Whose World Is This? Sometimes I sit and look at the headlines and ask, whose world is this? There is such obvious polarization—the haves and the have-nots—that it has become normalized. The rich are getting richer, while those whose backs are against the wall no longer even have a wall to lean on. Whose world is this? If you asked folks in the Nation’s Capital or in the mainstream media, they might tell you the world belongs to corporations, banks, billionaires, and other potentates. They move as if it is theirs and no one else counts. So they make speeches full of lies and dog whistles, puff their chests out, rename buildings, undo traditions with their Sharpies—while children cry, locked up in detention centers. Whose world is this? Does it belong to people who believe that cash rules everything around us, where influence and proximity alone earn high positions in government, no experience required? Does it only belong to white, rich, cisgender male Protestant Christians? The way that things are going, it appears that those rich in land and oil are the ones running things. Leaders of countries who play war games with people’s lives without counting the cost, look like they are ruling the world. I’m sorry, but there is something oligarchs seem not to understand: The world is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. The Creator of heaven and earth still holds the wind and the rain. I ask again, whose world is this? The world is still the Lord’s—no matter what some may say or do. It might not look like God is in control as we experience the evil actions we continue to see play out. It is easy to doubt that God is still making all things new if you are looking through human eyes. However, if you take the time to be still and look through your spiritual eyes, you just might see that God is still moving, quietly, steadily, relentlessly, beneath the noise of empire. While headlines shout destruction, God is planting seeds of life. In neighborhoods written off as hopeless, new grassroots leaders are emerging. In communities pressed down, mutual aid is blooming. Both in sanctuaries and on sidewalks, people are choosing courage over fear, truth over propaganda and love over cruelty. The Spirit is still breathing on dry bones, still stirring holy imagination, still unsettling what is unjust and strengthening what is good. What looks like endings are often the trembling beginnings of something more faithful being born. God is making pathways in deserts, rivers in parched places, and possibilities where the powerful declared there would be none. The work is not always loud, but it is alive. And God is not finished. And neither are we. Again, I ask, whose world is this? ––Rev. Moya Harris, Sojourners |
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