Third Sunday of Advent, "The revolution will not be televised"

4 Advent 3 BFC 2017

Isaiah 55:1-13

December 17, 2017

           

            Not too long ago a patent attorney out of Denver, who regularly studies and analyzes the media, published something she titled, “The Chart:  Version 3.0, What Exactly Are We Reading.”[1]  This chart made the rounds on Facebook, that’s where I saw it, and the chart claimed to show media bias.   Scanning from the left and receiving the categorization liberal “utter garbage” is the website “patrobotics.” On the other end of the spectrum on the right is the radio show “infowars” also considered “utter garbage.”   Much to my chagrin, much of the major network news media was considered to be somewhere in the middle, in other words less-biased than any other sources and with minimal political bias.  Yet, with each natural disaster that has happened from late summer into fall, not one of those national networks did an exposé on climate change in reference to hurricane or forest fire, mentioned climate change as a potential source for the more frequent occurrence of natural disasters, or referenced the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.  Also, in covering the national news, struggles for justice, fairness, and equity were portrayed on national networks only as battles between the President and Congress or regional judges, between Republican and Democrat, or about some poll that told us how the nation truly felt.  Not unlike Howard Zinn’s criticism, that we speak of U.S. history too often from the standpoint of individuals rather than people’s movements or community effort and struggle, the major network news media and what are considered left-leaning 24-hour news networks in CNN and MSNBC hardly ever turn to people’s movements or community effort and struggle to understand what is going on in the world.  They cover the powerful.  The chart showed them with minimal bias.

          I believe, as a result of this media covering only the powerful, we lose hope.  For those who oppose injustice and evil in the world must sit on their hands and wait for a special investigation, the next election, or the hope that some scandal will be unearthed to finally take down evil and corrupt leaders.  There is nothing wrong with being asked to collaborate through votes and phone calls but even when a movement creates great change through its organizing to get out the vote, that movement is then often promptly forgotten when the next cycle rolls around.  African-American satirist Michael Che read a tweet from Democratic National Party Chair Tom Perez who spoke of the number of African American women who acted as a movement to help procure the recent Alabama election for Doug Jones.   “Black Women led us to victory . . . and we can’t take that for granted.”  Che opined, “Mmmmm, but I bet you will!” 

          News and current events are happening, but they are forever happening outside of our grasp to do anything about them.  Even the most non-partisan, corporate news media sees us not as collaborators but as audience and consumers.  Or is that done to us?  Is that an intentional commercialization of the populace?

          Media critic and University of Illinois professor Robert McChesney begins many of his introductions to the history of the media in our country by talking about how those people who founded our republic actively used press subsidies, printing subsides, especially postal subsidies to spawn a much more diverse, wide open and democratic press.  Newspapers were sent out through the postal service, and Congress had a great debate.  On each side of the debate, people agreed that it was not good to pay full price for newspapers. One side believed that the newspapers should be totally free.  Others thought the newspapers should be heavily subsidized.  Both sides argued that If full price were charged, all the marginal, small, and dissent publications would not be able to survive.  And funding or subsidizing the media so that all voices might have equal access to providing and interpreting the news was considered an important part in building a democracy.[2]  These aggressive, governmental policies, some might say socialist in their practice, were done because the government wanted the citizenry to be collaborators in governing, not bystanders, not consumers, not an audience.  Such practices educated everyone for democracy. 

          This week I found myself explaining to Sophia the meaning behind the phrase, “the revolution will not be televised,” the great lyric from African-American writer, Gil-Scott Heron:

The revolution will not be right back after a message 
About a white tornado, white lightning, or white people
You will not have to worry about a germ on your Bedroom
a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight the germs that cause bad breath
The revolution WILL put you in the driver's seat
The revolution will not be televised

We lose hope because we are told time and time again that we are to be the audience and the consumers of the revolution and not the collaborators with it.   We feel helpless sitting on our hands, unable to effect change or create space for our voice or other voices. 

As hopeless as it might seem, when we put ourselves in the struggle outside the halls of power, in the driver’s seat, sometimes even when we realize how futile the work is, my experience is that we will still stand arm in arm with sisters and brothers, siblings and cousins who share courage with us.  Even when we realize how futile the work might be.  For we begin to see God at work with us and hope builds that something deeper is being stitched together.

          That is the purpose of the Lord’s Prayer we say every Sunday.  We pray for God’s collaboration, we pray that we will be good collaborators, in a community prayer that asks God to participate in making earth like heaven.  In this way, John Dominic Crossan talks about God as the great electricity and it is up to us whether we want to plug in![3]  And it is God’s great hope that we will participate, join in, collaborate to bring about God’s new day. 

          In the same manner, Scripture writing and tradition was like the media of the ancient world.  The storytellers, poets, and writers of Scripture intended to offer an interpretation of current events, the news.  And their interpretation and message were often an attempt to offer an alternative to the ruling class’s telling of the news which communicated that political, religious, and economic elite was large and in charge.  In Isaiah 55, the reader or the listener is invited to participate in the prophetic word, a prophetic word that remembers God’s freely given abundance.  Listen to the verbs: “come,” “buy,” “eat,”, “listen,” and “delight.”[4]

          The ruling class’s media coverage is like a backdrop to our Scripture verse today..  God’s offering of a free gift to all the people is in contrast to what many of the Babylonian exiles may have learned—that certain rights and privileges are only available to the politically and economically powerful persons. 

The subversive political import of the invitation of these verses shouldn’t be missed. Waters, wine, milk, and bread were the most elementary blessings of the Promised Land, blessings that God here offers as a free gift to all of [the]people, irrespective of their social rank or economic wealth. The whole nation is elevated to enjoy royal privileges and promises. By this decisive action, God indicates [a] determination to oppose and overthrow the injustice and oppression of the politically and economically powerful persons among the people.[5]

Hebrew Scripture scholar Walter Brueggemann believes this Scripture passage is addressed to elite Israelites who were forced into exile into Babylon and came to terms with the quid pro quo economy where everything had a price.  As a result, they struggled with their own Jewish identity that was based on God’s gifts given in abundance in covenant.  As the exile ended, these Jewish cooperators with the Babylonian ruling class may have longed to return to Jerusalem, where they were called to live as collaborators in God’s abundance by loving their neighbor, but Babylonian practice had gotten into their bloodstream, become a part of them.  These Jewish cooperators then had difficulty squaring their identity.  The message of the text is to ask these returning exiles to be conscious of how they now long and yearn for the production and consumption of Babylon to see that they “work for things that do not satisfy” and consume “that which is not bread.” These Babylonian ruling elite practices only lead to a breaking of neighborliness and community so that we are constantly striving, safeguarding, and promoting only our own program leading to a lonely fatigue, disappointment, and despair.  God gives free water, free wine, free milk, and free bread but are you good with that when your elite status confers makes you believe you earn it over and against your neighbor?  Are you loyal to the Babylonian economy or to God’s economy?  Is the media right when they repeat the Babylonian news that goods are scarce, a few are favored through their hard work and exceptionalism, and that we best build bigger walls to protect it all in fear and anxiety?

          Or is there the slow and steady work, arm in arm, that will not be televised?  The poet in this Scripture verse offers an alternative to the quid pro quo of the Babylonian economy which seems to be the only one repeated in the media today. The Babylonian economy says we have to mine it, milk it, use it, grow it bigger, suck all the good out of it or it has no value.  It is not a something unless it gives us something tangible in return.  Are Bears Ears and Grand Staircase only of value in a quid pro quo economy or do they represent the gifts given in abundance by a loving Creator?  Do they have value in and of themselves as gifts of God?

The poet says that generous abundance of God offers an alternative to the Babylonian economy.  This abundance, given in covenant, breaks with the mainstream media in a participation and a collaboration with neighborly justice.  As Walter Brueggemann writes, “This alternative breaks the harsh demand of quid pro quo. It recognizes that there are neighbors who are entitled to generosity. This abundance knows that healthy social relationships depend on generous hospitality. This abundance consents that instead of score-keeping quid pro quo, large acts of forgiveness are in order, large acts that include cancelation of the debts of the poor.”[6]  As God gives abundantly, so we are moved, in covenant, to act in collaboration. 

I think I am much like those Jewish elites who are caught between two news stories.  One has been told to us so often that we think it is the only way.  We have to get something for it.  Our program has to carry the day.  All of our fear and anxiety have us worried that we will never get ours unless we go out and grab it.  We end up joyless and frazzled with work that does not satisfy and that which is not bread. 

There is an underground narrative, one that is bubbling up, one that reminds us what abundance we have been given by the Creator so that we stand arm in arm with each other and look across the table to see that the burritos, the bread, the grape juice, the milk and honey we share is being eaten with a smile.  Joy begins.  We know that we are not alone.  And God, God seeks our delight, our collaboration in holy covenant so that we all might live in the Promised Land.  There will always be evil despots, cruel kings, and greedy presidents.  Do not concern yourself with the news they wish you to know.  Rather, find a way to lay your ear to the ground for the movements and struggles which are creating economies of neighborly justice and celebrating God’s abundance.  It will not be televised.  But all we have to do is join the struggle, find the movement, to get the latest breaking news. Let us begin.  Amen.   

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[1] November 8, 2017, http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exactly-are-we-reading/.

[2] “The Problem of the U.S. Media:  U.S. Communication Politics in the 21^st Century:  Interview with Robert McChesney,” Democracy Now!, April, 23, 2004.  https://www.democracynow.org/2004/4/23/the_problem_of_the_media_u. 

[3] John Dominic Crossan, The Greatest Prayer:  Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer (San Francisco:  HarperOne), 2011.

[4] Juliana Claasens, “Commentary on Isaiah 55:1-5,” Preach This Week, August 3, 2008.   http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=96.   Patricia Tull remarks how this is in contrast to the politics and the economics of the Exile:  In light of this passage, it’s worthwhile to consider the economics of food and water. In Lamentations 5:2-4, conquered people had complained of the high cost of what had once been available for free:  Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to aliens.  We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.  We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought.  http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1564.

[5] Alastair Roberts, “The Politics of God’s Plenty (Isaiah 55:1-5),” Political Theology Today, July 28, 2014.  http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/the-politics-of-gods-plenty-isaiah-551-5/. 

[6] Walter Brueggemann, “A Covenant of Neighborly Justice: Break the Chains of Quid Pro Quo,” OnScripture-The Bible, February 28, 2016.  https://www.onscripture.com/covenant-neighborly-justice-break-chains-quid-pro-quo.