Reader

We are now at the place where the experience of more and more people is that the institutional empire’s protection is disappearing. The so-called well-being and safety that the system provides are now reaching their limits. We see limits to the planet, to jobs, to our health, to our children. They come in the language of student debt, income inequality, lower than expected health measures, pockets of deep unemployment, concern for the environment, balance of payments, stalemated politicians, and wars without end. It’s clear that the idea— supported by all of our elected officials, business and activist leaders, and the media— is to try to get back on the market and system track. The answer is growth. Growth, growth, and more growth.  

In other words, we think that the force that took us to the limit is the solution. That what we need is more of a consumption-driven economy. Every public narrative is on that track, the track that led to the cliff. The free market consumer ideology has so captured our discourse that anybody who speaks of any other approach sounds like a nut. Especially in elected office.

Finding the right politicians, regardless of their beliefs, will make a difference, but only in limited ways. We will find the right politicians as soon as we have reclaimed own place in the wilderness. No need to worry about the politicians at this moment, because they are a product of our consciousness. We are creating them.

Take a moment and re-read the above quote and ask, where do I feel at the cliff? What are the products of my scarcity consciousness? Where am I made angry, excited, defeated or deflated by this assessment. Next take a step and ask, is there a way I can live differently in relationship to this Wilderness? How do my limits inform what is possible? Rather than seeing the an economic system that depends upon scarcity as a given, how might I see the wilderness as a place of new promise. What if there were no perfect growth model to return to but rather a freedom-of-mind to see the stranger and neighbor as a part of my own life and wellbeing?

Block, Peter; Brueggemann, Walter; McKnight, John. An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture(pp. 31-32). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

It is impossible to imagine that in the system of Pharaoh there could ever be any restfulness for anyone. Most remarkably Israel, in the narrative, finally is delivered from Pharaoh’s anxiety system and comes to the wilderness; there Israel is given bread that it is not permitted to store up. But even more remarkable, even in such a marginal context, with daily need for bread that is given for the day, provision is made for the Sabbath. Israel cannot store up bread for more than a day; except (big “except”!) on the sixth day Israel may store up enough for the seventh day so that it can rest on that day (vv. 22–24). This unexpected provision is surely a sign that this bread for life is not under the demanding governance of Pharaoh; it is under the sustaining rule of the creator God. Even in the wilderness with scarce resources, God mandates a pause for Sabbath for the community

In today’s media saturated culture we bring the scarcity mindset of Egypt into our weekends, into our rest. Some people are able to do this through a break in technology. Consider talking with your partners or a close friend about taking a day to leave the smartphone on the desk. Or consider talking with colleagues on your projects about hours when you are not expected to answer text messages or respond to social media pushes. No matter how scarce the resources may seem for your work, and how demanding, have the courage to hold brave conversations with others in your life about the boundaries of empire and working.

Brueggemann, Walter. Sabbath as Resistance, New Edition with Study Guide: Saying No to the Culture of Now . Presbyterian Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The real “miracle” of the bread from heaven was not in its appearance. What was so radically different from Egypt was this bread’s dailiness. The unique habit forming significance of the “Wonder” bread was the specific instruction that the Israelites were not to take more than one day’s supply.

“They did not listen to Moses; some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, as much as each needed; but when the sun grew hot, it melted (from Exod 16:20–21).” The stored-up bread bred worms. It smelled bad. It melted. It would not last. “Wonder” bread lacks preservatives, because it is given daily, enough but not more, enough so that none need hunger. The bread of heaven is a contradiction to the rat race of production; the creator God who presides over the bread supply breaks the grip of Pharaoh’s food monopoly; food is freely given outside the economic system that functions like an Egyptian pyramid with only a few on top of the heap.

It is a challenge to see the wilderness as a place of enough. When we experience generosity, it is tempting to hoard it for ourselves, certain that my security tomorrow depends on my accumulation today. It is so very difficult to change the habit of scarcity, and so even great generosity rots in our individualistic hands, when we chose to isolate ourselves from others in need.

What is one way to rehabituate our fear of the future, trading it for a trust that any generosity we experience now could very well continue. How can you make the most of your daily bread, while noting opportunities to share with others who are in this present?

Brueggemann, Walter. Journey to the Common Good (pp. 17-18). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

In the Exodus narrative, the children of Israel left Egypt and entered a wilderness where they were fed daily by bread that appeared each morning like dew.

Now it takes little imagination to see that this narrative of bread in the wilderness is a very different sort of narrative contrasted with that of the exodus. The exodus narrative is credible and realistic, all about exploited cheap labor and escape from an impossible production schedule. Compared with that, this narrative of bread from heaven is a dreamy narrative that lacks that kind of realism. But then, consider that there is something inescapably dreamy and unreal about inexplicable generosity. When we hear of it we wonder about it and doubt it, because it does not fit our expectations for a quid pro quo world. Indeed, about such divine generosity there is something so dreamy that we reserve for it the special term miracle, something outside the ordinary, something that breaks the pattern of the regular and the expected, something that violates the predictable.

When we escape the routines of scarcity, it takes days and days to change our habits, and years and years to change our thinking. In the 40 years of the wilderness, the former slaves were going through a reorientation, rooted in generosity.

Consider all the ways that scarcity has warn you down- in work, in tierless drawn out fights, perhaps in experiences of marginalization. These feelings of scarcity do not go away overnight. This is not only true for you. It is true for all neighbors who will join you in the wilderness. And for you or them, what will be needed to develop that deep transformation is a generosity that will not quit.

Who do you know that you could be generous with today? Not someone you could “help” in exchange for their effort. Not simply someone who has “earned a hand up.” What small miracle of generosity could you build into your daily habit to retrain your own mind about abundance, and to make it possible for this stranger to sustain the long renewing process of wilderness life. What if you are someone’s dreamy generosity?

Brueggemann, Walter. Journey to the Common Good (p. 15). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.