The Contented Fisherman
The rich industrialist from the North was horrified to find the Southern fisherman lying lazily beside his boat, smoking a pipe.
“Why aren’t you out fishing?” said the industrialist.
“Because I have caught enough fish for the day,” said the fisherman.
“Why don’t you catch some more?” asked the industrialist.
“What would I do with [them]?” responded the fisherman.
“You could earn more money,” was the reply. “With that you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and catch more fish.
“Then you would make enough to buy nylon nets. These would bring you more fish and more money. Soon you would have enough money to own two boats…maybe even a fleet of boats. Then you would be a rich man like me.”
“What would I do then?” the fisherman asked.
“Then you could really enjoy life,” the industrialist said.
“What do you think I am doing right now?”[1]
Progress
This insightful parable by Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello illustrates that, on the one hand, our culture predominantly assumes the superiority of bigger, faster, and more. Progress is good. But the parable also suggests that, on the other hand, our world’s preference for bigger, faster, and more, misses something. It pays attention only to what can be seen. It looks upon the most obvious material reality—in this case, boats, equipment, and most importantly riches. What the gospel of progress does not consider are the things that cannot be seen. Things like God and the heart and true contentment.
Is it a coincidence that, according to the World Happiness Report, in the last 15 years the wealthiest countries in the world have reported the highest rates of anxiety and depression? The people who have “progressed” the furthest, it would seem, are also the unhappiest.[2]
An
Ancient Distrust
If you were to visit Egypt today as a tourist, you would likely go to see the pyramids. They would be presented as one of the ancient world’s seven wonders, an enduring emblem of progress. You would be invited to marvel at the sight of what humanity had achieved thousands of years ago.
Yet how differently do the biblical writers look upon the very same phenomenon. For them, the magnificent constructions of Egypt are stained with blood and haunted by the memory of slavery. In fact, in the Bible we discover an ancient distrust of not only progress but also the very structure often credited with progress, namely a “kingdom”—or what we might call a human government or state. The first reference in the Bible to a kingdom is to Babel, which has a decidedly negative connotation to its name. Babel is where humanity first organized itself in rebellion to God. There they intentionally flouted God’s command to spread out and “fill the earth” (Gen 1:28), choosing instead to gather in one place and build a tower that would put them level with God (cf. Gen 11). But Babel does not only symbolize humanity’s organized rebellion against God. It also hints at the very roots of oppression and slavery. Its language of “brick” and “mortar” will next appear in the book of Exodus, where the Egyptian taskmasters ruthlessly impose hard labor on the Israelites and make their lives “bitter” (Ex 1:14). The progress of empire, it would seem, is linked to control and domination. The negative connotation of Babel extends beyond the forced construction projects and slavery of Egypt to the conquering force of Babylon, the kingdom with which Babel shares the exact same name (in Hebrew, Babylon is simply “Babel”). Babylon, as you may recall, is the kingdom that will destroy the temple in Jerusalem and forcibly relocate many Israelites in what is known as the exile.
All of this to say: the biblical writers look with great suspicion upon empire and its so-called progress. “Progress,” they might be heard saying, “but at what cost?” Indeed, our Disciples ancestor David Lipscomb interprets the name of Babel—which happens to form a Hebrew play-on-words connoting “confusion” and strife—as emblematic for all human government. He writes, “The effort by [humanity] to live without God, and to govern the world, resulted in confusion and strife from the beginning. It brings strife, war and desolation still.”[3]
“You
Shall Be His Slaves”
Today’s scripture represents the closest thing we have to a founding document for the nation of Israel. In this regard, we could compare it to the Constitution. Now, the founders of the United States were themselves distrustful of a government too centralized, of power accumulated in the hands of a few. They sought balance by dividing the power and providing means for each branch of government to check and moderate the other branches’ power. I’m not really qualified to offer any further political analysis. What I would like to point out is simply this. Our scripture today, as a sort of founding document, is historically unprecedented and unmatched in its suspicion toward human government. The triumphalism and optimism that normally accompanies such a founding document is completely absent. Instead there is a sense of tragedy. The people have rejected God as king (1 Sam 8:7). Even after hearing Samuel’s grave warning of the consequences of their choice, they double-down on their decision and insist, “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we may also be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles” (1 Sam 8:19-20).
The particulars of Samuel’s warning only amplify the sense of tragedy in this nation’s founding document. While the people apparently envision national greatness, progress, and security, with a king to govern their resources and lead them in battle, Samuel describes their reality in terms of its unforeseen costs. His warning is a litany of loss. He describes the various measures of government appropriation: the draft, taxes, confiscation of property, imposition of labor. All the while, he repeats a single, haunting refrain: “He will take…he will take…he will take…” (1 Sam 8:11-17). The culmination of Samuel’s warning, the final nail in the coffin, is devastating: “And you shall be his slaves” (1 Sam 8:17). Which is really to say, “You will be back in Egypt. You may think this is progress, with a king to make the nation bigger, faster, more secure. But in fact, you are going backwards.”
When
God Is King:
Slower,
Smaller, Less
I suppose we could read today’s scripture and conclude that human government and the progress associated with its institutional impulses is evil. It seems David Lipscomb may have drawn this conclusion, as he goes so far as to claim, “No human government can possibly be maintained and conducted on [the] principles laid down for the government of Christ’s subjects in his kingdom [in Matt 5-7]….A [person],” he continues, “cannot be gentle, forgiving, doing good for evil, turning the other cheek…, praying ‘for them that despitefully use and persecute’ [them], and at the same time [make demands on others and] execute wrath and vengeance on the evil-doer, as the human government is ordained to do, and as it must do to sustain its authority and maintain its existence.”[4] David Lipscomb goes rather far in his conclusions.[5] While I am intrigued by his thinking, I do not intend to go so far myself.
Today’s scripture, however, does give me pause. The biblical writers’ distrust of empire and its so-called progress does give me pause. (As it should, I think. I recently read and was quite moved by the Message’s translation of Romans 12:1-2: “…Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out….”) As I fix my attention on God, then, here’s what I find myself pondering. If in today’s scripture Israel rejects God as king, then what does it look like when God is king?
The images and metaphors that Jesus uses to describe what it looks like when God is king are many and diverse, fertile for our prayer and imagination. What strikes me, in the context of today’s scripture, is their consistency in suggesting that God favors not the way of progress, of “bigger, faster, more,” but its opposite—smaller, slower, less. When God is king, we will marvel not at pyramids but at little seeds. When God is king, we will not hurry to meet deadlines and quotas, but faithfully tend to those seeds and wait to see what grows. When God is king, every individual will be priceless, like a single pearl for which a person sells all his possessions. When God is king, there will be no need for Pharaohs or taskmasters, for militarization and industrialization and commercialization, for bigger, faster, more—because like the fisherman resting contentedly beside his boat, we will rest contentedly in God’s love, wanting no more.
Prayer
Faithful God,
Whose grace is sufficient,
Whose power is made perfect in weakness,
Give pause to our calculating minds,
Our hearts seeking more,
So that we might recognize where there is slavery in our pursuits
…
Grant us the freedom, the peace, the ease
Of trusting in the way of Christ
And living even now in your kingdom.
In Christ, gentle and humble: Amen.
[1] Lightly adapted from Anthony
de Mello, The Song of the Bird (New York: Image, 1984), 132-133.
[2] Anna Lembke, Dopamine
Nation: Finding Balance in an Age of Indulgence (New York: Dutton, 2021),
44-45.
[3] David Lipscomb, Civil
Government: Its Origin, Mission, and Destiny, and the Christan’s Relation to It
(Nashville; McQuiddy, 1913), 99.
[4] Lipscomb, Civil Government,
58-59.
[5] And he’s not alone. See Christian
Messenger 13 (1843): 126, where Barton Stone expresses the following: “Men
by the light of truth are beginning to see that Christians have no right to
make laws and governments for themselves…We must cease to support any
…government on earth by our counsels, co-operation, and choice.”
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