For many years, now, even before the pandemic, we have all been scrambling to find a new place in an upended world. Our institutions, from the federal government to the classroom, all seemed to be deteriorating, Our churches, associations, families, marriages feel threatened or unsustainable. More and more young people have begun to live alone, with the workplace as their main place to relate outside their bunker — and even then much of that relating has been consigned to a screen, sometimes in their bedroom.
Now that Trump has taken the helm, pardoned a slew of criminals and installed billionaires in new thrones (one, at least, giving a Nazi salute for the cameras), half the country is wondering what to do. And from what I hear, one of their solutions is to “go to their tents:” don’t watch the news, hunker down, shore up their family or small group of friends and try to survive. That is understandably defensive. And it is not a new response to a social mess.
But it is not the right time to go back to our tents. It is time to infect the society with truth and love.
The Biblical Trump
When Rehoboam, perhaps the Trump of the Old Testament, became king after his father Solomon died, he had a choice. He could lighten up on his father’s grandiosity or follow in his footsteps. Solomon had built an oversized kingdom on the backs of his people: high taxes and conscripted labor to build a lavish temple and palaces big enough for his many wives, stables and more. The people were tired of it. The king was a one-man 1% collecting all the wealth.
The elders, like the Episcopal bishop, and Catholic Archbishop preaching to Trump last week, asked Rehoboam to lighten up. He told them to come back later and he’d tell them what he planned. Then he went and talked to his cronies who lived with him in his bubble. They advised him to double down. In our context their advice would be, “Tell them they must say the election was stolen. Tell them you’re going to pardon bitcoin criminals. Tell them you want to conquer Greenland.” In Rehoboam’s context it was, “Tell them your pinky has more girth than your dad’s loins. Tell them, ‘If my dad set on you with whips, expect me to set on you with scorpions.’”
The elders did not like his answer. Their response was so legendary the storytellers compiling the history could quote a song about it: “What share have we in David? / We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. / To your tents, O Israel! / Now, see to your own house, O David!” (Today we’d cue up Le Mis). They took the place name “Israel” with them and left Rehoboam with just the tribal area of Judah. The call, “To you tents, O Israel!” is reminiscent of how the tribes organized themselves in the encampments on the way from Egypt. It was like another exodus from an oppressive ruler.
I think a lot of the people I know are unwittingly or deliberately going to their tents. They are leaving Mark Zuckerberg’s predatory social media, boycotting Amazon, not touching anything smelling of Musk, turning their exhausted backs on Trump and the next outrageous thing he says or does. That’s understandably defensive. But I don’t think it is worthy of us.
The vision of an expanding tent
In the 580s BC, King Zedekiah of Judah chose the wrong ally. (Trump might be deciding, “Europe or Russia?” right now). Babylon destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and exiled the elite, including the prophet Ezekiel. Other citizens fled to Egypt. The Assyrians had previously done this to the Northern Kingdom in the 720’s BC. A prophet among the exiles in Babylon, speaking in the spirit of Isaiah, prophesied Israel’s return to the place of the ancestral tents. His vision is the antidote we need to the poisonous atomization to which we are tempted to surrender in our own exile.
In Isaiah 54 the prophet has God speaking to a “barren” people whose tents are empty of children. They are desolate, as you may well feel this week. Discouraged. Exhausted. Afraid. Instead of hunkering down in exile, he calls them to respond to a vision of something better, something only God can do.
Enlarge the place of your tent,
And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings;
Do not spare;
Lengthen your cords,
And strengthen your stakes.
For you shall expand to the right and to the left,
And your descendants will inherit the nations,
And make the desolate cities inhabited.
Historically, the prophet is talking about returning to Israel, which the Persian Empire eventually allowed. But I think its broader meaning, a spiritual meaning, calls me to make a bigger tent, not a smaller one, because we need to gather ourselves and build something ancient and new to meet the challenges of the latest tyrants. We need to shore up or re-establish a community where the love of Jesus reigns.
To be honest, Trump Christians believe he is the new Cyrus returning them from exile and making a place for their tribe to again rule God’s chosen nation, the United States. I think that is a ruinous delusion; you can decide for yourself. I don’t think Trump or the U.S. is exceptional or chosen, just a decent port in the choppy ocean of history. We don’t need to fight for the control of the nation as much as we need to salt it with the grace we enact within and from our tent.
Jesus tabernacling
The ultimate guide for our ongoing exodus is Jesus, who is pictured as an expansive tent. The key verse in John uses an ancient image that calls us away from our division and isolation and empowers us to not only envision but practically extend our tent pegs in expectation of an ingathering.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. — John 1:14
The more literal translations accurately trade “dwelt” for “tabernacled.” I agree it was John’s intent to reference the big tent, the “tabernacle of meeting” the Israelites set up during their sojourn where God met them. Jesus is the tabernacle where the world meets God face to face. Jesus is the tabernacle from where the people-God-calls-out of the world gather to meet in truth and love.
Now is not the time to isolate, avoid, wait or play defense. At least that is not Jesus’ strategy for the good life. Now is the time to relate: to God and to one another. The antidote to every disaster is to stick with God and love one another in practical ways. Many people know this and are making it happen, but you and I need to do it, too.
During the pandemic and because of the Evangelical/Catholic delusion about Trump, the church took a hit. You may still be out of church. You may have turned your back on Jesus altogether and explored the many alternatives cropping up. But many of my readers wish they could find some place to be the church with integrity and action. Exhausted as you may feel, now is the time to find it or build it.
We need the church now, as much as ever
Thirty years ago we planted a great church for the “next generation.” Little did I know what would hit us during the pandemic, and I thought Trump was just a brief, worst nightmare. It was a great sojourn for me and hundreds of other people. Seeds of that work are still ripening even now.
Even though many churches have taken a hit, there are plenty of revived or reviving churches to join. My friend just joined a new church in Baltimore. If I were in Southwest Philly I’d sojourn with Salt and Light. If I were in Northeast Philly I’d probably be with Oxford Circle Mennonite. In my neighborhood near St. Joseph U., I’m part of the newly-expansive St. Asaph’s. I dare say most churches are not fully on the Trump bandwagon and certainly are not in favor of scaring undocumented people to death or tormenting trans folk. I think most believers know dominating others, lying, or having a devotion to violence and greed will never be OK. They want real stuff.
Jesus is still tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth. We need to meet him personally and meet with him together with others for our mental and spiritual health, in order to experience our deepest loves and desires, and to keep the world from falling off the cliff of its own self-destruction. Maybe more than ever, we need to gather around Him, share our spiritual gifts and natural strengths, do our part in making the love that will not only benefit us but make a better future.
God bless you as you do the good you do in the school, workplace or neighborhood association. But “me against the world” will never be enough. It is likely to make you a minion of TikTok. The people of God need to be with God and each other in their basic tent of dwelling, their portable, flexible, developing homeplace, not only in their hearts, but in their face-to-face relationships and joint action. There is no time to lose by lamenting and laying low.
I rejoined the church two Lents ago. I started a new small group, and we are about to start another. I decided to give what I have to a local expression of the Body. It feels right. I feel a bit hopeful. And even in my uncertainty, I feel like I’m in the tent where I belong. What is God giving you to be and do to meet the challenge of this wild time in history? I doubt the call is, “Go to you tent.”
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Today is Mahalia Jackson Day! Check in with her at The Transhistorical Body.
