to bring to bear on reading the Hebrew scriptures a wide knowledge and understanding of the culture of the Ancient Near East but in a way that doesn't draw attention to his erudition but simply help unfold the meaning of the text and to bring it together with the 'horizon' of our own understandings and culture. I particularly enjoyed this expose -in effect- of perenniel forces which coagulate in/to empires and the way that they affect the corporate psychology and spirituality of 'subject' peoples. He then reframes the insights to help Christians (and other aliens) in the West (particularly the USA but actually this affects us all) to pray and live faithfully. And also, it seems to me, uses the contemporary experience of living under hegemonic systems to help us to understand the dynamics of Empire and give us insight into Babylonian exile.
I especially enjoyed the connections he makes between surviving and resisting Empire and liturgical practice. There are also important insights into the ways of corporisations and how we might minister to them.
Notes and quotes
obedience or disobedience will variously yield blessings and curses. The disaster of the sixth century, so 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. location 242
If we read the United States as chosen people, as carrier of "local tradition," then the church must bring to the table a clearer, less compromised sense of what "chosenness" means. The church must insist that the public policy and public practice of the United States be measured against covenantal requirements of neighborly justice, mercy, and generosity. Such a society might be expected to organize its life and its resources around the shared destiny of haves and have-nots. For as far back as the tradition of Deuteronomy, the notion of "chosenness" had to do with attentiveness to needy neighbors. If the "year of remission" in Deuteronomy 15:1-18 is central to who Israel was as a chosen people, then even its own economy was subordinate to its obligation to its neighbors. Likewise today, the church's challenge is to summon civil society to its best self. location 698
On the other hand, it may be an easier case now to see the United States as empire that seeks to impose its will around the world, to demand "reform" as the price of engagement, and to monopolize resources in every possible way. As the prophets judge, such a superpower as Babylon is intrinsically unable to restrain itself, even as the acquisitive power of the United States is mostly beyond restraint. In such an environment God calls the church to carry the "local tradition," bearing witness against the empire's arrogance, greed, and insatiable appetites. It is likely that it comes only very late to every empire—including Babylon—to recognize itself as empire, to flex its muscles with restraint, to acknowledge the selfdestructiveness of imagining autonomy that is not subject to any ordered morality or even to the community of nation-states. It may be the work of the church to name empire for what it is. location 705
contrast to the "local tradition" of Jews and Christians, empires do not know about loss. Empires do not grieve, do not notice human suffering, do not acknowledge torn bodies or abused villages. Empires deal in quotas, statistics, summaries, and memos. And memos rarely mention loss; when they do, they disguise it in euphemism so that no one need notice. Empires characteristically do not notice loss because they are able to engage in realitydenying ideology that covers over everything in the splendor of power, victory, and stability. Empires do not acknowledge that many such claims are highly contested, and beyond contestation are frequently exhibited as false. But empires are undeterred by inconvenient truths, and rush on to persuasive certitude. Thus I propose in this reflection on loss that we consider the tension between the candor and acknowledgment of the local tradition and the capacity for denial that characterizes empire. location 775
If it is the case that "the truth makes free" (even truth about loss), then it is also true that "cover-up makes powerful." location 784
Arrayed against the formidable social power of this claim that God would never abandon Jerusalem was the relatively weak challenge of prophetic poetry. This ongoing but highly irregular tradition featured uncredentialed utterers with no social standing. Their sole authority came from (a) their imaginative, playful utterance; (b) their knowledge of the facts on the ground connected to human, bodily reality; and (c) the claim to be connected enough to speak the truth of YHWH. location 807
The Book of Lamentations invites us to imagine a long pause in both certitude and denial. It is a long pause against old temptations and against new imperial impingement. The pause is in order to honor and cherish and valorize this powerful moment of undoing.No need to rush, as there is nowhere to rush to. Linger. Linger in the ashes and tears, and ponder the truth that makes one free. location 878
profound anxiety that the posturing of the Department of Homeland Security has brought about. But the empire really doesn't want that anxiety to go away, because it creates the hostility and rage that feed imperial ideology. By pandering to and co-opting anxiety among its citizens, the empire creates the "need" for even tighter hegemony, and at the same location 956
Isaiah 40–55 works best when understood as a divine response to the Book of Lamentations' deep grief over the destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of folk from Jerusalem.Read more at location 1314
There was plenty to fear in Babylon. There was taxation and exploitation, hostility toward local tradition, violence toward dissidents, and the requirement of conformity to imperial expectation. It was enough to cause the members of a local tradition to worry about opportunities for social advancement at the least, and perhaps even about their physical safety. Knowing all of those fears, the poet speaks a word that voids them. The ground for fearlessness is the utterance, promise, presence, and resolve of YHWH. The "salvation oracle" is dominated by first person assertions by YHWH. YHWH enters the empire's affairs and overrides its threat of coercion, not unlike, of course, the way in which YHWH nullified the abusive authority of Pharaoh in ancient memory. location 1333
Empires do have their use, and it is not surprising to find traces of affirmation about Babylon in the biblical tradition. Indeed, more than traces, for it could even be affirmed in ancient Israel that Babylon, in its imperial expansionism, was acting out YHWH's intention for the world and for Israel. Thus we must allow for a sense of ambiguity and complexity about Babylon, because the empire may do good even as it is a devastator. Its reasons for doing good, of course, are never altruistic, but rather seek to further its interests and expand its power. Thus some in the ancient world saw that when Babylon imposed order on lesser states it also acted as their protector—albeit never a disinterested one. Indeed, some in Israel clearly perceived Persia, Babylon's successor on the world stage, as a benign or positive force. It is, moreover, well known that in the New Testament period one's status as a Roman citizen counted for a great deal (Acts 16:37-38; 22:25-29). location 1609
the contemporary news of the gospel is that God invites and summons the faithful to a life beyond the demands and gifts of empire. In the New Testament, that offer is a call to discipleship. In contemporary practice, it is the joyous possibility of joyous existence beyond what I have elsewhere called the "therapeutic, technological, military consumerism" of our society. While the texts portray this homecoming as a joyous alternative, it is at the same time a costly alternative. Just as the erstwhile slaves in the book of Exodus yearned to return to Pharaoh's Egypt and just as many Jews preferred life in Babylon, so the imaginative possibility among us for an alternative life in the world is not cheap. But to "go out in shalom" is a mantra that continues to ring in the ears of those gathered in the "local tradition" of Yahwism. location 1873
life with YHWH. The latter is a life of free sustenance—no money, without price. The imperial alternative is labor that does not satisfy. The empire is always propelled by cheap labor. Because the empire provides neither material nor spiritual satisfaction to its laborers, the poet urges these workers to end their collusion with the empire. location 2066
this text summons Christians to depart the rapacious selfindulgence and exploitation of the U.S. empire, even as we continue to value and affirm this geographical space as our home. I suggest in such contemporary usage three dimensions of departure that belong to a faithful hearing of the text: 1. The departure from empire is liturgical, that is, it is a symbolic, bodily performance of what leaving is like. location 2122
The liturgy invites participants to recognize that we do not belong to empire and need not obey empire, location 2129
The reiterated practice of liturgical departure has as its intent a psychological transformation. location 2133
The distinctive sign of that theology of "letting go" is no doubt the Sabbath that seeks to disengage, by bodily practice, the self from the imperial ideology of production and consumption. location 2141
one can imagine that the departure from the empire is fundamentally an economic one, a refusal to participate in the aggressive economy of accumulation with all its practices of credit and debt. location 2144
modest steps along the way to such radicality may open our eyes to further possibilities; and one never knows where the liberating presence of YHWH may lead. location 2147
the compelling power of empire makes regular, reiterative narrative performance of emancipation in liturgy indispensable. Loc 2157
Add a note
The capacity to utilize religious claims for the sake of political expansionism is a hallmark of empire. While Luther does not unpack the formula in that way, his use of the phrase "Babylonian captivity" rings true on that score. In empire—Babylon or any of its successors—everything is taken up in advancement for those who sit at the center of power. location 2362
Empires are about money initially, amassing, leveraging. There is still a lot of it in some quarters, even after the collapse of much of it. The high end need not be restrained. Because the lines are still organized to deliver for the controllers who refuse socialism but in fact thrive on it . . . a free stadium, free use of taxpayer money for those who know how to access. location 2428
see—in sequence—Babylon, Rome, and us, and then notice that empires never learn. location 2439
The empire intends to erase all local tradition and all local belonging and all local gospel. location 2504
There would be no "going home" from Persia, for everywhere Jews went, including back to Jerusalem, it was still Persia! location 2592
there. The deportees still had to participate in the Babylonian economy. They still had to obey Babylonian laws, acknowledge Babylonian authority. After an orgy of radical rhetoric one must still "come to terms." And coming to terms required a different way in the world of empire. location 2633
The different posture of Old Testament texts toward Babylon and toward Persia could hardly be more pronounced, even if the empires were in fact not that different. The dismissive polemics against Babylon have already been noted. Remarkably, there are no such explicit polemics against Persian rule in the Old Testament, not one. location 2637
suggest then that the texts reflect the change from a selfunderstanding of exile-restoration to one of accommodationresistance. The change is to be understood in terms of the change of imperial overlords and a changed choice of rhetoric from confrontation to engagement. Above all, the change reflects the good sense of those more concerned with sustaining the life of the community than with being heroes. location 2663
Daniel makes no concession to royal preeminence, but subordinates that arrogant imperial rule to the most elemental claim of the God of Sinai. It turns out, in this quick testimony, that mercy and righteousness—to the oppressed, no less!—is the wave of the future. Such a heavenly mandate violates and contradicts the most important passions of empire, for empires prosper primarily by exploiting the oppressed, transferring the wealth and well-being of the many to the few. The narrative ends with a moment of imperial sanity when even the great brutal empire can sing in Jewish cadences, almost as if converted: location 2799
Note: sanity and conversion. a story then of successful spiritual direction towards a corporisation?
Given a food monopoly, Joseph, on behalf of Pharaoh, confiscates the land and the means of production of the peasants and reduces them to slavery (Genesis 47:19-26). The trajectory of Joseph's rise to power in Egypt has rightly been termed by Leon Kass the "Egyptianization" of Joseph: "Joseph uses his administrative authority to advance the despotic power of his master. Joseph's rise to full Egyptian power is, to say the least, highly problematic, both in itself and in its implications for the future of the Israelite way."Read more at location 2864
consideration of these four narratives indicates that Jews experienced a complex relationship with the empire, one that admitted of no single or simple solution. It is in any case clear that the shared assumption of these narratives is that we are remote from a model of exile and restoration. These characters are not going anywhere; they are not departing the Persian Empire. Rather, they must use their agility, shrewdness, and patience to come to terms with Persian power and mobilize that power to work for their own wellbeing.These narratives suggest a variety of modes of accommodation and defiance of empire. • Ezra and Nehemiah mange to harness the resources and authorizations of the empire for local initiative; their hidden script emboldens them to tell the truth about imperial exploitation. • Daniel, in his wisdom, moves from an initial act of disciplined defiance and exhibits enormous authority in rescuing the empire, having found ways both to defy and to instruct the empire. • Joseph, at the other extreme, embraces "Egyptianization" (or in context we may say "Persianization"), whereby his Jewish identity is radically submerged in the management of imperial power and resources. • Esther dares to exhibit her Jewish identity and wins over the empire to care for and protect her people. The common theme is boldness, daring, and imagination that are to be enacted in a variety of strategies. All of these narratives underscore the importance of intentionality in the local tradition, and refusal to forgo that identity, though the refusal is perforce sometimes understated and opaque. location 2917
is a matter of editing the script of displacement; perhaps we may risk a slight revision of the famous "Serenity Prayer" commonly credited to Reinhold Niebuhr: Give me the dignity to accommodate, When accommodation is the only option; Give me the courage to resist, When identity depends upon it; Give me the wisdom to know when to resist and when to accommodate. I suggest a viable gospel posture amid empire.
Out of Babylon
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