Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, October 25, 2007


In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling
and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

- John Steinbeck, author, who won the Nobel
Prize in Literature on this day, 1962


Yes, we are, as a World community, at that stage. The “grapes of wrath” are growing in the hearts of people. In the hearts of many, if not most, peoples. Why? Because the very rich and powerful of the World, having gained dominance and control, now know that if they relinquish that control, they are vulnerable. And they know it.

That includes the “rich” nations keeping an economic and technological vice-grip on the “poor” nations . But a bunch of passionate Vietnamese patriots defeated the vast power of both the French and the Americans. Same for the Afghans and the Russians. And for the Shiites so long brutalized by Saadam Hussein. The “powerful” fear the “vintage” that is “growing heavy” in the resentful hearts of their former slaves. I heard an African diplomat say of China on NPR the other day, “We are being re-colonized by China”. They know what is going on.

World terrorism is the radical response of resentment, resentment being the soil and sunshine in which the “grapes of wrath” flourish. Most people are not terrorists. But they resonate - which is why it is difficult to get any Muslim, as an example of many, to condemn terrorism outright.

The “Great Commission” of the Gospel called “Matthew” - to go and “baptize all nations” - is a colonialist propagandist agenda, added to Matthew by an early Christian Church that was seeking to establish itself in a position of power. If the “Commission” is to be interpreted in any way consonant with Christ’s Message and Self-Giving, it can only mean that Christ’s followers must, must, Love Radically. That means, not recruit Christians, but recruit radical lovers for the Way of respect. Compassion, and justice for all human beings. This is what Jesus implied when He said that His Kingdom was “not of this World”.

The Grapes of Wrath are filling with a venomous vintage that may soon burst and drown the World in a poisonous hate - and death. If we take the Gospel seriously, let Christians be willing to die with their Saviour, for love of all of God’s children, in affirmation of the divinity of us all.

Only then can there be the “Peace that passes all understanding”. Or a World Community that honours the “dignity of every human being”.

Brian+