Subversive for the Common Good: Seek the Welfare of the City
How to live in and for our contemporary Babylonian/Roman empire.
Have you thought of your current life in our contemporary country and culture as something that resembles life in exile? That is, as living like we are under the empirical rule of Babylon or Rome?
There is a kind of Christian Nationalism on the rise that says that America was founded as a Christian nation and was once righteous but now has been taken down the wrong path by the liberals.
But when was the nation so incredibly righteous? When we violently took the lands away from the natives living here before us? When we enslaved people from Africa to do our labor so that we could enrich ourselves? When we adopted a consumeristic culture that made what we buy who we are as humans? When we made everything about the political party we are affiliated with rather than our citizenship in the kingdom of God?
Perhaps we should rather see ourselves in Exile, as resident aliens in our current culture. John the Revelator equated Rome with Babylon. I think we can learn from what the Israelites experienced as they were under the rule of the empires of Babylon and Rome.
Seek the Common Good
Let’s go back to that time when Israel was placed in Exile in the nation of Babylon. Now, Babylon was the epitome of an evil empire. Among other atrocities, they sacrificed children to their false deities Marduk and Anu.
The true God of Israel wrote a letter to those in Exile in Babylon through the prophet Jeremiah. In it, God not only tells them to live holy lives, but he also gives them a calling as they live in the midst of this oppressive empire:
“Seek the common good (Hebrew, shalom) of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to YHWH on its behalf, for in its flourishing (shalom) you will find your flourishing (shalom).” (Jeremiah 29:7, my translation)
Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat say that Paul’s letter to the Colossians is a letter of subversive living during the Roman empire and how that should inform how we live today. Reflecting on the ancient Hebrews living during the Babylonian empire and being commanded to seek the shalom of that empire in Jeremiah 29:7, they say,
“This call is profoundly subversive—right up there with ‘pray for those who persecute you’ (Matt. 5:44)—precisely because it is completely antithetical to all the empire could ask or imagine. The empire wants nothing more than to break the spirit and will of the foreigners in its midst.
But with the call to seek the welfare of the empire, the exiles are living out of the vision and hope of Genesis, for the good of the empire itself. This is a call to be God’s people by bringing shalom and healing in places of brokenness and despair. And what could be more broken and more in need of healing than the place of oppression, the heart of the empire?” (Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 68).
We, who are in the Kingdom of God, are called to bear witness to that kingdom within the broken kingdoms in which we reside — by our subversive actions for the common good.
Be Eager to Do Good
In his first letter, Peter tells us that the good we do in our daily lives and work is the ultimate witness that Christ is Lord. As the Kingdom of God advances over the dark twisted ways of the fallen world, people will see that God is indeed good. There will be those who speak maliciously of our good behavior as if we are doing it for our own advantage. But we should not ever waver in seeking the common good.
“Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander” (1 Peter 3:13-16).
Doing what is right and good is simply a practical way of stating the “Great Commandment” of Mark 12:28-31 and Matthew 22:34–40, where Jesus tells us that we must love the Lord our God and love our neighbors. We are to love even while living in a contemporary manifestation of Babylon or Rome. It is in this way that we are witnesses to the goodness of the kingdom of God while living in the kingdoms of the world.
Questions:
How can we create things that are for the common good (shalom) in and through our daily work?
How can these things act as leaven in the world, transforming it from the inside out?
What can we do that would be subversive against systems that cause harm in our communities?
How can each of us pray for and more practically work for the common good?
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Photo by Ilona Frey on Unsplash