Let me introduce you to a legal term I just discovered: Adverse possession. Do you know what that is? I didn’t either, but I found out when I looked into some stories involving property disputes. My friend recently bought a house and when he had it surveyed he noticed his new neighbor’s fence was going through his property. It took a few years to sort that out but he finally got them to remove their fence and he was able to reclaim his lost land. This is what adverse possession is all about. It is a legal way that a “trespasser” can establish title to a piece of property. In order for that to actually happen the possession must be “actual, notorious and open to the world, hostile to the interests of the true owner, exclusive, and continuous for the statutory period.
So this is a real thing. Depending on where you live, if you have a neighbor claiming part of your land for a long period of time you just might lose it. But why? Why do we have this law at all? What good can come out of it? Well, it actually does help out in some situations, such as really old land disputes. For example, I buy a piece of land and build a house on it, live my whole life there, and give it to my kids when I die. Then my children live in it. But one day a neighbor shows up and produces a deed which says that some of my house is actually on his property. He sues my kids to try to get the house torn down. That isn’t really fair to the kids, just because of some dispute that should have been acted on long ago. So the law does exist for a good reason. Nevertheless it is an example of someone trying to take what is yours.
How would you feel if someone built something on your property without your permission? How about if that person later tried to sell it to you? This is exactly what happened to a woman from California who bought land in Hawaii. It started in 2018 when Anne Reynolds purchased a spot of land in the big island at auction for $22,500. Rather than live on the property she wanted to use it for meditation-focused women’s retreats. She wasn’t able to do much with it due to the Covid pandemic so nothing happened until a few years ago when she got a call from a realtor who had found out that the property had been bulldozed and a house built on it. She was completely unaware any of this happened until that call. The realtor told her “oh well, I just sold the house, and it happens to be on your property.” The house was valued at half a million dollars. There was a fence there too.
They offered to settle the matter with her by swapping her lot with an adjacent one. Then they offered to sell her the house at a discount. She refused both offers. What would you do in this situation? Someone is trying to sell you something that in a way you already own. What if you created something and then someone tried to sell it to you?
Isn’t this exactly what happened with Jesus?
Luke 4:5-8
the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’ 8 Jesus answered him, ‘It is written,
“Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.”’
What is the devil offering? Doesn’t Jesus already own it?
John 1:1-3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.
You might talk about the absurdity of Ms. Reynolds’s situation. What about this one? This one is far worse. I try to put myself (as if I could) that that situation and think what my response would be. I think (I hope) it would be something along the lines of “What are you talking about? This is mine already. You have nothing to offer me that isn’t mine to begin with.” But what did Jesus say? It’s there in verse 8. Jesus’ response says nothing about what is offered and who already owns it. That is not his focus. His focus is on the first part of the temptation. Worshipping God is what we should be doing. Anything you offer me, if it means taking the focus off of that, is not worth mentioning.
You are tempted by many things in life. But in a way you have already been promised these things. It is just a matter of short term vs. long term thinking. Temptations are a short term want at the expense of something better in the long term.
So what happened with the lot and the house in Hawaii? Details were not made completely public, but we do know a contractor was chose to demolish the house. And Ms. Reynolds was able to settle for an unspecified amount of money so she could re-landscape the property. All’s well that ends well, I suppose. And she now has a story she can tie to the Gospel. She can meditate on that when she finally visits her space in the big island.
God Bless