A Christianity fashioned in the image of white national belonging cannot hold the fullness of the church.
Scripture invites those who thirst today, such as those traversing the Sonoran desert in the hope of a liveable existence, to raise their voice in protest, to insist that their human value be recognized. And it invites those of us who have plenty to amplify that complaint, to set aside the anxieties of those seeking to maintain lopsided power and position, and partner with the Divine.
The Exodus tradition is built on a hope for a world free from military violence and economic exploitation. The Song of the Sea looks forward to a world where the machines of war, banished to the bottom of the sea, can no longer threaten us.
In any age, nostalgic campaign slogans must lead to clear articulation about which aspects of the past are worth retrieving. We must interrogate our own visions of the past to ensure that we’re not hiding the truth from ourselves.
The Sabbath commandment is a word of freedom and of resistance to an economic system that is destructive to ourselves and our planet.
Psalm 149 is not a blank check for our passionate pursuit of personal vengeance. Quite the contrary! It places a sword in the hand of only those who have recognized YHWH’s ultimate kingship.
Through confrontational or subversive tactics, God empowers human agents to restore God’s liberating and salvific will for the creation.
The laws at Sinai are no ball-and-chain, implementing a new form of slavery. They express the practical dimensions of life in freedom, the boundaries within which the nation can experience a life-giving form of service to the One who graciously rescued them from servitude. In short, they are revolutionary.
We have a history of commentaries that paints real physical need—experienced by billions worldwide daily—as stupid ingratitude. If we ask YHWH for literal water, pleading with him and testing his provision, are we being unappreciative?
The transfiguration stories in scripture, and their mountains, are not places of answers. They are places of raw honesty about our own limits. They are places where words give way to water that flows where it will, to sustain life. They are places of confronting grief and loss. They are places of silence. And these mountains are places to wonder at the mystery of the God who created us to need each other and this earth.
Jesus pronounced judgment on the entire system and dismantled it with a whip – modeling for us how to treat egregious distortions of Christian worship that distract from God’s redemptive work. This is not politics “out there,” in the public square, but in house.
These systems of oppression, much like the golden calf, do not represent the God of love and righteousness. Instead, the fashioning of what can be tamed points to our depraved greed, moral bankruptcy, and the diabolical strategies we employ for survival.