Theology Blog

Theological conversations are a gift from God…they are a way to form and live out true community and to dream, talk about and pray through the nature of God, humanity and the world really is a way we can live out the Kingdom dream that Jesus brought to the earth. One of those conversations that I have been having lately is about the land. It was one of those Holy Spirit moments. One week, I was in a class where someone was talking about the land. They stated that the land is the only innocent party in the scripture, yet the land takes the bulk of the abuse. Then in talking with my friend Tim, we had a conversation about call; and that perhaps call is not about the specific ministry, church or denomination, but about the land. Perhaps we are called to a particular location-a particular land. I think we both realized that we were on to something. We are a people of the land. The land provides everything that we need to physically survive. As we approach Ash Wednesday, I think of the words we use…from dust we came, and to dust we will return. We come from the land. We are the land. It has been months (the conversation started sometime in November) that this has been sitting in my heart and mind. Then I think about the song above and its lyrics:

Lord hear our cry,

Come heal our land

Breathe life into these dry and thirsty souls…

The language of the land is found throughout the scriptures, and the farming imagery that is used by Jesus is frequent and poignant. Did Jesus use these metaphors because of there worth and effectiveness? Did he use them to relate to the culture, or did Jesus use them because we are the land…that like the land we can become dry and thirsty, that like the land there are places of dessert and places of great growth?

Then in doing some reading for class, I came upon this quote:

“The act of creation is not so much what happened then as it is what happened here, it is the story of the formation of a specific land and a particular people.”   Weaver-I Hermeneutic to we Hermeneutic.

So the conversation continues…