Exodus 33.2 - Hideous Ideas

I used to read a passage like this serenely:

I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites (Exodus 33.2)

But, alas and alack, no more serenity.

In the light of what White Europeans did to the inhabitants of North and South America, and to the peoples of Africa, and with the continuing plague of racism in the United States, a plague rooted in the American South and American evangelicalism, to read of peoples displaced by none other than God, for the sake of the few, disturbs me deeply.

We're talking here of people, children, families, hopes and dreams, and all the rest ... and without batting an eye, the Text speaks of an angel driving all of them out, lock, stock and barrel ... and where did they go? What happened to them?

Sure, I know the story - much of this never happened, and the Promised Land remained populated by its original inhabitants. But at best, an uneasy relationship, punctuated by conflict and war, not unlike modern-day Israel and the Palestinians.

Whatever happened is one thing, but the thought is another. And the thought is this: here are a people whose lives do NOT matter, people of no account, people who have something we want, and we'll not buy it from them, we'll take it from them, and god is on our side.

In just a few words, all the horror and sadness of history is encapsulated.

Ultimately, as the story plays out, God abandoned the land business, closed out and locked up, with a sign: "No More!" It was too costly, and it compromised God and God's people as well.

And if God apologized, God did so through the Prophets and through the Christ, with a vision of love and hope and peace for all the world, all its peoples, all its creatures, great and small - every rock, river, and tree.

Perhaps, now, the Spirit of God speaks through the tragedy: "Is this what you think? Is this what you want? Is this how you conceive of me and yourself?"

In These Times ...

In These Times …

I find fear creeping in at the edges of my mind and heart.

Every newscast brings more sad news for tens of thousands of Americans and folks around the world.

And, then, Citi Group purchases a $50 million dollar corporate jet – get this, it carries 12, and get this and then some, ordered from a French company. Ha! And when challenged by Keith Olbermann, they declined to comment, saying, “security reasons” prohibit us from commenting on our fleet. Yeah, sure – security? No, shame! Plain old shame!

Sadly, their avarice is my money at work, and I’m not real fond of that.

Oh sure, it’s Capitalism, some say. It’s the Free Market, and we all love that, don’t we?

Naw, it’s just plain old greed at work – over-the-top entitlement – the worm in the apple gnawing away at our character and our economy.

I think we’ve got ourselves into a real pickle.

And certain forms of Christianity haven’t helped one bit:
¸ The feel-good, advance-yourself, Jesus-loves-you-always, let’s-clap-our-hands-and-love-one-another, kind of Christianity.
¸ The James Dobson brand of Christianity, with his snarling intrusion into the American bedroom.
¸ The psycho-babble kind of Christianity, where Sunday morning is nothing more than a couch for therapy and learning “five steps to happiness.”
¸ And Americanized Christianity where flag and faith are all entwined in one another, and no one knows where country and Christ begin or end.

Here’s where I have hope for mainline Protestant Christianity to regain some traction. Ours has been a faithful voice, crying in the wilderness of prosperity and evangelical power. As the megachurches zoomed into view and climbed to the top of the numbers heap, we all hung our head and slinked away, ashamed of our faith, and wondering why we were such a failure.

But we’re not a failure at all. And though the numbers are not likely to change in the foreseeable future, it’s all about integrity and responsibility, and the numbers be damned, if you will.

This is not Wall Street after all. It’s not about some bottom line of success. It’s faithfulness and critical thinking. Do we really have anything at all to say?

We’ve been studying the prophets and the kings of Israel and Judah, background to Jesus our LORD. Here we find some grit to throw on the road for traction. Here is where we find some guidance in such times, when the bastions of power and religion have proved hollow!

Yes, I find fear creeping in at the edges, because bad things happen when human beings forget one another, when a nation worships at the alter of prosperity and condemns millions to a life of hardship. Bad things happen when religion loses its bearings and can no longer muster the courage or the conviction to tell the truth to itself, much less to anyone else.

The simple truth, at least as I read in the Prophets and in the life of Jesus: our nation has spent way too much time at the alter of Wall Street and allowed wealth to be concentrated into the hands of a strange breed of royalty who lost their bearings, who spent corporate profits foolishly, who lived high on the hog and damned the rest of us, and way too many Christians, enamored with visions of Jesus and wealth, lost their minds and their souls, as well.

But I think God for God!

God’s Spirit yet strives with our spirit, and when God’s people dig into the Word thoughtfully, intelligently, looking not for ways to condemn others, nor for ways to feather our own bed, but to discern the will of God and to seek ways by which we can effect salvation – shalom – here and now - real peace and a prosperity that leaves no one behind – when such things become our purpose, there will be showers of blessing from on high!

It’s time for decency, a kindliness toward one another, an honest humility, and it’s time for the powerful and the wealthy, for the super-religionists of the world, Christian or otherwise, to remember, that even on the loftiest of thrones, we’re still sitting only on our own rumps (Montaigne), and our task on earth is not to build thrones for ourselves, but to sew pillows for one another, to make the sitting a tad bit easier!