seemingly undefeatable powers
Which kind of work do you feel most drawn to, your gifts more suited to?
1 Samuel 8:19-20
But the people refused to listen to Samuel and said, “No! There must be a king over us so we can be like all the other nations. Our king will judge us and lead us and fight our battles.”
Psalm 72:11Let all the kings bow down before [Israel’s king];
let all the nations serve him.
The people in this story believe a king will “fight their battles” for them, will lead them into greatness like all the other nations’ kings do.
They can’t imagine a world with no kings at all, so they figure they better join the system and climb to the top of it — move from being the nation others dominate, to the nation that dominates others. And they fix their hopes on one political leader, a “strongman” who will muscle his way to the top.
Don’t we do that sometimes, too?
The powers that be seem undefeatable — so assimilating into that power can look like the only key to survival.
But it certainly isn’t the key to God’s Kin-dom.
And author Ursula K. Le Guin assures us, “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.”
Think about different forms of activism. Which ones work within a system to change it from within? Which ones work outside the system, resisting it from without? Which kind of work do you feel most drawn to, your gifts more suited to?