we've got the best context in which to read The Bible because we live in a predatory economy that practices the unfair allocation of resources

I'M GOING TO EASE back into daily or nearly daily posting by starting with a short series going through a talk Walter Brueggemann gave to a group about how The Bible is a response to a predatory economy.  My rule for myself is that I have to transcribe the whole talk before I start posting the parts.  Then I will present parts of it with my own observations on it.  

I don't know who the group he was talking to was, I also don't know who "Peter" (Block)  he refers to is, though I would guess he's the pastor or leader of the group he's addressing.  If someone knows I'd welcome the context.  I will note that at the end, where he answers questions, some of the questions are audible and some are not, though his answers are.  I'll note which are which when we get to those.

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Well, I'm glad I get to be with you to talk a minute.

Three theses about the Bible.

- The first thesis is that the Bible, most of the Bible, Old Testament and, for Christians, The New Testament originated in a context of a predatory economy, that was extracting wealth  from vulnerable People to transfer it to powerful People.  And that was practicing unfair allocation of resources.

There was a lead story in the New York Times this morning, did you see it?  A long article saying that inequality is only going to get worse and worse and none of our efforts will do anything and the only thing that will disrupt it will be a war.  So that's the context in which we read the Bible.

- The second learning I've had about The Bible is that the Biblical Community, Israel and the early Church in the New Testament make a response to the predatory economy that is one of resistance and that proposes a neighborly alternative.  

- And the third learning I have had is that The Bible is best read in a context of a predatory economy. Which means we've got the best context in which to read The Bible because we live in a predatory economy that practices the unfair allocation of resources.  So that's an overview of what I've been learning of late.  And, then, what I want to do, cause The Bible does it, you have to reduce those theses to narrative, so Peter is going to have us tell stories after a while. The Bible is essentially, I propose, a series of stories about a predatory economy and the neighborly response to a predatory economy.

So the first and big story that governs all the other stories is the story of Pharaoh in Egypt.  Pharaoh may or may not have been an actual historical person.  But what Pharaoh is, he's a type or he's a metaphor,  He's a stand-in for all predatory economies.  And the story of Pharaoh is a story of a nightmare of scarcity and a policy of accumulation, the success of monopoly, and then as will always happen with monopoly, when accumulation ends in monopoly it always ends in violence.  

Predatory economies are intrinsically violent.  

Anyone who thinks that the tsunami of gun violence that the United States drowns in is unrelated to to the media and legally mandated  predatory economics that rule American life is a fool.  There is absolutely no distance between the one and the other nor the fact that it is the party of predatory economics.  The Republican-fascist party both in electoral politics and in the federal and state judiciaries are the ones who are preventing effective regulation of gun ownership and use and the champions of the predatory economy.  As I've pointed out a number of times, that is certainly not news to those groups who have been the focus of the predatory economy, Black People, Native Peoples, Women, and previously the specific target of that controlling violence.  The difference now is that middle-class White People are unable to escape it as the inequality cavalierly declared to be insoluble by the New York Times and also unable to escape the violence that the judiciary and the political rigging of our politics has expanded.   Of course what's needed to solve it is considered impossible to those who run and write the "paper of record" because they are totally invested in the predatory economy and what it needs to be imposed.

That story of Pharaoh is in the book of Genesis [the story of Joseph in Egypt].  And when you flip over into the first chapter of Exodus where we meet the Children of Israel who have become slaves it says that Pharaoh treated them harshly.  Which means they had incessant production demands because they had debts they couldn't pay and they had debts they couldn't pay because of Pharaoh's predatory policies.

So that's the context in which the most paradigmatic story of the Old Testament arises.  And Moses is the lead character in a response to that predatory economy.  And the Mosaic drama takes place in three parts, and you know those but it's useful to think about them because our response to the predatory economy might be in three parts.

First part is the Exodus narrative, which means the exit of the predatory economy.  And what Peter has taught me as you know is one way to exit the predatory economy is keep the money local.  That's an exit from the predatory economy, keep it out of the hands of the banks.   

The second moment in Moses's response is the incredible experience in the wilderness of abundant bread, abundant water and abundant meat.  They get water from a rock and bread from heaven and they got meat from quail.  The Bible doesn't explain any of that. But what The Bible affirms is that if you run the risk of getting outside of the predatory economy you move from frightened scarcity to inexplicable abundance. And the problem is that we cannot know that ahead of time.

The third moment in Pharaoh's work [he meant Moses's work, I believe] is at Mount Sinai in which he got the ten big rules for neighborliness.  The Ten Commandments were ten rules for neighborliness at the center of which is the Commandment about Sabbath.  Which is a rule to say do not bust your ass to gain approval from Pharaoh.  That's what Sabbath is about. And I have come to think that for our society Sabbath is the most important and most difficult of all of the Commandments. Because I go around saying if you want to keep Sabbath you have to turn off the NFL.  I said that at a wealthy Episcopal church in Charlotte a couple of Sundays ago and a priest started backing me off, "Well I think People ought to go to church before they go to the football game."  And then I found out the reason he was doing that was the owner of the team was in the audience.  So it was a little bit tricky about that.  

I will forego any more comment for now and give you this from Pops Staples.  

Peace To The Neighborhood