| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | After a spell of illness, let's get back to Walter Brueggemann's observations about Babylon and the U.S.
I propose this parallel between ancient Babylon and the contemporary United States in order to ask a question: is this sense of privilege and entitlement, bolstered by an uncritical joining of Bible and flag and underwritten by military and economic dominance, a proper legacy to leave coming generations in the United States? I ask this question cognizant of the fact that political discourse in the United States, in a variety of modes, is essentially a conversation about how to sustain this "God-given" advantage in the world. I say this, fully mindful of evidence of dissenting reality:(he notes 9/11 as a savage protest against hegemony, the crisis of global warming - living standard, rise of Islam - tied to oil supply, rise of Chinese economy as challenger)
The signs of challenge to the present hegemony are everywhere. Empires rarely notice such challenge in time, nor do they concede anything to those who mount the challenge. Thus the prospect, as with Babylon until Cyrus the Persian arrived, is that the U.S. sense of entitlement and control will continue to drive public discourse and policy formation long after the facts on the ground indicate otherwise.
So, what is to come and what role do we play in the churning and turning of the world scene? More and more we must be willing to listen to other voices that attempt to opening up the painting of the world and the ways things are moving. Unfortunately, we are - for many - the empire that will never end. Therefore, why think of another way to be in the world. Many times I think the blending of flag and prayer is one that turns us away from any movement toward peace, reconciliation, conversation, and shared responsibility. As long as the U.S. sees itself destined by God to lead the world, are we any different from the ancient powers that call upon their gods to create their might and then sustain them against their enemies. Unfortunately, none of them were sustained - we dig up fragments of their greatness. And yet, Scripture keeps calling God's people to be a light to the world. Not a new power - a light. The light is not afraid to see the truth - that is what light does - it shines and uncovers and opens up life. Is there room in our empire for an alternate way - and how will that way spring to life?
Connection: Listen to the voices of some who attempt to paint us a picture of what we due. Some movements within the U.S. today long for another day. A day when in their imagination, we were a city on a hill. When was that? When is an empire ever a light on a hill - except when one empire is overwhelming another. that is when we tell stories of our invincibility and blessedness.
O God, continue to open our hearts and make us a people who are not afraid to witness to your shalom in the world. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Here is why I consider Brueggemann to be a voice to which we must listen as we face the day at hand and our place in it as followers of Jesus.
The emergence of the United States as empire had pivoted on its point of unrivaled military advantage. But U.S. military advantage was and is closely tied to U.S. economic leverage, so that the U.S. flag, without any precise formulation, has come to symbolize both a powerful military commitment and an aggressive capitalism that is endlessly in pursuit of new markets and natural resources. All of this, moreover, has been intimately tied to 'the Bible,' so that there is missional fervor and rationale for the imposition of U.S. cultural domination in the world. Indeed, much of the missional energy of the U.S. church carried with it the U.S. flag and U.S. dollars, so that it has become very difficult to sort out what in such missional efforts, belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God. The outcome has been an unprecedented accumulation of power, influence, and leverage in the world, with enormous benefit to the United States in terms of a seemingly limitless standard of living.
As some of you know, I have been involved with a small group of pastors who have tried to face off with a 'religious' group that is so intimately tied to people of power within the U.S. government that it is quite hard to distinguish whether the 'missional efforts' of the U.S. 'belongs to Caesar' or 'belongs to God.' This tie that happens between the government (or empire) and religious groups who hand over religious language to be used as an instrument to further and benefit the empire is something that we must all watch very closely. As people who follow Jesus, this Good News - this Law of Love - this peaceable Reign, cannot be used to bless the work of nations that are not at all fulfilling this vision. Even when the nation does do good work and seems to be working for justice and peace in the world, we can speak up and say "Yes." But we cannot stand up and say "Yes" when the reality is not that. We must be a people who remember how to say "No" and step back from allegiance to powers that are contrary to the one God who call us God's own.
Connection: So, faithful language that becomes faithful action can create a bit of turmoil and discontent. That - will not always be appreciated.
O God, abide with us and be our encouragement for the day. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Linking Babylon to the U.S. will continue for the next few devotions.
Nonetheless, the study of such a linkage (U.S. - Babylon) is an enterprise worth pursuing, because our own situation of empire in the United States matters enormously to all those with alternative loyalties especially people with "local traditions of faith." Christians in the United States are accustomed to read the Bible in a democratic context where we have political-religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution or, even more, to read the Bible the United States cast in the role of god's chosen people and the carrier of God's will for freedom in the world, an exceptionalism that pervades our public discourse. Such a reading becomes a very difficult matter, however, when the facts on the ground exhibit the United States as empire, as the place for faithful reading and faithful living according to an alternative loyalty that is in deep tension with the totalizing claims of empire.
It can become and it does become a mixed bag when we - people of the empire - also insist on being the ones who bear the truth for God vision of the world. It is a mixed bag because the bag is full of empire trappings that are not necessarily the word of God's Reign. Instead, what happens so easily is that we blend the two together and the values of the empire take on the language of the faithful and, I think, the empire grows stronger in regard to its influence. Some of you may have run into church leaders who speak for their church but also - in the same breath - claim to speak for the nation as though it is a special task force of God's choosing - a task force that will help save the world. Unfortunately, the work here is work to change the world so that it will conform to the values of the country and not that of the Reign of God we claim in Christ, Jesus. So, it seems that we must be constantly watchful of our language and the way our life will constantly try to reconcile empire and faithfulness even when it is not what we need.
Connection: Faithfulness is a journey on which we must stay aware of who we are as children of God and also let ourselves be citizens. This must always be a relationship that is in tension - no matter what the empire of the day may be.
O God, as we move within your Reign, keep our eyes on the vision that is beyond any of the surrounding powers that continue to woo us and long for our allegiance. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Linking Babylon to the U.S. Here where we begin to look at something closer to home.
....It is no new thing to suggest that the contemporary United States mirrors ancient Babylon in its totalizing propensity. Our study here....links Babylon and the United States because Babylon has metaphorical force in the ongoing theological tradition and because the United States is our current context and venue for accommodation, resistance, and alternative. There are, of course, no easy or obvious or exact moves from "then" to "now," and the parallels are necessarily imaginative, impressionistic, and inexact.
The United States seems to follow more along the tradition of domination started with the Greeks. The Greek domination was one that did not deport - but rather, they changed the existing culture in the places of there influence. But from a biblical perspective, it is Babylon who plays the part of the oppressive force that we can use to look at ourselves. When we look at ourselves, it must not be merely as citizens of the U.S. We must also see ourselves as part of the people who will not allow the powers of the day to determine who we are and who we are meant to be. Therefore, the language of accommodation, resistance and alternative are a necessary part of who we are to be here within the empire of the day. It means keeping aware of what is being said and what actions are taking place as we live within the empire of the day. What is being asked of us and how are the followers of Jesus to live within the power venues on which we count for so many aspects of our lives. From the Jewish voices of the prophets of old, we may come upon a way to stand on who God calls us and to live from that place no matter what ways we are being asked to walk.
Connection: Being faithful in the middle of the powers of our world demands that we know how to bow and bend and yet hold onto the vision of God's Reign. In that way, we can always be ready to stand up for the way of God's shalom even when it is being rejected or ignored.
O God, hold us within your vision of new life and encourage the way we come to life within it. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | 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. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Again from "Out of Babylon" by Walter Brueggemann.
Within the Old Testament, Babylon occupies a central position in what it means to be Jewish. In the Old Testament, the imagining of Babylon is inescapably from the perspective of Jewishness. To start with, Jews perceive Babylon as threat, but then Babylon is also recognized as a viable venue for faithfulness over a long period of time: "Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. (Jeremiah 29:5-6) And for some Jews not of the tenacious variety, Babylon became a homeland in which Jewish identity could be practiced, albeit with all sorts of inevitable compromises.
Even among the faithful, the empire is a part of the shaping that goes on among those who long to live in the ways of God. How do we live a contrary ethic and life if we are in the midst of strange ways that are quite at odds with the very way we see ourselves as God's beloved? Some have made the decision to be obviously apart from the daily world of the empire - where they live - their physical appearance - resistance against cultural events. Some blend into the world of empire and speak up as a contrary voice that will not be overwhelmed by the powers of the day - even when it is costly. Still others attempt to turn empire into a part of the faith.
Connection: How do we live within the middle of the empire of today? The U.S. is an empire that controls much of the way of life for many within and beyond our borders. When the actions of the empire are contrary to the way we see ourselves rooted in the way of Jesus, how do we faithfully express ourselves - how do we stay in conversation with the way of Jesus when we are pulled in many ways to follow other powers?
O God, sustain us and feed us with the life of your Reign. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Here's how some of the storytelling filled in the gaps and created a vision. Again from "Out of Babylon" by Walter Brueggemann.
YHWH is the one who willed the deportation; Babylon is the agent who enacted that deportation. this assignment of the roles to YHWH and to Babylon was accomplished through a daring interpretive maneuver that imposed a certain logic upon events, a logic rooted in the covenantal nomism of the tradition of Deuteronomy wherein Torah obedience or disobedience will variously yield blessings and curses. The disaster of the sixth century, goes the paradigm, was a justly merited curse worked against those who had violated covenantal obedience. this logic both imposed meaning on chaotic events and established the voice of the deported elite as normative for the larger community.
Even though the remnant of folks told a story of the disobedience of the people it then becomes the way that the people will move into the future. Now, based on how they had disobeyed, a new obedience can be brought forth. I suppose this can have two sides to it. One would contain the "if" as in - 'if we remain faithful, this kind of devastation will not happen again.' The other "if" comes down from the negative side, as in - 'if we are disobedient, our God will once again deliver us into the hands of such oppressive chaos. From either position of the storytelling, a path is made so as to enable a people to be shaped and to endure whatever has come upon them. All around Columbus there are appearing those signs that say that the 'rapture' is coming on May 21, 2011. From the storytellers in that group we also hear many 'if' and 'then' comments that are meant to shape the actions of people who call themselves Christians. I was also thinking that nations do this too. We draw up 'if' and 'then' scenarios that are meant to build the vision of a people around a way of seeing the past, present, and even the future. That storytelling really does have a power to it - and that is not always good.
Connection: How often are you led by an 'if' and 'then' story? Can faithful people move on without that element of threat? Can we live and be pulled forward by the simple acknowledgement of our beloved status before God - no matter what is happening to us?
O God, lead us and guide us in and through all the days of our lives. Remind us of what it is to be faithfully yours. Amen. |
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