They are just stories
The Garden of Eden
Cain and Able
Noah and the flood
The Tower of Babel
And yet
As the very human writers of the Bible
Spin their tales
An ever-clearer picture of what Sacred is like
Emerges, slowly
From a primitive God who punishes
And wipes the slate clean
To a God who works through human creatures
To bring forth a better society
I love the story of the Tower of Babel
Where human ambition meets God’s love of equity and
equality
Where God
“refuses to support a pyramid economy
With a few at the top and the masses at the bottom”
(Brian McLaren)
I love how from the beginning
God reveals God’s self as One who prefers
Equity over privilege
Equality over dominance
Peace over violence
Justice over injustice
From those early stories
Through the times of the prophets
To that revelation of God’s nature
That is Jesus
We see the thread of God challenging the human status quo
God, repeatedly disrupting the way things are,
To create a new thing
Something better
We see a God who opposes oppressors,
Lifts up the oppressed and the poor
Sides with the humble
Advocates for the vulnerable
For the orphan and the widow
The leper and the sinner
Nothing has changed
God is still the God of the small
The vulnerable
The excluded
God is still One who challenges the status quo
And refuses to accept our pyramid economy
Which creates obscene wealth and homelessness
And yet
Too many of us want to hang on to the status quo
We want a world in which some people (us) dominate
And other people (them) are controlled and used
We want to exclude those who make us uncomfortable
Because they are a different color
Speak a different language
Hold to a different Creed
Because they are queer
Or, in some other way
Don’t fit into our definition of acceptable
O God
We want to follow
But we are in over our heads
Our sin, as the Psalmist says,
Is ever before us
In that person we have judged and excluded
Or sought to control (for our convenience)
In that choice we have made to support the status quo
To walk the path of dominance
Help us O Holy One
Help us to rethink everything
Help us to see people in a different way
Help us to live life in a different way
Transform us
So we can help to transform the world
And join you
“in the good and beautiful things you are doing
To write a better story” (McLaren, Seeking Aliveness, p.
39)
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