19 January 2006

We continue with the displaced people in Exile from "Hopeful Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann.

After the first deportation of 598 (when the Jews were taken from Jerusalem to Babylon), Jeremiah and Ezekiel had developed a second theme. Not only is Babylon the agent of God's destruction. Babylon is also to be the habitat for faithful Israel. ...which announces that the community of Jewish exiles in Babylon who obviously were the displaced ones are in fact God's special people who are the wave of the future for Judaism. The displaced ones are to become the faithful ones and finally the blessed ones.

The empire would not prevail. Even exile would not be able to have the final word for these displaced people. I don't think Christianity in the U.S. knows what this means. Faithfulness like that of the exiles did not depend on being people of special privileges. In fact, whatever the empire wanted to do they did. The faithful in Babylon also learned that they too would have to do whatever it was they needed to do to be God's people in a strange land. Odd today that some Christians want to turn our country into a Christian nation of sorts. And if not that, at least let the Christians have a place of prestige in order to shape the country in the way they would have it be. Today, I hear a lot of wailing and crying and complaining about how Christians are an oppressed people in the U.S. I would suggest that this kind of talk demonstrates that many Christians have become people of the empire and the privileges therein. We don't even know what persecution is and therefore we make up petty pieces of persecution in order to be handed more power within the power of the empire. Isn't it odd how so called people of faith, look to the empire to provide them with their sense of status. As an alien people....as displaced people within the world of empires, we find our status in our baptism. That baptism does not seek our privilege among any powers. Rather, our baptism makes us servants of all even if we must turn or servant love toward those who are the enemy or the oppressor. Babylonian captivity was the time when the faithful Jews learned to be faithful Jews, not a powerful element of the Babylonian empire.

Connection: The next time you hear people complain about how Christians are persecuted in this country, take a look at who is speaking. I have yet to see in their faces or their bodies or their well groom clothing any signs of persecution.

Make us a faithful people, O God. Feed us with your love so that we will not turn to the powers of the day to find our nourishment for life. In all things, we turn to you for life. Amen.