Metaphorically Speaking

Brueggemann (The Word Militant) has a few things to say about exiles. He starts by saying that “exile is a helpful metaphor for understanding our current faith situation” (he’s talking of the U.S. church). He then goes on to describe six interfaces of the circumstances of exile and scriptural resources. The first and last are, respectively: “Exiles must grieve their loss and express their resentful sadness about what was and now is not and will never be again”; and “The danger in exile is to become so preoccupied with self that one cannot get outside one’s self to rethink, reimagine, and redescribe larger reality.”

I rather think that when Brueggemann links the expression of sadness and then rage with Lamentations and Psalm 137 there is an inevitability that self-preoccupation will follow. Yet when he recalls the individualistic and countercultural nature of Joseph, Esther and Daniel as exiles, this seems to resonate with what Peter Drucker wrote about Managing Oneself. You have to place yourself where you can be if not at one with, then at least congruent with the values around you. In the case of these three they were able to serve their people under an occupying power.

Today’s readings (1 Macc. 2.29-48 and Mk. 14.53-65) are a stark reminder that suffering must be in righteousness rather than self-preoccupation. The two combined remind me of a prayer I once composed in which I gave thanks that there were people willing not to die for a cause but to live for it. In the west we seldom have to make such choices, but perhaps we ought.

Anyhow, this blog is named metaphorically and is I suppose both an outlet for me to vent my frustration at a breakdown in my path to ordination and, as all blogs are, a bit of self-preoccupation. Nevertheless I hope to be able to draw on scriptural resource (and wider I hope than Lamentations), and to find a new way of being part of the priesthood of all believers and so live for what is right. This I can only do by getting to grips with my gifting, hence my preoccupation with methods such as Drucker’s.