Vigil: Freedom
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November 6, 2023
The prophets began with truth telling, but this was so that deliverance from evil could occur. We ask God for this each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer. Emancipation is the next step in the prophetic task. Christ has set us free for freedom (Galatians 5:1). But we will never seek emancipation until we see evil as “the Big Lie” that seeks to destroy us. We never leave something until we see the it as insufficient or oppressive. [1]
That requires a new mindset, an altered consciousness. So, in the midst of calling out sin, the prophets call for repentance. Repentance is ‘metanoia’—literally an enlarged mind, the mind necessary to see evil for the death it is, and to see emancipation in Christ for the life it is. Jesus carried on the prophetic task which John the Baptist began (in concert with the prophets before him) when he said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2, 4:17). In the same spirit, Jesus later said he wanted his followers to have eyes that see and ears that hear (Mark 8:18).
Repentance is the means for seeing and hearing “the Big Lie” for what it is, and the way to embrace the Truth, which Jesus called the kingdom of heaven. Repentance is emancipation from the “small mind” of oligarchy, and moving into the “large mind” of Christ. Imperialism can only survive by keeping our minds small. So, it undermines educational diversity, sanitizes history, and demeans intelligence by calling it “wokeness.” Imperialists do not want your mind to be any larger than theirs, and they bully and caricature any who outgrow them. Imperialists try to convince us they are the smartest people around (even “smarter than the generals”) when the truth is, they are not. Imprisoned in their smallness, the only world they know, they want everyone else to be small too. Demagogues are little people who stay in power through the money and votes of other little people
Emancipation through repentance is the exit door out of imperialist obscurantism and fallen-world entrapment. [2] Prophets, then and now, have known this. So, they keep watch, inviting us into liberation.[3] Vigil is an invitation to freedom. Run for it!
[1] Richard Rohr, ‘What Do We Do With Evil? (CAC Publishing, 2019). ‘Onening Joyrnal’ Vol 3, No 1 is devoted to the theme of “Emancipation” (CAC Publishing).
[2] Walter Brueggemann, ‘The Emancipation of God: Postmarks on Cultural Prophecy’ (Fortress Press, 2024). To be published on January 30, 2024.
[3] Miguel A. De La Torre, ‘Resisting Apartheid America: Living the Badass Gospel’ (Eerdmans, 2023). This is the third book in a trilogy that exposes faux Christianity. The previous two are, ‘Burying White Privilege’ and ‘Decolonizing Christianity.’