Why We Can't Have the Revolution

He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen! -Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43, NRSV

I am tired.

I’m exhausted by the grind, the struggle. It’s slowly killing us all, and it feels like there is nothing we can do about it. The systemic change that needs to happen feels so far away. It feels like a revolution will never come.

Capitalism controls our economy with the fear of scarcity and straight-up greed.

White supremacy creates class and assigns worth—and the ability to live—based solely on lineage and colonization.

Patriarchy keeps a hegemony of male power with performative victimhood any time that centralized power is challenged.

This unholy axis creates most of the harm we experience in society. Classism, queerphobia, racism, ageism, xenophobia… all of it can be traced back to this trinity of oppression and violence.

This is what I’m tired of.

I’m tired of having to navigate through a society that is controlled by the fear of violence that keeps things at a status quo. This isn’t about who’s in charge politically; no, this is about the very system of hierarchy and power that keeps the rich getting richer, and the economic, status, and survival gap ever growing.

And none of us are clean of these crimes. We are forced to participate in this system, this economy, this power structure in order to survive. We purchase things made with slave labor. We seek upward mobility, separating ourselves from the needy. We work at jobs that earn money for corporations and the wealthy, often being underpaid. We, no matter what good intentions and actions we do, are complicit in the evil around us.

We need a revolution.

But…

We can’t use the tools of empire to enact that revolution.

Violence begets violence.

Hierarchy creates class status.

Money creates value based on economic stability.

All of this and more are tools that the systems of power use to keep us crushed and oppressed. We can’t just implement a new use for these things. We must get rid of them. We need a new kind of society, one that functions completely differently, totally other, one that we must imagine in order to bring to fruition.

This is what we want.

And this is what we can’t have yet.

It’s not that empire is too strong. It’s not that we are incapable of rising up. It’s not that dreaming of a new world is impossible.

The truth is, if we were to have a revolution right now, the most vulnerable of our society wouldn’t survive.

This is the truth of the parable of wheat and the weeds. In with the children of the kingdom, the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, in with the vulnerable are the weeds.

The powers that oppress.

The people who are so consumed by the machine that they willfully uphold this system.

The powers and principalities that control the entire operation.

If we were to uproot these things, those who suffer most, those who are most oppressed would be uprooted and left with no support, no way of surviving the revolution.

If a revolution were to happen right now, if the populous rose up and threw off our chains, not all would survive.

And if we are willing to sacrifice even one of the poor, the orphan, the widow, then we are no better than the empire we seek to dismantle.

People are not expendable. They are not part of a cost analysis. They are not a means to be justified by the ends.

If we believe every life is sacred…

If we believe everyone is worthy…

If we believe in the value of every person…

If we believe in Imago Dei, truly believe in this, then we cannot, will not, refuse to let one of these little ones fall to the ground in the name of freedom.

This is the underlying truth of the statement that we cannot use the tools of empire to dismantle empire.

We are not the kind of people who are willing to sacrifice another person on the altar of revolution, are we?

Sacrificing yourself to the cause is one thing, but even then, disregarding the value and worth that you have is violence against Image Dei.

No one can be trampled on in the march forward. To do that in any way is to have the mindset of empire, and we are called to renew our minds, to have the mind of Christ, the mind of love.

Love doesn’t willfully harm.

Love does reparations.

Love doesn’t disregard people in favor of systems of freedom.

Love doesn’t create a hierarchy.

And that’s what calling some people expendable is: a hierarchy. We would be dominating other people, colonizing and raping their lives for the sake of our dreams. We would be using people for our own gain.

This isn’t the way of love.

This isn’t the way of dismantling the systems of oppression, fear, violence, and death.

This isn’t true revolution.

If we want to be revolutionary, we need to imagine a way of taking apart the system piece by peace, with every effort to free those caught in the cogs of the machine. We need to imagine a society where no one is left behind or trampled on in the name of progress. We need to create networks that will care for the most vulnerable in society during any sort of upheaval.

We need new imaginations that aren’t chained to capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy as the models by which we fashion a new society.

Here’s the truth under all these words: we can start living that imagination now.

No, we cannot host revolution without harming people, but we can make the tiny changes to earth that amount to care for the hurting and liberated lives.

We can help dig people out of crushing debt with mutual aid.

We can help people pay for medical care.

We can make sure food is in the pantry of every home in our circles.

We can help pay rent, utilities, and entertainment.

We can work to create housing for the unhoused.

We can utilize harm reduction for people with addiction until they are ready to get out of the cycle.

We can offer new coping mechanisms to people who experience Trauma that cripples them.

You’ll quickly notice that the majority of these things involve money and physical resources. It’s true that money makes the world go round, but when we wrest the funds from the grip of capitalism by using it nor for commodities but for mutual aid, when we give ourselves to community in both offering resources and receiving resources, when we take the physical resources that are all around us and use them for the liberation, healing, and wellbeing of those in our communities, we are reimagining what money can do.

Thit is the kind of imagination we need.

Right now, in this time and place, we don’t need a revolution.

We need ordinary heroes.

We need tiny changes.

We need the work.

We can’t overthrow the empire right now because we cannot hurt ourselves, for we are vulnerable and oppressed. We cannot do violence against the more vulnerable and oppressed than we are. Now is not the time to uproot the weeds because the harvest isn’t yet ripe.

When it is, revolution will come, and divine healing will come to us all.

But for now, we can turn the values of the empire on their heads within our communities, actually show that another world is possible, and invite more and more people int the ordinary actions of rebellion.

“Talking ‘bout a revolution sounds like a whisper.” -Tracy Chapmen.