{"id":18666,"date":"2020-03-17T09:27:56","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T13:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18666"},"modified":"2020-03-17T09:27:56","modified_gmt":"2020-03-17T13:27:56","slug":"reading-the-sign-of-the-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18666","title":{"rendered":"Reading the Sign of the Times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Disciples, Prophets, and\nMystics<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Reading the\nSigns of The Times&nbsp;<\/strong><br>\nTuesday, March 17, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OLj8EcECKxk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>Author and Dominican priest Albert\nNolan has written many prophetic works that bring attention to systems of\noppression throughout the world. His writings were influential in ending\napartheid in his own nation of South Africa. Today he explains the spirals of\nviolence that Jesus would have witnessed and encountered firsthand.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prophets are typically people who can foretell the\nfuture, not as fortune-tellers, but as people who have learned to read the\nsigns of their times. It is by focusing their attention on, and becoming fully\naware of, the political, social, economic, military, and religious tendencies\nof their time that prophets are able to see where it is all heading.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reading the signs of his times would have been an\nintegral part of Jesus\u2019 spirituality.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the first place, like many of the Hebrew prophets,\nJesus must have seen the threatening armies of a powerful empire on the\nhorizon\u2014in this case the Roman Empire. Imperial power was well known to the\nprophets. At one time or another the people of Israel had been oppressed by the\nEgyptians, the Canaanites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and\nthe Greeks. The prophets warned against collaborating with these power\nstructures and promised that each of them would one day decline and fall\u2014which they\ndid. In this the prophets saw the finger of God.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Jesus\u2019 view, it would only be a matter of time before\nthe Roman armies felt sufficiently provoked to attack and destroy Jerusalem. .\n. . &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For most Jews, the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem\nwould mean the destruction of their worship, their culture, and their nation.\nJesus\u2019 concern was not for the future of the temple but for the people of\nJerusalem, especially the women and children who would suffer so much at the\nhands of the Romans (Luke 19:44; 21:21-24).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What Jesus must also have seen was the spiral of violence\nin which the Galilean peasants were caught up\u2026Jesus himself would have been a\npeasant\u2026Peasants were not only poor, they were exploited and oppressed\u2014and not\nonly by the Romans, but also by the Herods and the rich landowners. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus, reading the signs of the times from the\nperspective of a Galilean peasant, would have seen that this spiral of violence\nheld no hope for the poor and the oppressed. The people were powerless and\nhelpless [<em>and the victims of\nhuge structural violence which is largely invisible except to those who are\nsuffering from it.<\/em> \u2013RR]&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Two\nthousand years later, prophets still raise their voices against the spirals of\nviolence that continue to rob the poor and the oppressed of hope. Do we even\nhear them? Are we any more likely to act on their wisdom than our biblical\nancestors or do we also dismiss them and their message? I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s the\nlatter, but it is only by choosing the former that we play our part as disciples\nof Jesus. &nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Disciples, Prophets, and Mystics Reading the Signs of The Times&nbsp; Tuesday, March 17, 2020 Author and Dominican priest Albert Nolan has written many prophetic works that bring attention to systems of oppression throughout the world. His writings were influential in ending apartheid in his own nation of South Africa. Today he explains the spirals of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18666"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18667,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18666\/revisions\/18667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}