A good few years ago now John B Keane’s novel was transferred onto the big screen. The central figure of the story is a man called Bull McCabe, whose family had farmed a small piece of land in a remote part of the west of Ireland for many generations. The time came when Bull had enough finance to make this arrangement permanent and so he entered the auction not knowing that a wealthy American with very big pockets had the same idea. The result led to tragic consequences!
This film struck a raw nerve in Ireland because we live not only in an island of small fields but because while we share the territory we spend a lot of time fighting over its ownership. Each community is able to present its title deeds to whoever is willing to listen- one looks back to the plantation and the other to the rebellion in an attempt to make their case clear and unambiguous but failing, perhaps, to realise that history is seldom that simple. While giving America back to the Indians seems to be a simple matter and not without logic and justice there have been an awful lot of people living and working on those land since the first while man arrived and settled.
Today the fundamental question for us is this: how are we going to share the shared space that everyone can be at peace with each other? Various ideas have been tried in various parts of the world; in Israel the government has built a huge wall to keep one set of the sons of Abraham out and the others safe. In the Balkans ethnic cleansing was tried and in Africa it was apartheid .Each and every logger-head attempt has failed to bring better relationships.
When we look at the bible we discover the answer to the land question- we are all wrong. The land “belongs to the Lord and everything in it”. The story of the bible is about the attempt of men to take this land off God and make it their own. Jesus tells a parable about a landowner who left his land in the hands of some tenants. The story tells about how even the son of the owner was not safe. Right at the start when God made Adam and Eve they attempted to rebel against God and take the garden for themselves. That had tragic consequences also and we are living in the shadow of them today. Ever since that day there has been a fault line of selfishness and rebellion in the heart of us all. The prophets warned of the judgement of God and yet, God was not, and is not “willing that any should perish but that all should come to eternal life”. No one could have complained that the owner of the land should have his justice and he will have it yet but before that is meted out He has given grace and mercy and new life to anyone who is willing to take it accepting that God is the only sovereign Lord.
Tennent Street is a permanent reminder that this land does not belong to Protestant, Catholic or dissenter but to God and we are his tenants.
Crumlin Road Presbyterian location
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