Now from "Out of Babylon," Brueggemann starts to open up the meaning of Babylon power. It will soon come close to home.
Completely apart from its relation to Jewish life, Babylon was a hegemonic power whose goal was to be all-defining for life in the world. It is the work of such hegemonic power (empire) to exercise total governmental control and, where possible, total economic and cultural control as well. Empires like Babylon lack both patience and tolerance toward those whose ultimate loyalty belongs to someone or something other than the empire itself. In response to such resistant loyalties, the empire will move beyond total control into totalitarian "final solutions."
Viewed from the "localism" of a competing loyalty among Jews, Babylon may become an unwelcome venue for faith. The poems concerning Babylon in Isaiah 13 and Jeremiah 50-51 portray a ruthless power of enormous arrogance that in the long run cannot be sustained. That arrogance is characteristically articulated as a menacing imposition upon the local population, and was understood as a challenge to the rule of God..... Faith in YHWH recognized the illusionary nature of the empire's claim to ultimacy. Such recognition, on the lips of the Jews, served to keep Babylonian hegemony penultimate, a conviction given in the formulation of Daniel: "until you have learned that the Most High has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals, and gives it to whom he will: (Daniel 4:25, 32).
This is a lengthy quote but it shows the need for the people of God to make sure that in the middle of oppressive powers - or simply powers that have a way of controlling everything - there will be a voice that reminds the people who they are and who is available to shape them even in the face of powers that would want them to be something other than what their God has called them. That is vital for us to hear today. The followers of Jesus cannot be a people who somehow find ourselves in the places of political and cultural power - as a part of that power and no longer as ones who walk in the way of Jesus. Empires overwhelm lives and long to bring everyone into their fold. The "Most High" invites those whom God calls 'my beloved' and nurtures them in the way of God's Reign. For the Jews in Babylon, God's beloved were those who God had raised up since the days of Abraham and Sarah. Today, God's beloved are a people with no boundary or mere ethnic background. All are invited to truth the "Most High" and never fall in line with the lesser gods of cultural fame and glory.
Connection: So, once again, how do we live in the middle of an empire? How do we bring the glory of God into the reality of life around us so that we do not become a part of any hegemonic power as we seek to serve and live in the the name of the God we call Holy?
O God, this is when we sing to you, "Lead us, Guide us, along the way." We need you to make us bold and wise and faithful to you alone. Amen.
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