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The Exodus narrative describes a covenant in which the oppressed collaborate with “a force larger than themselves” to depart a system of anxiety to go out and create an alternative, Common Good.

The human cry evokes divine resolve. There is a divine resolve to transform the economic situation of the slaves. It is, at the same time, inescapably, a divine resolve to delegitimate Pharaoh and to wrest social initiative away from the empire. [Ancient Egypt’s] practice of exploitation, fear, and suffering produces a decisive moment in human history. This dramatic turn away from aggressive centralized power and a food monopoly features a fresh divine resolve for an alternative possibility, a resolve that in turn features raw human agency.

The biblical narrative is very careful and precise about how it transposes divine resolve into human agency. That transposition is declared in the encounter of the burning bush wherein Moses is addressed and summoned by this self-declaring God. The outcome of that inscrutable mystery of encounter is that Moses is invested with the vision of the slave community in its departure from the imperial economy. The words that go with the encounter are words of divine resolve:

“I have observed… heard… known… and have come…” (Exod 3:7–9 )

But the divine resolve turns abruptly to human agency:

“So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10)

The outcome is a human agent who can act and dream outside imperial reality. And dreaming outside imperial reality, that human agent can begin the daring extrication of this people from the imperial system.

Covenants are more buoyant than contracts for one reason: we trust that a larger force than our own conspires with us to accomplish the common good. What great exodus would you attempt if you know that your human agency would be met with divine resolve? What new act of community trust might you take if you saw that you were not isolated, or subject to the dehumanizing narrative of scarcity?

The free market consumer ideology promises a world of predictability and safety. It is repulsed by surprise and believes that all things are eventually knowable. It believes in the limitless possibility of development and growth. You must strive for perfection, “failure is not an option.” This applies to individuals, enterprises, and countries. Individuals are always a work in progress, enterprises grow or die, poor countries need to be developed by rich countries… Human suffering is solvable by better and more services. Planetary risks will be solved by technology…^[1]

Mystery, [however], is not a problem to be solved. Mystery is an opening to the unknown… Acceptance of mystery opens the door to a set of communal disciplines such as time, food, silence, and re-performance. These disciplines lead us on a path that begins and ends in mystery. Believing in mystery is the initial act of departure, the doorway to an alternative future. It’s an opening to creativity and imagination. It opens the door to a neighborhood or community organized by covenant.^[2]

In a life of perfection, we always need someone or something to blame for our imperfections. Alternatively, mystery – the suspension of solutions – becomes an opening into community and covenant. When we appreciate mystery we can opt for a slow meal, leave silent spaces free of talk, and take actions of generosity that don’t add up in the world of easy-answers, speed, and development.

What is a way you can perform mystery this week? Is there a meal you could host or attend that would slow you and others down from the rat race? Is there space you could make to sit with another to listen, without the need to explain or rescue? Is there space to paint, write, sing, or dance where the immediate outcome is not quantifiable. Where can you slow down and make space for something you hadn’t anticipated to emerge?

^[1]  Block, Peter. An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture (p. 3). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

^[2]  ibid p. 10

Scarcity is the deep belief that no matter how much we have, it is not enough. Therefore, more scale and growth is always required. Grow or die. The system of scarcity feeds on itself.

Alternatively to believe in abundance is to believe that we have enough … Even in the wilderness of an uncertain future. This thinking is a stretch of the imagination. It envisions social relationships in a different world, in a manna-based culture.^[1]

Try a shift of imagination. Notice in your home, business or an association or church you belong to. How is the story most often told about that place – is the story one of “grow or die” or “uncertain but abundant?” Do you see your fellow citizens as taking away the goodness of your community or contributing goodness in their own forms of generosity?

It is true that financial or physical insecurity belong to the realm of the unknown, seeming to lurk around the corner. That uncertainty is their power, if you feed it. In the face of such uncertainty, is there a way that you could choose, instead, to feed the possibility of abundance? Could you share a spare vegetable from the garden, loan someone a book or tool, offer an unused coupon or event ticket, or even a few hours of your time?

How might you sow seeds of abundant thinking this week?

^[1]  Block, Peter. An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture (p. 9). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

A culture of contest and contract regards everyone else as a competitor or a rival or a threat. So you never trust. It is a world that values dominance. A culture of covenant and neighborliness depends on trust. All the research and political theory about associational life says its base is trust. Money does not hold it together. The currency of contracts is money. The currency of covenant is trust. 

The neighborly covenant replaces contracts with vows, which are simply unspecified promises. We have to decide whether we will trust a person’s vow. If someone breaks a vow, there is no legal recourse as there is in a contract. When the Amish sold land, they wrote out the title deed, and the seller kept the document. The buyer, who normally takes possession of the deed, would hand it to the seller and say, “Well, why don’t you keep that, so it’ll remind you.

Trust is the glue of a communal narrative.

When was the last time you made a vow or promise to a neighbor or friend? Grab a pen and paper and just list a few people that come immediately to mind. What promises have you made to each other? What vows have your neighbors kept or broken with you?

How might you acknowledge that you are in a neighborly relationship with them, thanking them for their commitments and for the ways they’ve kept those commitments? And in the case where they or you may have broken a commitment, have you been able to remain in relationship? How might you acknowledge the gift of maintaining (or repairing) that relationship even after broken promises.

Radical economic transformation begins at our ability to build and maintain relationship beyond contracts or “what’s in it for me”.

There is no need to construct a world where we have to choose between systems and the communal path. There are limitations to localism, just as there are benefits to systems. The point is to overcome our isolation … 

We want to construct a communal world, one in which the functions that systems perform are congruent with what the community needs. When communities are fully functioning, when they are doing all the things they can do themselves, then we can re-discover what systems we need and what for. We might ask then: What would a system look like that built neighborliness and covenantal relationships? It could begin with the question of how a human services system can create for its own workers the same cultural experience that it is intending to bring into the world. This would enable systems to support the kind of communal culture we are exploring.^[1]

To seek the Common Good takes time, community, and patience. It’s not a simple choice, trading one transaction for another. It is not just a change to buying fair trade. Not a simple school transfer for our children. Not a better hospital, or better funding for NGOs.

Consider a “human service system” that you participate in (school, hospital, safety), and explore “How might I treat those in the system I engage with as neighbors with gifts?”

^[1] Block, Peter. An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture (p. 6). Wiley. Kindle Edition