The poetry of 2 Isaiah is shaped by powerful poetic metaphors. The social, historical setting for this poetry is exile... The words grow out of and are aimed at an alienated community (cf. Psalm 137). The central fact of the community of 2 Isaiah was the power and authority of Babylonian definitions of reality (cf. Isaiah 39:1-8). Babylonian cultural voices in many ways shaped Jews just as they succeeded in shaping everything and everyone else in the empire. In as many ways as possible, it was the ideological intent of the empire to talk Jews out of Jewish perceptions of reality and into Babylonian definitions of reality, to define life in terms of Babylonian values, Babylonian hopes, and Babylonian fears.
The shaping of people's lives by the empire - this sounds like an ancient activity. It is ancient and therefore, empire has had quite a long time to perfect its work. The voice of the empire is set to a level that will permeate the lives of as many people as is possible so that the message of the empire become a part of the very pattern or fabric of the people. In the days of the Jews in exile in Babylon the empire was able to control so much of the way people are shaped because the Jews were literally taken away from their roots and planted in the center of the empire's voice. Today, empire rules and molds and dictates from many and various voices and methods. Just yesterday I thought it was frightening to listen to U.S. President Bush say that if he knew back before the invasion of Iraq what he knows now, he would have still invaded Iraq. That is the voice of empire. You can tell because we all just sat back and that was it. What he said is just like saying he lied about why we went into Iraq. Previously it was all about weapons of mass destruction. Now, it is about what it is about - whatever empire wants to call it. And what is worse, we continue to back it or simply ignore the fact that we are a warring nation who initiates war at a whim...the whim of Empire.
Connection: The prophet keeps trying to open our ears when we have been taken into exile and find ourselves living there. What are the signs of exile around us that show us today how we have been taken from the Reign of God to participate in the practices and mind of empire?
Lord of All Creation, we need you Spirit of hopefulness to set our eyes in a new direction and bring focus into our viewing of the world around us. Help us to break the bonds of the powers in our lives that attempt to win us over into their ways. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment