christians as well. It is built solidly into the structures of thought, law, culture, politics, and indeed churchmanship that we live by. And it is virulent heresy.

We must radically challenge this heresy, radical in the etymological sense of the word, to trace it to its roots and then yank it out. Nothing will be significantly better, and much may well be worse, unless and until we, especially we Christians who are supposed to know what God wants for us, can transform our worldview back to the biblical understanding of whose property the earth is, including us who dwell therein.

The concept is so simple; the earth is the Lord’s. But the implications appear not to be very self-evident, given society’s assumptions. Just a handful of these, in no particular order, are the care of the environment, the ideologies and practice of the economy, Christian vocation, being spiritual but not religious, the Christian role in politics, the concept of stewardship, the meaning of church, immigration policy, treatment of animals, exploitation of resources, the theology of sacrament and offering and much else. A mental exercise program is needed to tear down this worldview and rebuild it based on the Lord’s claim to the property.

As one example, there are those who run with this in the wrong direction. It is all sacred, so let us go out to the woods to worship and meet God, not to some stuffy church. And indeed, if you find yourself in the woods, you can and should worship, in all the ways it can be offered. And stuffy churches ought to be abolished and replaced with unstuffy ones. The problem is, of course, the lack of understanding of what church consists of, and getting over the thought, often promoted by those seeing themselves as Christian advocates, that church means a set apart sacred space, somehow different from secular space. The church is the body of Christ, not a building. It is the community of the faithful. You are not likely to find many of them in the woods. You shall surely find them gathered at the Table on Sunday, the family dinner of God’s children. If you indeed find God in the woods, he will be happy to encounter you. He will say, This is my earth, enjoy and care for it. Welcome also to my family. You are invited to dinner with them this Sunday. I will be there for a festival of my love. Because you can meet God in the woods, but he doesn’t leave you there alone.

As we rebuild the world according to the psalmist’s worldview, please come along and join in. It could even be fun. Unlike worship in the woods, you won’t have to worry about ticks and mosquitoes, and the joy of seeing the world fall into place along with the meaning of your life might be worth the ride.

STEWARDSHIP SUNDAY ON THE REZ

Father Rice was an Ojibway priest on the reservation in northern Minnesota where I have some ties. In the 1960s, he was in his eighties but still presided frequently at the little church in Onigum. Like most reservations, especially before the new buffalo (the arrival of the casinos), people lived in serious poverty. Every summer, though, many tourists came up from the Twin Cities to vacation and fish and a percentage found their way to church. I remember Father Rice commenting on their success in life. They owned good houses, new cars, big boats, all the good stuff. But he would point out to them that in fact, they owned none of that. They were permitted to use those material things for a time, but God owned it, since God owns everything in creation. The only thing, he said, that is yours and not God’s is your sin. Everything else is loaned for a time. The important point is not what you own, which is nothing except sin, but rather how well you care for what God owns.

In the fall, comfortably back in their urban and suburban parishes, they encountered Stewardship Sunday. The sermon would tell them to be generous givers to the church and remind them of the Old Testament concept of the tithe. Your material obligations to God can be fulfilled by forking over this amount to the church. The rest is yours to keep.

The two concepts are opposite. According to Father Rice’s view, God has no interest in getting a 10 percent cut of your worth, and then having to say thank you for it. I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains and the insects of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all that is in it (Ps 50:9–12). This is God’s comment on the question.

The word stewardship has become archaic in English in terms of its original meaning. The steward was an official of an estate who oversaw its operation on behalf of the owner. According to Webster, it comes from a Saxon combination meaning the warden of the house, or hall. This is a translation close to the Greek word for steward, economos, still used in the Eastern Church to describe an administrator, from oikos, house, and nomos, rule, so the ruler of the house. In Spanish, the term is mayordomo, literally the head of the house. Thus, the steward is a manager.

In the rural West, I have used the analogy of the ranch foreman, who runs the ranch on behalf of the owner. An urban analogy would be that of a branch manager, who runs a factory, office or bank branch on behalf of the corporation which owns it. Stewardship is the job description. To steward something means to operate it judiciously and well on behalf of its owner.

We are certainly expected to steward the church accordingly. But when did the church decide that we are not responsible for stewarding the rest of our life? To return to God only 10 percent of what he has given us seems an extremely poor investment outcome. In Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matt 25:14–30), stewardship means taking what we have been given and increasing its worth, not greatly diminishing it.

God has appointed humans to be stewards of the earth, the whole earth (see Gen 1:26–28). We are to manage this branch of God’s universe, on his behalf, giving an accounting to him of our stewardship. You may question God’s wisdom in entrusting such a precious thing to our greedy and unreliable species. Nevertheless, he has. And the dominion he has given, as recorded by Genesis, is not a license to exploit, exhaust and slaughter. It is rather to be careful branch managers who administer in harmony with both the Creator and the creation. St. Peter expresses it that we are to be kings and priests, which is to say that we are to rule the earth while simultaneously offering it to God (1 Pet 2:9).

The perversion of the term stewardship from its biblical meaning into a fundraising scheme of the clergy and vestry is a hijacking of the very purpose for which we are created and an abdication of our sacred obligation to carry out God’s wishes for the planet, along with its creatures, resources and our own species.

It is no doubt a relief to the current rulers of the earth that Christians have left the