Human societies are addicted to hierarchies. At least, that’s my theory. This First Testament story from 1 Samuel illustrates my point.
For about 300 years after the time of Joshua, after the Exodus and desert wandering, the Hebrew people had been governed by an amorphous group of leaders - Judges, functioning as ad hoc mediators and elders. More guiding the nation than ruling it. No centralized government. No conglomerated power. A communal effort. Plus there were the priests and Samuel the prophet, trying to listen to God.
The people hate it. At least the loud ones do. (Personally, I wonder what the mothers thought…?) And beg Samuel the Prophet/Priest to find them a king. They want a ruler to bring glory and prosperity and victory to them. They want to be like other respectable “kingdoms.”
God says to Samuel: you may as well listen to them because they aren’t going to let me lead them. So Samuel warns them in no uncertain terms: this way lies empire, war, toil, loss, oppression, slavery. Yes, we want this, they say. So Samuel, resigned, agrees to “renew the kingship.” And Saul is appointed King over Israel.
Of course, Samuel was right. Hierarchy begets oppression. It did then, and it does to this day.
We also get the account from Genesis of the first shame. Adam and Eve in the garden, found out for eating forbidden fruit, experiencing shame for the first time. I read this story all kinds of ways. Today I think: What if the knowledge was knowledge of hierarchy? Hierarchy begets shame.
And then, in the gospel text from Mark 3, Jesus says: here are my mother and brothers. Pointing at… everybody. No hierarchy of relationship. No one person having more access to God’s goodness than any other.
God, our minds are being opened to the ways we are harmed by hierarchal systems.
We see this in the scripture stories (1),
We see this in our family histories,
And we see it at work in our societies:
When a few people are at the top,
A lot of people are always at the bottom…