“This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York island,
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.”
Singer / songwriter, Woody Guthrie

Among the Academy Award nominations this year for Best Feature Documentary is a film entitled, “No Other Land.” It tells the story, from the collaborative perspective of a Palestinian filmmaker and an Israeli journalist in the occupied West Bank, who chronicle Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes from 2018-2023; in order to make way for a live-fire Israeli military training ground. The film’s title is taken from a woman’s despondent cries, whose displaced family has nowhere else to go but the cave beneath their feet.

Towards the end of the film, the narrator summarizes what they have documented: “Every week, a new family must decide, endure or leave their land. If a family leaves, they lose their land. The hardest struggle is to stay on the land. Masafer Yetta (the name of the destroyed village) exists for one reason: People who hold onto life.”

It takes little discernment to recognize that “land grabbing” – and the subsequent resistance and conflict — is a perpetual, historical cycle to our human saga. In my youthful idealism many decades ago, I’d strum the guitar and boisterously sing Woody Guthrie’s 1940 tune, “This Land is your land, this land is my land.” The historical fact that my European ancestors had usurped the land beneath my feet from indigenous peoples who’d called it their homeland for centuries before me seemed of little consequence.

Nowadays, the most obvious current flashpoints are the Israeli/Palestinian and Russia/Ukrainian conflicts. Turf wars by either dreams of empire, or religiously inspired claims of a so-called “promised land,” are nothing new. Just peruse the history books or biblical scriptures. An example:

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ (Genesis 12:1-3)

When one turns to the teachings and life example of the Galilean peasant sage – from which the early pre-Christian movement derived – it’s helpful to remember that the historical Jesus was himself an itinerant with no other land to call home; except the one dominated by the dominant militarized Empire of his day that suppressed all armed resistance; along with a certain dominant faith tradition in the time and place in which he lived. Watching scenes from the recent film mentioned above, I could not help but envision the historical Jesus trudging those same dusty backroads as today’s displaced Palestinians.

Merci Beaucoup, or Merciless?

Land of mercy is more than an exclamatory remark of belief, or disbelief. The word mercy has many and various etymological roots; from “reward, or price paid” (Latin), to “thanks,” or even “pity” (Old French), to compassion (com-passion, shared empathy). Regardless of any of these variations, they might all be understood by not only what it might mean to be filled with much mercy; but more distinctly what it means to be merci-less. So, what does any of this have to do with the times and place we inhabit?

Our own daily news cycle has been consumed for a seemingly interminable time with what is called a crisis at “the border.” For those among us who would long to make America “great again,” the question might best be posed with regards to who among us – on the one hand — might be regarded as merciful. Or those among us who are little more than pitiful; and – like it or not — for whom we are reminded to nonetheless show mercy.

At the core of the wisdom tradition reflective of both the life example and teachings of the homeless Jesus were those expressions and vision of a homeland where no one would be excluded or cast out. *

jb

* I’ve written several recent commentaries about Jesus’ perceived naiveté; with a gospel message that’s just too idealistic or illusory for the “real” world. Or whether we can ever merci-fully find within our human community a homeland in which we may all dwell. See the Archives

© 2024 by John William Bennison, Rel.D. All rights reserved.
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To read more commentaries by John Bennison from the perspective of a Christian progressive go to the Archives