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(Read this series from its beginning here.)
America’s chaos now is just another example of the narrative of scarcity, anxiety, accumulation, territorialism, and violence. We have a chance right now to move away from our most ugly impulses, to listen to our “better angels” as President Lincoln said. This is a moment with grave consequences. Will we work toward a more just future or will our nation continue to fail to live up to its high ideals?
With Jesus’ statement that it is the “Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom,” the author of Luke’s gospel is saying we don’t have to fight each other for our survival. We can come together and work together to ensure each of us has what we need. There is enough room at the table. This kind of belief frees Cains and Abels to no longer be oppressors or oppressed, but rather to be members of a radically new way of arranging life here on earth. In Jesus’ vision for human society, there is no more survival at someone else’s expense.
To use another story in Luke’s gospel (Luke 15), our call today is to reject the narrative of the “older brother” who cannot stomach the inclusion and celebration of his younger sibling. Reread the parable of the prodigal son through the lens of the Cain and Abel narrative. Luke’s Jesus, over and over again, is whispering to us that if any are left out, at last, it will not be because they could not achieve some privilege for themselves; instead, it will be because they could not accept the inclusion of someone else that they thought should be excluded. Embracing the “other” as a child of God too, as a fellow bearer of the image of the Divine, transforms all of us into the kind of people that can create a new world. We can bend the arc of our universe toward justice, but none of us can without transformation.
If this causes Cain-like responses inside your heart, I encourage you to spend some more time quietly contemplating this week’s passage in its context in Luke 12. We are all siblings. We are part of the same human family, all children of the same divine Parents.
Wherever this finds you this week, Jesus’ message to you is, “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give YOU the Kingdom.” There is enough manna for everyone. It belongs to all of us, as a gift. Stop standing in the way of others’ thriving. Believe that your own thriving is dependent on theirs. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are connected. Like it or not, we are part of one another.
A more just future is possible.
Now is our moment to choose to move toward it.
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