Y’all know I am a foreigner, a transplanted Canadian that grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. Much of my cultural baggage is from summers listening to music, predominantly Canadian based music, since the national government mandated a certain percentage of radio air time to be Canadian content. (Sweet City Woman still echoes in my ears!)
Well, during this time, a Canadian band by the name of the Guess Who (ask me sometime how they got their name) published a song called Share the Land. It became one of their greatest hits and the music reminds me of the early 70’s, when the only thing that mattered was to beat, the rhythm, and the title of the song – Who cared about the message? I was too “occupied” to be concerned with a message. Take a listen to this ol song and tell me you don’t like the sound!
Let 40 years slide by, and find me on my patio, working on some project, when this song comes on out of nowhere. I crank it up, and start to get into it, when all of a sudden I pay attention to the lyrics.
Let me share them with you.
Have you been around?
Have you done your share of comin’ down
On different things that people do?
Have you been aware?
You got brothers and sisters who care
About what’s gonna happen to you
In a year from now
Maybe I’ll be there to shake your hand (Shake your hand)
Maybe I’ll be there to share the land (Share the land)
That they’ll be givin’ away
When we all live together, we’re talkin’ ’bout together, now
Maybe I’ll be there to shake your hand (Shake your hand)
Maybe I’ll be there to share the land (Share the land)
That they’ll be givin’ away
When we all live together, we’re talkin’ ’bout together, now
Did you pay your dues?
Did you read the news
This morning when the paper landed in your yard?
Do you know their names?
Can you play their games
Without losin’…
My friends, this song has a message and this message is couched with great images – Sharing the Land, giving the land away, living together, shaking hands, being together…
Now, y’all know I am a believer in the Lord Jesus, and am looking forward to the day when King Jesus will have rescued us from the presence of sin, and provided us our home where sharing will be a natural characteristic of every redeemed soul. Where worship will replace worry, and praise will replace pride. Where honor of my brother is paramount in my mind and to serve (properly) will be realized perfectly.
“Sharing the land” during the future kingdom will be a natural, common, glorious expression of love and kindness, erupting from a heart of praise to the One who rescued us from ourselves.
Now I can’t speak for Burton Cummings of the Guess Who, or any of the other members of the band, but I don’t think they were thinking of the future kingdom brought to reality through the Lord Jesus.
I fear the message would be realized via forced sharing, a sharing that would be required. A sharing that is fueled by fear, domination and regulations, enforced with the end of a gun.
This style of sharing is not a stranger on this earth. Some, with good intentions I suppose, consider the forced sharing of goods to be a gateway to utopia.
Without the Lord Jesus Christ in the middle of the utopia, there is no utopia. When you hear a leader speak of sharing the goods of others (by legislation), or redistributing wealth (by force), or providing free services to the poorest (by regulations), please understand this is a deception.
We are a sinful people on this earth, and without the Lord Jesus Christ, we have no ability to willingly share with others. With family, sure. With friends, at times. But with strangers, and enemies – the human spirit cannot reach that far.
(But can it?)
He left us the Body of Christ to taste the glories of this life of sacrifice with one another. Governments have since time immemorial sought to replace the genius of the love of God being spread abroad to others, through a mandated forced sharing.
Mans method of universal sharing cannot work, since it is born out of selfishness, fear and hatred.
God’s method works, yet many in the Body of Christ seem to be starving for the Christian life.
If you are rejoicing in your Christian life and enjoying Body Life with other believers, share your experience. If you are struggling to find that experience of sharing, (in other words, fellowship), please comment.
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