Walter Brueggemann notes that the lyrics to a song "Time in Babylon" evoked his study about the image of Babylon and its use through time - even our time. The song is very long so after today, I will share a verse or two each day into next "Time in Babylon" invites and requires a careful reread of U.S. culture and history that refuses the common ideology and sloganeering of "democratic capitalism." This critique, since the collapse of the national economy, is made much easier and more obvious, because it is clear that the "democratic" qualifier to "capitalism" has completely disappeared. The widespread passion for "deregulation" has led to the unleashing of rapacious economic practices with a greedy appetite that has been eager to "devour the poor." What had passed for capitalist virtue is now readily exposed as a destructive selfishness that contradicts in wholesale ways any change for the common good. We hold as our foundation the vision of God's Reign that stretches farther than our imagination - to the past and to the future. For us - the followers of Jesus - there is a rule of love that shapes all other life and business that is carried on throughout the day. Our days are lived in the midst of empire (I know we don't say that) - in the midst of a structure of power that can and does rule our steps through life and the steps of those around us. We are a part of this huge system. And yet, we follow Jesus. When the vision of God's Reign - as we see it displayed in Jesus - is our fabric of our life, it will - it will - it will, be contrary to 'things as they are' - no matter how we love 'things as they are.' Let me now say you are hearing this from a capitalist - yes, me. But as Brueggemann notes, "What had passed for capitalist virtue is now readily exposed as destructive selfishness that contradicts in wholesale ways any change for the common good." We live in selfish days. That is not merely a phase. This is about the shape of the culture and the view of the world that demands that each person be 'turned-in-on-self' so that we can save ourselves even if it means others must be cut off. How do we live in such a culture and not take on its dress and life? How do we resist. Connection: Resistance demands a community. We need others to help us focus and help us be sustained through times when we are tempted to point fingers and want the 'other' destroyed or controlled or simply forgotten. We need the community of the Body of Christ to bring to life the promises within God's Reign even as they do not hold to the accepted patterns of the day. O God who bids us to follow the way of the Christ, continue to walk with us as Jesus did on the road to Emmaus. Help us hear again - with new hear and eyes - the old, old story of your unending love. Amen. |
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