God's gift of abundant life is still out there on the
table for everyone who wants to be a guest at god's table. As Matthew put it,
good or bad. God's world is a world of abundance. In Moses time, God gave to
the Israelites the promise of abundance against the nightmare of Pharaoh's
world of scarcity.
The people wandered for 40 years
following that promise of abundance. Today, in many ways, we still live in
Pharaoh's nightmare of scarcity. We live our lives on the assumption that there's
not enough to go around, not enough time, not enough jobs, not enough respect,
not enough land.
It's a zero sum world. I win, you lose. You win, I lose.
On the one hand. For some people, the prospect of losing, of being
disrespected, of losing their status in society is unbearably threatening to
their very being. On the other hand, for those who have already lost, who are
oppressed, who are dispossessed, they can't see the way to abundance except by
fighting for it.
People who are threatened feel like they need to defend
themselves against their own extinction. So, there's fear. There's anger,
there's resentment, hatred, and violence. Jesus knew about violence. Of course,
the prince of peace lived and preached his lessons in a violent world in many
ways, a lot like ours today.