\n<\/p>\n
This is a 3 Part Story<\/p>\n
I have control issues. And when you like to be in control<\/a>, you don\u2019t like change. Why? Because when you change things on me, it\u2019s harder for me to make sure I know everything. And knowledge is power.<\/p>\n My wife is supremely creative. And when you like to create, you change things. Why? I don\u2019t know, I ask God that question every day. Creation, by definition, makes something new. And new things, by definition, are different than the old things. And so, to create is to change the status quo.<\/p>\n After reading Brueggemann\u2019s brilliant Journey to the Common Good<\/em> a few years ago, I realized the same pattern emerges in the Hebrew Bible. A pattern that painfully reveals that monarchical Israel has become oppressive Egypt. People in power, like, say, Egyptian Pharaohs, and Israelite Kings, will always be afraid of change and will always privilege the status quo. Why? Because the status quo is \u201chow things are\u201d and when you\u2019re in charge, you tend to like to keep things \u201chow things are.\u201d<\/p>\n And so God, creative as God is, seems to thrive on change. To change landscapes, oceans, hearts, possibilities, and alternatives. This cannot help but clash with those in power. As the prophets can attest. And so, the creative God is also the liberating God.<\/p>\n Here are some passages from Isaiah and then Brueggemann that have shaped my thinking:<\/p>\n \u201cSee, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.\u201d -Isaiah 43:19<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe 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.\u201d \u2013 Brueggemann on the Exodus in Journey to the Common Good<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe royal-temple ideology, embodied in royal claims of legitimacy, asserted and imagined that it was an indispensable vehicle for God\u2019s way and blessing in the world. . . The painful experience of [exile] made clear the inadequacy of . . . the royal-temple ideology.\u201d \u2013 Brueggemann on the Exile in\u00a0A Commentary on Jeremiah<\/em> <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cHis ministry evoked a passion and an energy that had disappeared in the old helplessness. Both his adherents and his enemies sensed the same thing: An unmanaged newness was coming, and it created a future quite different from the one that royal domination intended to permit.\u201d \u2013 Brueggmann on Jesus in Prophetic Imagination<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nPart 2: How Much Kings & Pharaohs Hate Change.<\/h2>\n
Part 3: How Much God Loves Change.<\/h2>\n