A Place on Earth (Sermon - Preached at St. Margaret's, July 8, 2018)

Intro – A Loss of a Sense of Place

Starting in the late 60s, as the collapse of colonial powers was felt around the world, theologians began to pay renewed attention to the role of land and place in theological reflection. As the particularist identities of indigenous peoples reasserted themselves against the universalist epistemologies of the old-world empires, Christians became acutely aware of the role certain tendencies in their theology had played in supporting the hegemonies that were now being dismantled. Beginning in the late 60’s, therefore, there began to be a renewed interest in issues of land and place in the Christian academy, particularly in Australia and North America. It is into this context of scholarship and global politics that English theologian, Oliver O’Donovan wrote an article “The Loss of a Sense of Place,” in 1989. What’s interesting about O’Donovan’s article is how clearly it identifies the sense that Western society had lost any notion of placed particularity and had been captured by a malaise of homogeneity that continues to characterize our society even now. The exact causes of our modern sense of placelessness have been the subject of much debate, but what I want to draw your attention to is the central observation of O’Donovan’s paper – that we have indeed lost a sense of place.

To admit a loss of a sense of place in Western society helps us understand why it continues to be so difficult for indigenous epistemologies to find legitimacy in official discourses. As our local MP, Robert Falcon Oullette argues in his phd dissertation for Laval University, one of the core identifying characteristics of indigenous knowledge and knowledge creation is its place-bound nature.

To admit a loss of a sense of place presumably means that we must acknowledge that, even in the West, there once existed a sense of place if we are truly to mourn its passing. But while it is tempting to suggest that “place” is a straightforward idea that operated in the pre-modern West and throughout Christendom, our text today should give us pause. That is because there are deep ambiguities in the Christian account of “place” that both contribute to our current crisis of placelessness and may provide resources for moving forward to provide a Christian sense of place.

Christendom inspired two divergent geographies. First, Christendom established a new sacred geography that allowed people all over the Christian world to gather at shrines and churches. The gatherings that constituted this sacred geography gave voice to the reality that God meets us in our creaturely and bodily existence. It is through the creatures of place and sacrament that we encounter the living God. The Christian claim that Jesus Christ is sovereign Lord of the whole earth provided the intellectual resources for Christians to live as Christians anywhere they might find themselves, but also gave those Christians the ability to name those “anywheres” as particular somewheres. Thus the church spread as both a catholic and local phenomenon, laying claim to the whole earth in the sovereign name of Jesus.

This first geography also gave rise to a second, more nefarious colonial geography. As this geography was established, especially outside of traditionally Christian lands, insufficient care was taken to determine the particularities of the new geography Christian explorers and missionaries found themselves inhabiting. Doctrines such as terra nullius exacerbated this problem and in the establishment of Christian geographies around the world, established indigenous ones were often violently suppressed or erased.

The twentieth century has demonstrated that this second colonial geography failed. Indigenous peoples around the world are standing up and reminding the world that they are not conquered, they are not erased, they are real nations, with real histories and real geographies. As the popular band, “A Tribe Called Red” reminds us, indigenous peoples are not the “Halluci – Nation” of their colonial oppressors.

While the modern establishment of a Christian geography has failed, resulting in a mass loss of a sense of place, there remains a need to give a Christian articulation of place. Christianity is not an idea that happens in an abstract anywhere; it is a concrete meeting with a God who insists on mediating grace to us by way of the creatures of sacrament in specific places. So today I want to draw our attention to our Old Testament reading to begin our thinking on what a Christian sense of place might look like moving forward.

Eden – A Place Lost

The very first place was a garden, in the east, called Eden. In this garden God put all manner of wonderful growing things. Into this garden God placed Adam – the first man. But something was still missing, so in a gracious new act of creation, God made Eve from the flesh of Adam. When Adam laid eyes on her he uttered his first words, exclaiming, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” Now creation was complete. Humanity had come into its proper place in the created order, and that place was called Eden, a garden teeming with life and communal possibility.

Tragically, this was not to last. Pride, selfishness, and deceit tore Eden apart. Adam and Eve were estranged. Paradise was lost. The sword was introduced as a guarantor of Eden’s integrity. Violence and suffering became the new norm. In this post-laspsarian condition, humanity no longer has a place in the world, but is forced to sojourn and struggle in the wilderness. As Roman Catholic bishop Robert Barron observes, “The expulsion from the garden might best be read as the dissolution of the kingdom around them once they sought to rule without reference to God.”

Hebron – A Place Found

Turning to our text from 2 Samuel we read, “All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron, and said, ‘Look, we are your bone and flesh.’” With this invocation of Adam’s first words, the elders of Israel proclaim Eden reconstituted. Adam’s dismissal from his Edenic rule has been undone in David. David has overcome his enemies on every side and has created a place of undisputed royal order at Hebron.

In the Israelite imagination, Hebron is a site of ancient significance. It was at Hebron, near the oaks of Mamre, that God visited the ancient patriarch Abraham promising the son that would begin to fulfill God’s covenantal promises. Now, in David’s royal personage, that covenant is being fulfilled. It was also at Hebron that Caleb defeated the giants of Canaan when he boldly led an assault force into the land of promise in the time of Joshua’s conquest. Again, in David’s royal presence at Hebron we find the one who has slayed giants by the power of Yahweh. Against the backdrop of this history, one begins to truly appreciate the narrative depth with which Israel’s proclamation resounds as they gather before David’s throne at Hebron. Here is the one who fulfills the ancient covenantal hope. Here is the one who is the Lord’s anointed warrior, the slayers of giants. Here, at last, is one who offers a return to paradise lost. Adam’s kingdom has been reconstituted here at Hebron, the ancient site of God’s salvific work. At Hebron, in David’s court, Eden is restored.

Jerusalem – Place and Loss Revisited

            But this is only where our text begins. Careful listeners may have noticed that the lectionary has played a trick on us today. Our reading is not a continuous one but instead omits a significant chunk of the story. While we began our reading in Hebron with the proclamation of the restoration of Eden, our text actually leaves us in Jerusalem, conspicuously renamed, “the city of David.”

            The plot only thickens when we turn to the psalm appointed for today. This hymn to the glory of Zion lulls us into thinking that Jerusalem, the city of David, is the same place of Edenic restoration that the gathering of Israel at Hebron promised. If only it were so. David, as it turns out, is ultimately not the long anticipated new Adam. After securing the support of all Israel at Hebron, David turns his attention to the city of Jerusalem, the stronghold of the Jebusites. David murders the lame and the blind in a conquest that reads like a blue-print for the crusades. Once conquered, David names Jerusalem “the city of David” making it quite clear by whose hand this city has been won. As David’s power increases, he makes alliances with foreign powers like Hiram of Tyre, marries many wives and concubines, and engages in the very godless politics that saw Eden dissolve in the first place. It is no wonder that David’s reign will be marked by civil war and that the united kingdom ultimately blows apart along old tribal lines. David is ultimately revealed as being truly a son of Adam, but this revelation shatters the hope that David would be the one to reconstitute an Edenic place of human flourishing. No wonder the historical critics are quick to observe that psalm 48 is merely a baptized hymn to Baal. The city of David is the home of that old god of the north, not the dwelling place of Yahweh.

Conclusion – Toward a Sense of Place

            Though David failed to be the hoped for second Adam, we have received one who is. Christ is the hoped for second Adam. Jesus did not establish a city in his own name. Jesus did not murder the lame and the blind, he healed them. And while David consolidated power through foreign diplomacy and strong fortifications, Jesus was driven from his own home town.

            But Jesus accomplished what David could not. Jesus made a place that is the new Eden for us. For at the centre of the garden was placed the Tree of Life, and it is upon the mountaintop of Calvary, just outside the City of David, that we discover that the Tree of Life takes on a cruciform shape. Jesus took the way of weakness, became lesser, and invited us into the church – the city of God.

            If the church is to recover a sense of place it may find it yet in Hebron. For the Adamic hope that Israel sought in David at that place was a hope that was conditioned by the salvation history of a God who comes to meet us under trees. God met Adam walking in the garden. God met Abraham passing by the oak trees. And God meets the church as we pass before the cross. A Christian sense of place can go forward confident that we follow a God who comes to meet us in place – we do not need to wield violence against the lame, blind, and indigenous to establish a meeting place for God.

            Israel gathered at Hebron because they identified that they shared bone and flesh with the king who was seated there. And we will soon be approaching the table at which a king is seated. At this table, we join the elders of Israel in recognizing that here, truly, is one with whom we share bone and flesh. This is the new Adam, whose reign gives us access to the Eden that was lost.