In mid-April of this year, the sharpest smiling Venezuelan couple boldly showed up at my front door looking for a job. Johan and Georgina spoke zero English so we communicated almost completely via translation apps on our phones. In that moment, I gave them a small job, $40 cash, along with some groceries and clothes.
An important dialogue was set in motion.
Johan and Georgina arrived seeking asylum after a two month journey from the chaotic instability of their home country. Our little church provided small jobs, food, and hospitality as I’ve sought to connect them to the resources of a larger Venezuelen community which has descended upon our sanctuary city by the thousands.
While Johan and Georgina strive to make a home amidst the abundance and relative safety of the US, so many other friends of US citizenship are itching to leave.
This is a common reality within any empire.
One of the first empires within recorded history was centered along the Egypt’s Nile river where food & water security were available in abundance - abundance to the point where outside tribes suffering from drought and famine were breaking into the empire in order to be slaves there.
If you’re familiar with the biblical narrative, it’s almost a little misleading to simply perceive the Israelite people as slaves in Egypt. They went from an unpredictable life of wondering the wilderness to a daily set routine of work where shelter and provisions were readily available and there was very little uncertainty as to how you were going to provide for your family.
But like any empire, experiencing abundance comes with a compromise of soul.
The Hebrew word for Egypt is mitzraim which translates “narrow place.” On one hand, Egypt provided security and resources but the compromise was living a life of relentless pressure and constriction. In Egypt, you may have had a predictable future but you didn’t have spiritual liberation.
Waking up to the reality of this tension is the beginning of wisdom. For any citizen of any empire the question becomes, “Do you know the difference between comfort & security and real liberation?”
Real liberation of the soul only comes our way in the context of relationship. Slavery is not a relationship, it’s a transaction. So, another question on the road to wisdom is, “Am I operating on the ground of relationship or through the exchange of a transaction?”
What allows someone to be on the liberating path of relationship? Love grounded in a dialogue. It was a dialogue that characterized the relationship between the Living Presence and the people of Israel. There was mutual listening and loving response.
In the converse, the transactionary exchanges of an authoritarian leader or slave master is always by way of a monologue. He speaks and commands. You listen and obey. It’s only by way of this agreement that the citizen of empire gets the promised provisions.
This leads to a third question on the road to wisdom, “Regardless of the location where I reside, where is the true citizenship of my soul?”
Once you see the distinctions and constrictions of Egypt, it’s easy to identify the limiting patterns of empire. I’ve learned to pinpoint it quickly in churches, businesses, and politics. I’m an expert at pointing it out in others, but here comes another question on the journey of wisdom, “Can I recognize the way of empire - the patterns of constriction, compromise, and pressure - within my own consciousness?”
I operate within the empire and the empire operates within me far more than I’d like to talk about. I long to be in control of my relationships and environments. Everyday, in one way or another I subtly compromise my deeper liberation ethics to get what I think I need for myself and my family.
When I name the characteristics of empire “out there” and speak truth to power, that’s the work of justice.
When I name the characteristics of empire “in here” and grieve, wrestle, adjust, and cry out of that tension, that’s the work of wisdom.