Some reflections about us - that is the U.S. and what we must remember.
As the Jews in the Babylonian Empire had to struggle with the seductions and insistences of empire, so Christians in the midst of U.S. empire must struggle for peculiar identity. The tradition of Deuteronomy worried that prosperity would produce amnesia, so that the "local tradition" of emancipation would be forgotten in the face of newly granted entitlements:
"The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams,, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees.....
Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances and statutes, which I am commanding you today." (Deuteronomy 8)
In the land - as they became the people who were shaped out in the wilderness - they were to remember. They were to remember whose they were and who it was that pulled them to the promised land. In that way, the wealth of the land and the power that comes with being settled and in place will not win them over and create in them hearts that are turned-in-on-self. God's beloved are always reminded to be the children of God - the liberating and restoring God - and never turn into the privileged who forget about he shalom of God's Reign.
Connection: How quickly we are able to use our religious foundation to create a foundation for the powers of the world. it seems like it is next to impossible to stay separated and know how to act as people of faith in the midst of a society without trying to run it as we think we have been blessed to do over against anyone else.
O God, keep us bold and humble and faithful. Amen.
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