Fall Into The Spokes

"It appeared as if the whole world was one elaborate system, opposed to justice and kindness, and set to making cruelty and pain. And he and his father were part of that system, and must help to maintain it in spite of themselves." -from Oil! by Upton Sinclair

The he in this passage is Bunny, the son of an oil man in Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, which has recently been adapted by P.T. Anderson into the film There Will Be Blood.

The focus of the Sinclair novel (more than the film) is on the character of Bunny and his struggle to come to terms with a systemic greed that those he loves and admires assure him is simply indicative of "the way things are".

Whether in books I have read more recently (Wayward Christian Soldiers by Charles Marsh) or recent and beloved classics (The Powers That Be by Walter Wink or The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer) or in my recent study of scripture through the season of Advent and Epiphany, I continue to be reminded of how much of Christ's warning to "repent, for the Kingdom is at hand" was a railing against the failed powers, authorities, and systems that mankind has created. I am challenged, as someone who claims to follow Christ, to refuse to perpetuate a system simply because it is "the way things are". I am called, if I am called by the Prince of Peace, to refuse to give creedence to any credo that places the words "necessary" and "evil" too closely together.

While German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously and heroically (he was eventually killed) opposed Hitler and the Nazi regime, he wrote that, as Christians, we are commanded "not only to help the victims who have fallen under the wheel, but to fall into the spokes of the wheel itself".

Joni Mitchell once wrote, in her tribute to Woodstock (the event, not the bird), "I feel to be a cog in something turning." Years later, when asked about Woodstock and all it represented, she famously stated, "Who cares? We failed."

Maybe the failure is in a refusal to back our songs up with sacrifice. Maybe we're meant to do more than lament our fate and the fate of the world. Maybe we're meant to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, footsteps that lead to a cross. Maybe we say to those opposed to justice and kindness that we will no longer be a part of that system or help to maintain it. Maybe we make the choice to stop being a cog and instead fall into the spokes.

In Micah chapter 3, the prophet states:

This is what the LORD says:
"As for the prophets
who lead my people astray,
if one feeds them,
they proclaim 'peace';
if he does not,
they prepare to wage war against him.

Therefore night will come over you, without visions,
and darkness, without divination.
The sun will set for the prophets,
and the day will go dark for them.

The seers will be ashamed
and the diviners disgraced.
They will all cover their faces
because there is no answer from God."

It is time to stop leading people astray. It is time to stop waging war. We must stop declaring peace where there is no peace. We must stop scratching the back of cruelty and pain simply because it scratches our itch for security and power. If we are accused of biting the hand that feeds us, then we should turn somewhere else for sustenance. Turn to the God who causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

It is time to back our words up with action before the night comes over us and we have nothing more to say. It is time for those who claim Jesus as Lord to turn back to His teachings to love our enemies and to care for the poor. It is time to stop claiming God is with us if we refuse to be with Him. It is time to "act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly" with our God.

It is time to "repent, for the Kingdom is at hand."