The title of this post is from a blog post in Sierra Voices by Sharon Delgado.  It was another result in a search I just did on Google using “Walter Wink Powers Occupy”,  a search that has yielded some good “Occupy Theology”.

I am going to stand in solidarity with those who are oppressed by the current corporate-dominated Empire, and to hear stories and sing songs of hope.

http://sierravoices.com/2011/10/sharon-delgado-why-i%E2%80%99m-going-to-occupy-wall-street/

Sharon Delgado is an ordained United Methodist minister, founding director of Earth Justice Ministries

In my Google Search which I mention above, I found two posts that I immediately marked a key quote.  One was the one here,  from Delgado.   The other was from Rev. James Forbes,  where he delves into some Walter Wink insights regarding Principalities and Powers.  These two struck me because they both appeal to the language and imagery of the Scripture, one (Delgado) to its” justice-toting ” passages,  and the other moves from the Wink exegesis of the Principalities passages and explores what “the Angel of America” is telling us.  The key to both is the juxtaposition and resulting dialogue between “dreams for America” and “The Kingdom of God”  (which Forbe’s reading of Wink does nicely).

I find myself vascillating between two standpoints;  two “locales” from which we can speak about Occupy and its spiritual camaraderie with the Church ,  and ultimately,  the Kingdom of God.  When I stand as a part of the Body of Christ ,  the church,  before the community that is OWS and its various sister movements,  I feel compelled to identify the deep connection that I see between the longings and frustrations and visions of Occupy,  and the ends envisioned for the Kingdom of God.   Occupy is  clearly not an overtly religious movement,  but in its power generated by the vibrant and strident community it fosters and stands as a people who are inviting everyone to join them in raising up our voices as the 99%,  I see signs of the movements of the  Holy Spirit.  If we in the church believe that God is a God who seeks us,  and constantly inviting the world’s people to join the banquet (as in the parable in Luke 14:15-24 ),  then Occupy has already shown itself to be exploring the questions about the nation state that are corrective and seek to awaken us from our acquiescence.  In the parable,  God is exasperated with the “members of the kingdom” who don’t show up,  and instructs his servants to invite the lowly and the outcast.   The people in our nation who benefit most from the “protections” of the nation state are the ones who see no need for reform;  they instead have an interest in insuring that things stay as they are.  They’re “too busy” going about their lives to attend.  The ones who most need “protections” and bare neccessities are the ones the master prefers now.  The members of the Kingdom, the “invited guests” apparently no longer care for the King under whose protections they “go about their lives”.

I do not intend to equate Occupy with the church.  But there  is something at work here that has enabled a secular movement to assume the discernment role for which the church has rendered itself mostly useless.  While the church should have been (and  always been) a source of constant dialogue and discernment regarding  the vision for which the church has been entrusted (to boldly lay out a vision and an example of what life is like in the Kingdom,  amongst its people),  it has largely failed to do so.  Sadly,  inso many cases,  it has  instead been amongst the acquiescent,  and in further cases,  amonst the staunchest defenders of the decaying , unjust state,  ravaged by a capitalism allowed to serve the rich.

The church has also allowed the values and ideologies of the state in such a condition to infiltrate its theology and its  message,  so that it serves the state more than the Kingdom of God.  And so it has come to pass that God is seeking out the “ones who have ears to hear  and eyes to see”;  the church has become lukewarm and God has spit them out.  The true  law lies outside  of  the codifications of the nation state.  The New Covenant is written on our  hearts.   God is not,  as Rev. Delgado proclaims,  “the invisible hand of the market”,  but calling on us to a deeper purging than the “piecemeal” that seems to be the extent of which the nation state will allow. Before long,  things are right  back where they were (and they are).  We may well be faced with the lessons of Apocalyptic.  Not violence and death,  but a destroying of the edifice that has been allowed to decay to such depths so that it can only serve the former mechanisms of the corrupt state.  The state will resist such a radical reconstruction.  I see Occupy calling for a radical reconstruction,  as opposed to the half-hearted,  timid,  not-ready for primetime piecemeal  efforts.   The church should be there tohelp identify what is wrong and why,  and what is  possible.  That’s another great meme from Occupy that is ,  for me,  deeply theological as well:  “Another world is  possible”.