A Stranger and a Sojourner in the Land

The Bible as Literature

What does it take to liberate people from exceptionalism? To liberate a teaching? Such a pernicious snare, that saying of yours, “family first.” It was your fear of losing the tribe that led you to elect a king and build a city against the will of God. So he sent his Shepherd to rescue his sheep from Cain's cities, to liberate his people and the Torah from the stone idols fashioned by Cain's sons.

For those who have stayed with me on the podcast all these years, let me say it plainly:

The idea that all people are created equal--an American principle--is beautiful and correct, but like the Torah, it is held hostage by identity politics. Like the preaching of the Cross under a Roman standard, it has been corrupted by a military-industrial nationalist agenda that feeds on the broken backs of impoverished women and children.

Nothing changes under the sun.

The Gospel of Luke is the Gospel to the Poor. It is a radical Gospel of Liberation. It this scroll of the Torah, the Lion of Judah, breaking free from the gilded prison of Herod's Temple--shattering the gates of brass--raging against you for your sake on behalf of the poor.

He who has ears to hear to hear, let him hear!

Still, the scroll of Luke is not a “liberation theology.” It is a warning that we must forsake what we have built, not build back again, but abandon what Cain built to roam freely with the Lion and in his land. As Paul said:

“For if I build again the things I have destroyed, I prove myself to be a sinner.” (Galatians 2:18)

To borrow a term from psychology--one that I've used before--prophetic preaching keeps the disciple in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance, unable to fall back on the natural human instinct to reconcile our innate hypocrisies.

The teaching of Scripture is not "God is love." The teaching of Scripture is "you are a hypocrite."

Until you submit to this repetitive literary frame, you can't hear what Moses said, let alone Jesus. You can't be set free. That is why the Qur'an took such great lengths to stress St. Paul's teaching of submission.

Because the “children of the book” are no such thing. They still belong to Pharaoh.

This week, I discuss Luke 7:11-16.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★