The focus of these devotions is Walter Wink’s book “The Human Being” and a section dealing with the vision of the Son of the Man in Ezekiel.
Bill Wylie Kellerman comments:
Human beings are the image of God. Here is an idea so incredibly subversive it may be the most politically loaded claim of all. Who in Babylon, not to mention virtually the whole of the ancient world, was the image of god? The King, of course, who stands in for [Babylonian god] Marduk in the creation pageant, and whose authority is annually legitimated. Who, however, is in the liturgy of Israel? Humanity. Women and men. Human beings in community. This is a subversion and affront to every imperial authority. It’s practically anarchism. In this counter-story, human beings are not from the blood of a murdered god, created as slave of the state. They are made for freedom and responsibility.
Isn’t it odd that the word subversive often has a negative connotation in our society? What is…is too often all that we are willing to accept…all that will be. What a grand disappointment that would be. The people in Israel who were in exile in Babylon were living in a world that said if our army beats your army, then our god beats your god. That’s the beginning and ending of the story line and it is one that would keep on being repeated through history. But our God, the God of Israel and of the Church, is the power of transformation and rebirth and resurrection. What is…may not be and doesn’t have to be what will be. The community of God’s people continues to bring insight into how we blossom into the days ahead because we are gifted with the Holy Spirit who stretches us beyond the limits we love and greets us with a new image of freedom and responsibility that was once not a part of our lives. Subversion is another way to describe growth…it is a version of life that is not the dominant way of the world. That’s why one author looks at the scriptures as a sub-version of life in the world.
Connection: Subversion in everyday life may be as simply as singing another song…whistling another tune…trusting what is said about us by our God rather than what is said by many of the prevailing voices all around us. You are beloved and you may unfold within this day as just that…beloved of God in the middle of the version of life that is toss around and sold in the marketplace of the powers that be.
Most High God, your creative voice brings life in any time…even when we see no time left within this day. Renew us again with your breath of life so that we may be sustained in the middle of all things. Amen.
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