Our God is a subversive God

Thursday March 28

Readings: JER 7:23-28; LK 11:14-23

Did you ever try to give somebody some good advice and they just did not take it?  You could see clearly what they needed, and yet they somehow could not.  Maybe we’ve been in that situation ourselves where someone has offered us good counsel that we just could not receive.

That’s what Jeremiah describes today.  God laments that the people, “have not obeyed me nor paid heed; they have stiffened their necks and done worse than their [ancestors].”  And even when people like Jeremiah try to get them back on track, God says, “they will not listen to you either; when you call to them, they will not answer you.”

I know that some people at the far right end of Christianity might use a passage like this to lament that we have “fallen away” from the religious roots and need to get the 10 Commandments back in our schools.  That’s not what I lament.  I lament that we have drifted from the origins of the gospel itself and have structured our society in a very different way.

When you think of the dominant culture of our country, what do you lament?  What good advice from God have we failed to heed?  What are we seeing as a result?

And in the gospel, Jesus gives us one of his perplexing comments about the “strong man” in response to rumors that he drives out demons because he is using the power of Satan.  Jesus says that a kingdom divided against itself can’t stand and challenges his listeners by saying, “But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.”

Jesus is frustrated, in part, because the people have just witnessed a miracle and what are they arguing about – where Jesus’ power comes from.  They’re not celebrating the liberation of a human being from an evil spirit.  Instead, liberation is seen as threatening somehow, and we see PLENTY of examples of that throughout history and in the world around us.  Whenever there is movement towards liberation – individual or collective – there are forces that gather to contain it and squash it.

Scripture scholar, Ched Myers, helps us unpack this text (I don’t know about you but I need help unpacking it!).  He says that Jesus is the “stronger one” who intends to overthrow the so-called “strong man” (the establishment culture and all who support it) and that this subversive power is ALREADY among them. 

For me this raises some very real questions of where subversion and liberation are taking place in the world.  Who is resisting “business as usual”?  Who is making it harder for the empire to carry out its work?  Who is working to resist the isms, asserting their own freedom and making sure that others are liberated in the process?

Many of us were just not trained to think of God’s activity as subversive activity, but if the gospels are a guide, liberation doesn’t always look like what we thought it would.  Like the people of Jesus’ time, we might be witnessing the work of the “stronger man” in our midst and have no clue that it is taking place.  We might even wish it weren’t happening because it upsets our convenience, our privilege or our way of life. 

I think of irate motorists in cities where Black Lives Matter demonstrators shut down traffic because of concerns over police brutality. I think of men who complain that they “can’t say anything anymore” as #metoo challenges a sexist/rape culture. I think of the disgruntled politicians and developers who wanted to arrest protests from water warriors at Standing Rock.

Everyday we’re witnessing miracles as the dominant paradigm gets subverted – and all some people can do is complain, mock and dismiss it because it makes their lives less convenient, shifts power and ushers in a new reality.

These are all questions that we need to take up as disciples.

For today, reflect on where you see God’s liberating activity happening in a form that might be hard to recognize, might be challenging for you or might not privilege your perspective?  What kind of support might that liberation require from you?