Meditation on Isaiah 26:5-6

It's Sunday, so Old Testament.

"He humbles those who dwell on high,
he lays the lofty city low;
he levels it to the ground
and casts it down to the dust.
Feet trample it down -
the feet of the oppressed,
the footsteps of the poor."
(Isaiah 26:5-6)

Always be on guard with those willing to quote scripture, but nonetheless, let me rap.

Why would the lofty city be trampled to dust by the footsteps of the poor and the oppressed? Because earthly (read: capitalistic, militaristic, or ultra-rich) power cannot sustain itself. In other words, the institutions and people within them wielding excessive wealth, arms, political power, and/or ego do not practice a spirituality and praxis that the Lord acknowledges as valid. Bluntly speaking, the Lord Jesus Christ did not come to comfort the ultra-rich or even the American middle class, but the global poor, and the fucked up thing about wealth and power, even in modest increments, is that it allows one the privilege to not have to encounter the oppressed or the poor. White people don't need to have friends of color which leaves them lacking in the basic understanding of their own white privilege. Rich people in capitalism, by definition, do not need to entertain the anxieties of privation. And white, middle-class citizens of the United States do not know the trials endured by those who are oppressed by United States Armed Forces, United States police forces, United States industrial-prison complexes, or simply society at large. All this privilege creates a certain sense of entitlement that allows white, middle-class (and monetarily above) United States citizens to experience a lofty sense of deservingness. But come on. Christianity, the spirituality offered to us by Jesus of Nazareth, is not about the Self, the Dollar, or even Stability - no, a life centered around Christ is inherently centered around the humbling of the powerful by the soiled and weary feet of the disregarded, dispossessed and disenfranchised.