Still in Pharoah’s
Fields: Pentecost 2008
Acts 2:1-21; Numbers 11:24-30; 1
Corinthians 12:3b-13;
John 20:19-23; Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Pentecost is perhaps the first festival appropriated from an ancient
tradition to serve the purposes of the new Christian Way. In the
midst of the celebration of “the Church’s birthday,” with glib
assertions that “Christ is our Passover,” thoughtful Christians may
want to consider that the Jewish Festival of Weeks was really about
life after liberation.
See Leviticus 23:15-21. Fifty
days after the commemoration of an archetypal deliverance from
oppression and injustice, the Hebrew people were directed by the
priests (God’s representatives) to make holy offerings of grain, bread,
lambs, and incense. In a very practical acknowledgment of the
normalcy of human civilization after liberation is accomplished, the
purposes of the ritual sacrifices were for sin (a goat), and for
well-being (two male lambs). After that, it was party time, and
work was forbidden. But just in case the people might forget why
they were liberated in the first place, the priests made it clear that
“when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very
edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall
leave them for the poor and for the alien: I am the Lord your God.” In
the midst of a holiday, certain that sins had been forgiven and that
future well-being was assured, the people remembered that God’s
kingdom, God’s reign, God’s imperial rule, means that God’s people live
in distributive justice-compassion.
What is missing from most Christian Pentecost celebrations is a sense
of purpose, ownership, liberation, and commitment. Theologically,
Jesus’s death and resurrection supposedly replace any need for a
“scape-goat” as a sacrifice for sin, and reconciles humanity with God’s
realm of distributive justice-compassion. But sin, and guilt
about sin, continues to plague church-goers, as though Jesus’s death
and resurrection didn’t really do the trick. The reconciliation
that Jesus’s life and teachings illustrated was a profound
one-ness with a kenotic god,
in a realm of distributive justice-compassion. Such an
identification with God’s Kingdom conveys a sense of integrity, and
thus the power to address systems of injustice. Sacrifice then
becomes a symbolic action that bears witness to a transformed
life. But post-modern Christians are separated from God’s realm,
unable to open our eyes and ears and look and listen. Most of us
have no personal stake in the conditions in which we live, or in which
we observe others to be living. We have reduced “sacrifice” to an
“offering” of money. We are unable to act with personal power.
The liberation struggle – for the ancient enslaved Hebrew population of
Egypt and for any population held in thrall anywhere in anytime – is
first to realize that one is indeed oppressed. Those who
collaborate with the oppressors (bibically, “tax collectors and
sinners”) are especially prone to blindness about the extent of their
involvement. The end begins to justify the means. Fruit
growers and small farmers, priced out of the market, sell their land to
developers and commodities speculators. Employed single mothers,
with no skills, keep quiet about unsafe working conditions and
below-minimum wages. High-priced law firms construct elaborate “Chinese walls” around the
bankers on the third floor who fund the real estate developers on the
4th floor, supposedly preventing leaks of information to the litigators
on the 2nd floor, who are representing plaintiffs of unfair business
practices. All are “enablers” of oppression, just as those whose
friends or family members are addicted to drugs or gambling or alcohol,
but cannot bring themselves to intervene. The struggle with
denial and personal justification becomes a struggle against
depression, apathy, and victimhood. After that, comes the
struggle to realize that something can and indeed will be and is being
done about the oppression. Only after reaching the depths of
despair, the bottom of the addictive cycle, the nothingness and the
void, is it possible to turn around – repent – and find the way out
into the light once again.
The commemoration of liberation must include the acknowledgment and
acceptance of the bitterness of existence under oppression. Only
after that experience is it possible to celebrate forgiveness of sin,
the grace of God’s kingdom of distributive justice-compassion, and the
certainty of future well-being. The original Pentecost festival
was held after the commemoration of liberation in the Feast of the
Passover. For the primordial Hebrew people, God brought
deliverance from injustice by direct action in the world. For the
new Christian movement, God’s direct action was manifested in the life,
teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
So once the Passover commemoration is complete – including the
acknowledgment of the bitterness of the oppression and the wandering in
the wilderness of uncertainty about what to do about it – then it is
time for true celebration. The spring mowing is done, and the hay
is gathered. The fields are cleared and the seed is sown.
The first spring vegetables and berries are ready for harvest.
The time of hope has come. Party On! But don’t forget the
ones who still live in oppression – the widow, the orphan, the alien
seeking hospitality.
If the New Testament is interpreted as the actualization of the Old,
then Moses’ wish in the passage cherry-picked from Numbers that all the
people could be prophets comes true on the day described by the writer
of Luke/Acts. The Holy Spirit, first given by John’s Jesus,
descends in tongues of flames on the Christian community gathered in
Jerusalem. They are empowered to tell the story of Jesus – the
new paschal lamb – in every language of the known world. Peter
quotes the prophet Joel, that everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord shall be saved. Paul proclaims, “For in the one Spirit we
were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and
we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”
The imagery of fire represents the outpouring of the presence of sacred
being and of creative power. Fire transforms, destroys, purifies,
enlightens, inspires, and protects. But post-modern, “first
world” people have no experience or appreciation for that kind of
power. In order to live with and through the Pentecost fires –
whether of ancient commitment and sacrifice, or of the certainty of a
transformational message – would-be prophets must remember that fire
does not care what feeds it. Fire can be fed by injustice as well
as justice-compassion. Perhaps that is why the ancient Priests
were careful to remind the people to leave something for the poor and
for the alien seeking hospitality in a hostile world. Prosperity
can obscure the truth about one’s condition.
Most Americans, Christian or not, have no concept of the struggle for
true liberation that continues world-wide. Vast numbers of
humanity are oppressed by imperial regimes, and by the unwitting and
unwilling supporters of those imperial regimes. Prophetic voices
have recently suggested that American society also suffers from
imperial oppression. Wherever there are shortages of what is
required for sustainable living, oppression exists: health care
(not dependent upon commercial health insurance); affordable, safe,
housing; healthy food. The ground-breaking work done by the Union
movement of the 1930s for protections for all workers has been all but
overturned. Meaningful work that pays a living wage is
non-existent in many areas of the country. Women especially are
oppressed in this regard, as they earn seventy cents on the dollar
compared to men in comparable positions. Workers in many
low-paying industries and service-sector jobs must comply with
unreasonable working hours and dangerous conditions. As for
strictly “political” oppression, the U.S. Supreme Court has now opened
the flood gates to state restrictions on voter registration; the
Transportation Safety Administration – using soft lights and soothing
music – lulls airline passengers into ignoring the fact that the new
total body “security” scan is a violation of the 4th Amendment to the
Constitution; arbitration clauses attached to everything from
automobile purchases to credit card agreements prohibit the right to
jury trials; equal protection under the law is denied to anyone deemed
an “illegal immigrant.”
The ones still living in oppression are not the ones who do not yet
know that Jesus is Lord. The ones still living in oppression are
those trapped in various aspects of empire: those who believe that
loyalty to a political system is paramount; who believe that love of
country can only be expressed with some outward sign such as a pin or
scarf or loyalty oath; those who take government assurances of personal
security at face value, and believe that if they have nothing to hide
they have nothing to fear from imperial authority.
21st Century American Christians are hardly ready to celebrate a true
Pentecost. We’ve not yet left Pharoah’s fields.