| Being an Old Testament scholar, Brueggemann will be dealing with several empires that dominated Israel's life. We will now spend time with Egypt. Life lived under Egyptian hegemony was surely inevitable, given geopolitical reality. Even as Egypt constitutes the most stable reference point for the foreign policy of contemporary Israel, so in the ancient world Egypt occupied the southern end of the Fertile Crescent and was in every season a force in the life of Israel. Egypt, moreover, had as a constant of its foreign policy the effort to claim the area of Palestine for its own sphere of influence, in order to create a buffer zone against the various formidable powers to the north. As people of the book, we don't often hear about Palestine and the land of promise as a buffer zone. It is an in-between place. It is not here or there. It is a passageway turned into whatever is the prevailing power of the day. Not an easy place to find oneself rooted. The promised land is a highway - a rest stop. In no way could it be easy to live in such a place and not have some of the "powers" rub off and have a bit of influence on how you see the world. Either by creating a form of resistance or giving in and becoming completely enculturated. In the U.S. today, Christians do not know what it is to be within the power of more than one empire. I'm not so sure we would be able to make a clear separation between what is the way of Jesus and what is the way of the Jesus as set up and defined by the powers of the day. And yet, like Israel, we are a people who live within the place and time when cultures clash and we must hold onto the character of life that has been handed to us. That character often will become know in many and various ways as we are put into situations in which the culture stretches and attempts to move us. This is a very organic reality. Connection: In the ordinary time of this day, we are a people who must constantly claim a space and attempt to be the beloved community no matter what might be the power of the day and the methods that the powers use to bump us off our path. Through the way of following within your Reign, O God, we are not always able to stand on our ground and avoid the cultural powers that easily push us aside. We continue to call for the coming of your Spirit in and through every aspect of the day. Amen. |
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