“People who rest their lives in promise do not make good consumers.”
Walter Brueggemann bases this claim on his reading of Israel’s – and by extension, the church’s – stories, which he loosely groups as stories of promise (e.g., the blessing of Abraham), deliverance (e.g. the Exodus) and sustenance (e.g., the provision of manna in the wilderness). In brief, the people of the God of Abraham are people who obey - i.e., they completely subject all of their desires and actions to God’s covenantal stipulations – in hope – i.e., they confidently expect that God will soon make sense of this world and bring creation to some good end and that until then God will sustain them with plenty.
Consumerism, also, is carried along by stories. But instead of stories of promise and deliverance and sustenance, it tells stories acquisition and resignation and scarcity. For those who buy into these stories, obedience is impossible because hope is dead. Instead of hope, they are possessed only by fear.
What do you make of Brueggemann’s claim? If he’s right, what are we to do about it?
I would think that part of truly understanding what he is saying (before even deciding whether it is right or wrong) is to know what it would be like to actually have to fully rest on promise. In the wilderness, God provided or they perished. I don’t know what that is like. My middle-class, caucasion, american status does not require promise. I guess for right now, I’m either not resting in promise as much as I think, or I’m not as good of a consumer as I think.
Consumerism, thus displayed.
Precisely.
ouch.
Jill you rightly say, “my middle-class, Caucasian, American status does not require promise” I’d only add- what you well know- no status- from bohemian to bourgeois, aristocrat to artesian, peasant to priest requires promise. Statuses- (social- political- relational- familia)- to use your term- are most often and most “naturally” nurtured and sustained not from within the human faith apparatus nor from the activity of faithing, but rather from those particular aspects of our turning that require a proof- a guaranteed reciprocity- a measureable exchange- those that economize involvement according to risk analyses and cost-benefit scenarios. The poorest of the poor are no more adept at “resting in promise” than those whose wealth cannot be undone in a generation, their positioning no more virtuous or vitriolic. The condition is human.
What then overcomes these elementary aspects of our natures? Love. Concerning love, Paul said it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love is the only way of interacting with another and the world that does not consume. And if we act any way toward one another that is not in love then we are consuming. Only love can unfear us enough that we become consumable, and in doing so love can makes us the very worst kind of consumer those that are taken advantage of- those that buy hi and sell low- those that give up everything for seemingly nothing- those that take risk wherever everyone else sees only loss, lose and dare to say they did not- “those that are penniless but who say they own the world.” Love makes us horrible consumers because love promises us Love.
Teal,
You make a great point. Even in the wilderness, the Israelites did not rest in promise. Even when it was quite certain that God would provide (as God had done continually during and since Egypt) they still grumbled and complained. They longed for bondage that provided what they “needed” without promise. Bondage was the easier road; freedom was too burdensome.
Jill,
The Wilderness scehma is well placed. It provides us with a powerful Jungian motif for our living and moving in this reality as people belonging to another. Our temptation is very much like you stated – to return to Egypt. To be certain again of what our daily requirements look like- to know without doubt what we must do for bread, to see without shadow how we are permitted to live. Egypt has been made symbolic for its bondage and rightly so. It was just as beastly in causing the people of the promise to Forgot. “And a pharaoh rose up who knew not Joseph” could have as easily been “And a generation rose who knew him not.” Our hope must be a constantly remembering of what is happening. God is no longer out there he is (in) here and he is the consuming fire. And this all-consuming God- will and is consuming us- all of us- in a way that destroys all that is not and retains all that is- in a way that is transforming us slowly and unfolding us newly. We have become part of that eternal burning- Jesus has judged us all, and he has said of us all- Forgiven, Pardon, Acceptance, Returned, Reconciled, Adopted, Justified, Mine. He has domonstrated for us all that God loves us in a way that that infinitely ignites itself –not for love of self- but for love of another. He is making us consumable in that way that is like him- in that way that loves not as a celebration of love- but as a celebration of another. Let us as you say it not be fooled into paying the toll to travel those easier roads; and let us not fear the burden of freedom- that glorious certain uncertainty- let us redeem the time we have with love one for another- for enemy, stranger, friend, neighbor, sister, brother. Let us burn with God consuming sin as we are consumed not by sin, but by love. Only Love allows us to live in such a way.
Enough of my Johannie ideological mess.