"For the land is mine" says the Lord
Leviticus 25:1-4, 18-24 An Environment Text
25 The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: 2 Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a sabbath for the Lord. 3 Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard….
18 You shall observe my statutes and faithfully keep my ordinances, so that you may live on the land securely. 19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live on it securely. 20 Should you ask, “What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?” 21 I will order my blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will yield a crop for three years. 22 When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating from the old crop; until the ninth year, when its produce comes in, you shall eat the old. 23 The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. 24 Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.
In verse 18 God says – “If you live by my instructions, you will be able to live securely in the land.” And we are ready for instructions about not murdering, not stealing, and so on – but instead the instructions are about fallowing the land every 7th year. Every 7th year all farming, all harvesting, all mining, all extraction from the land was to stop. A year of complete rest for the land.
God understood just how ridiculous these instructions would have seemed. How would the people eat? Where would they get what they needed to survive a year without planting or harvesting – to survive a year of all production involving the land stopping? It was an incredible demand on God’s part. The people needed to trust that God would provide the abundant harvest in year 6 to get them through until the harvest of year 8 came in.
Why give the land a year of rest – because as God says (vs 23) – “the land is mine.” If the land belongs to God, then human beings are but tenants. The land is God’s, we are simply those who have the land on loan. And as anyone who has rented a place knows, the land owner has expectations about the way the property is to be treated. Tenants know they will be held accountable for how they live on the property.
We are invited to be people who understand that the land is not ours – it is God’s. We are accountable to God for the way we live on the land how we treat it. Abusing the land will put our risk our chances of living securely on the land.
PRAYER:
We confess, O Lord, that we have mistreated the land, as in our pride we thought it belonged to us. In our arrogance we forgot that we are accountable to you for how we live on the land. Teach us how to live the land a rest, that we might live securely on the land. In Jesus’ name. Amen.