Our life's call: A Liturgy of Departure

In November, Greg and I attended the Neighborhood Economics Conference where Walter Brueggemann and Peter Block were keynote speakers.  At the conference, Brueggemann described the way of faith to be a "liturgy of departure" from the economy of Pharoah.  As I walk through this journey of Lent, I am reminded my own desire to resist the consumer culture around me and to live into a way of departure from or resistance to the lies of scarcity and consumption.  

So that I might share with you what I learned at the conference and what I continue to learn now, here are some highlights from Walter Brueggemann's keynote address on the Liturgy of Departure  I'd like to invite you to read and reflect on the following question:  "What does this mean for me? My neighborhood?" 

Pharoah’s economy (and by the way, Herod’s way is just a re-performance of Pharoah’s economy) is an economy of “Totalism”.  Pharoah’s economy is, “Make bricks.  Make more bricks.  Make bricks without straw.  Make more bricks.  Do not take a break.  Keep working.  Keep producing.  Keep making bricks.  These bricks will benefit Pharoah and the building of Pharoah’s reign.”  Totalism is defined by scarcity, anxiety accumulation, monopoly, and violence.  Pharoah’s law for the predatory economy is “be more productive.”  Those who are not more productive do not get resources.  It is coercive productivity.

The narrative of Totalism always leads to violence toward people who do not submit.

Pharoah is so anxious about losing his status, belongings, and authority that he chooses to kill his own work force, Hebrew baby boys. 

The Bible is the narrative of departure from Pharoah's economy of Totalism.

Interruption to the narrative of Totalism #1- Fearing God:  Two midwives, we even know their names, Shiprah & Puah, in the face of Totalism, they choose another way.  They choose to birth babies even though Pharoah’s decry is death.  The midwives feared God.  They did not accept the narrative of Totalism.

Interruption to the narrative of Totalism #2-  Ferocious Confrontation against Totalism:  Moses angrily kills the Egyptian slave driver. 

Interruption to the narrative of Totalism #3- The people brought their suffering and pain to speech.  They grieved a life that was not right. 

Interuption to the narrative of Totalism #4- The emancipatory God of the Bible heard and responded.  God does not appear until chapter 3 but when God does, we learn that those who confront Totalism are allied to God.  God’s preferential option for the poor is evident.  Human agents who run the risk of thinking, asking, and trusting outside the narrative of Totalism are God’s chosen ones.

When God’s people left Egypt, they arrived at Sinai (10 commandments).  These were 10 rules for neighborliness.  “Do not make God into a usable object.  Do not make your neighbor into a commodity.”

The story of the Exodus from Pharoah’s Totalism economy - What does this mean for us?

·   Walter Brueggemann:  “Our society has a deep hatred for poor people because they do not produce enough bricks to justify their existence. 

·    The church is generously repeating Pharoah’s predatory reading and not highlighting the generous neighborhood texts. (ex. Deut)  Why have we kept the Deuteronomical vision of a generous neighborhood hidden in our society?

·   The work of the church in departing from the narrative of Totalism includes:

o    Bring pain to speech.  Help the local community grieve the arraignment of power that is not acceptable.  Pain brought to speech brings energy.  Not bringing pain to speech=violence.

o   Ask yourselves the question, How do I/we participate in the narrative of Totalism?

o   Explore the ways in which there is meaning and human possibility outside of the narrative of Totalism.

o   Even the best of us are children of the narrative of Totalism.  We carry along in our bodies the burden of this tug of war between the dominant narrative from which we were born and what we know is of God.

o   Blessing:   Encouragement,  Affirming the other, Acknowledging God’s work.  The power of blessing is outside the narrative of Totalism.

o   The vocation of our common life is the endless capacity to depart from the narrative of Totalism.

o   How do we speak about sustenance of life outside of the narrative of Pharoah?  If you use Pharoah’s language and structure to describe, you’ll be co-opted back into Totalism.  So, the Bible uses imaginative images to describe hope and possibility.  The words we use reinforce our structures.  What language do you use to reinforce a narrative of Departure from Totalism?

o   Create liturgies of departure into an alternative world.  This can take place in a number of ways: routine, worship, the ordering of life, the work of the people.

o   Ask yourself, “What are the ways of performing the narrative of departure that we haven’t thought of?”

o   What are the ways in which Totalism seduces us and keeps us from the narrative of Departure?

o   Your work is the negotiation between two societies- Totalism and Departure/Neighborllness.  One of these societies has been made plainly visible in the church and society and one has been kept hidden.Why have we kept the neighborly economy texts (Numbers, Deut, Lev.) hidden in the church and society?   Read Deuteronomy 23-24 to refresh your memory on some of the neighborliness texts.

                  o   Articulate with utter clarity what the vision of God is, the radical vision.  Then and only                       then we can/will do the hard work to get there.  Name the future and show where it                              exists in the present.