In the last couple of weeks, I've found something that I wrote sometime during COVID that I completely forgot about. I don't mean that I found it and was pleased to be reminded of it. I mean that I read it and don't even remember writing it. One was a 20-page paper from a class (this one I *somewhat* remembered). But other one I found just now in my FB memories. And it gave me hope. I guess I actually wrote this just before the pandemic began, but just after a certain political event. Someone had asked me for something hopeful. Reading it back, it gave me hope today. I've edited it a bit for context, but thought I'd share it again for a couple of reasons: 1. maybe it'd give you hope; 2. someone recently asked what I meant by "postliberal" and while this does not do it justice at all, it is a start (my version, at least).
____
(from February 7, 2020)
Friend, I spent a night and day at Glastonbury Abbey again this week. Glastonbury encompasses many things, but one thing it does is remind me of an existing Christian community that transcends time and borders. Our Benedictine brothers are carrying on a tradition of prayer, hospitality, compassionate justice, and communal living that began well before democracy and will continue after it. As I sat in their early evening vespers (they pray five times a day...every day), it was another reminder to me that there is a pulsing heartbeat to be heard if only we have our ears turned in the right direction.
I’m absolutely writing from my Christian perspective and a certain one at that. Some will find that annoying. Others will find it incongruous or illogical because so many things labeled “Christian” have gotten us where we are. I lament that. I think the main thing I’d encourage as an effort to not lose hope...is to not put hope where it doesn’t belong in the first place.
When I read the following words nineteen years ago in seminary, they drastically changed my outlook on living as a Christian in the United States: “...for the idolatry most convenient to us all remains the presumed primacy of the nation-state.” I’ve gotten in trouble for repeating such things. Some people rebuked me and left our church when I said, “Someday, the United States will not be here, but the Kingdom of God will continue on.” I can only assume (and hope!) that those angry with me were so taken back by the first clause that they missed the second.
The same theologian said: “The problem with our society is not that democracy has not worked, but that it has...and the results are less than good.”
We're reminded in the early story of 1 Samuel that a King was not God's idea, but came from the people of God. God warned them (us). Yet we insisted: "But the people refused to listen to Samuel and said, “No! There must be a king over us so we can be like all the other nations.”
The United States is the most powerful nation-state of all time. It’s easy to think that hope rises and falls with it. And as far as systems go, that is true. But as far as hope for humanity, we follow a tradition that I believe says otherwise. To me, it’s all of confounding, confusing, frustrating, and yet perhaps now hopeful that Jesus rarely talks about the dismantling of systems. He seems to prefer action in the local, communal, and relational. Systems can chew up and spit out such things, as communal faith often appears weak and ineffective toward the system. Yet it’s the hope on to which I hold.
It’s why I prefer the postliberal narrative perspective, a lens through which to view faith, the scriptures, and the world around us.* Some will accuse me of only being able to prefer such a narrative because of privilege and I wrestle with that as a possible truth. Yet as I study Jesus, it just seems to me that what he teaches and exemplifies is something that transcends the on-going political arena. It’s utterly frustrating to me that when the Vice President of Rome asked Jesus, “What is truth?”, he didn’t say a word. Talk about missing the opportunity to speak truth to power.
Anyway, this is getting convoluted and too long already and I haven’t even gotten to the hope yet. But sometimes, to get to hope and new life, we have to trudge the muck first.
The political powers-that-be paved the way for the killing of Jesus, be it the religious leaders-establishment (“the Church”, so to speak), the civic authority (Rome, the government), or the populace (you and me). And our narrative tells us that God turned all of it upside on its head through resurrection. That is an utterly ridiculous prospect. But it is the hope of the Christian story. All the “hope” that politics, government, and systems (even the religious ones) so tauntingly seem to offer actually give nothing of ultimate hope for the masses. Rather, a narrative of humility, relationship, incarnation, and local contextualized community result in new life. Even as I type it, it sounds ridiculous. But hopeful.
So, look for hope in your own relationships, your own home, your own neighborhood, and your own church. When the system or government (liberal, conservative...whatever) marginalizes those you actually know (family, neighbors, co-workers, etc.), do whatever is within your power to support and empower them and pray for those who are so distant you cannot help. Turn to your friends, your spouse, your children, the birds and flowers, the blessing of food/table/hospitality. Seek both to receive goodness and give it. Show people that there is a different way, particularly those with whom you are drawn to argue. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. And yes, speak up at the things of injustice, but don’t get lost in the fight.
It's not that we can’t work within the system. Indeed, we must. So speak up. Pay taxes. Vote (or give the power of yours to someone else if you can’t handle it). We just can’t place our hope in the system to save us.
It's not that a system or government can't resonate with the things of the Kingdom of God. It's just that they can't fulfill it.
But I’m off the path again. If you find yourself losing hope, ask yourself what/who it is in which you’re putting hope.
Retreat.
Recreate.
Reassess.
Reorientate.
Recalibrate.
____________
*Postliberal has little to do with the dominant liberal-conservative partisan political spectrum. It’s a philosophical term having to do with being “after liberalism”, with liberalism actually encompasses all ends of the political realm, seeing the liberal-conservative poles as two sides of the same coin.