Hamster Wheels

When my kids were little, they had pet mice.  And what those mice loved doing more than anything was run in their hamster wheels.  Because they were nocturnal, we would wake up to the noise of the mice running as fast as their little paws could carry them, sometimes with so much energy and verve that the wheel would fall over and they had to stop running.  They would be so frustrated that they would chew on their wheel.  As soon as we set it up again, they would ignore it until the next night when the whole cycle would start over.  We should have hooked a generator to that hamster wheel, it went so fast the momentum of the wheel was stronger than the mouse that was moving it. It sent them for a spin upside down and dumped them out onto their soft papered cage floor.  The mice were quite bewildered about what had happened, but they kept on running!

Sometimes it seems like I’m running in a giant hamster wheel.  Work, eat, sleep and repeat.  There’s so much to do, especially at this time of the year.  That’s typical of many people.  Except for Christmas parties thrown by British Government staff people, most of us had a much quieter Christmas than usual last year, and we’ll probably do the same this year.  Presents are mailed, visits are curtailed, and zoom calls connect us without the long drives we’re used to.  It’s like our hamster wheels have stopped turning and thrown
us out back on the ground and we’re still a little dazed by everything. Some of us have enjoyed the break, some of us are still on the wheel but just can’t seem to get up to speed, and for those who are working in the health system, they have had to run faster than ever before.  They find themselves doing the loop de loop.  The constant stress has meant that collectively our blood pressure levels are higher.  Probably because of the sticker shock we have when we go grocery shopping and realize how much the price of food has risen.  Or the grief we feel when we hear of the rise in opioid overdoses impacting mostly young people.

We are living in tough times.  Zephaniah, if you read all of the book, which is only 3 chapters long, knew similar times of harsh fear and being in survivor mode.  He called out systemic injustice and would have had no tolerance of food systems that waste billions of dollars of food every year in Canada.  He would have called out oil companies that leave orphaned wells on farmland and impact the quality of the soil we need to grow crops.  He would have called out government curriculums that teach only a colonialist version of history, and pointed out the addictions we have to shopping or Netflix or on-line bullying or drugs.  He would have called out the oppressive employment practices of big corporations.  Just like John the Baptist, coming charging out of the wilderness, filled with a passion to name the hamster wheels we are running in.

Zephaniah heard God’s promise that our shame will be turned to praise, but the shame has to be named and faced first.  It’s specific and individual.  John heard several groups of people who recognized their shame in being stuck in their hamster wheels of oppression.  But John didn’t want to just get them out of their hamster wheels, but out of their cages completely!  His advice, tailored to several different career paths, was designed to get them fired!  If a tax collector only collected what they were supposed to as part of the system of oppression that Rome imposed on all its colonies, the other tax collectors would resent it and complain to the higher authorities about being undermined.  If a soldier stopped taking bribes, the rest of the soldiers would complain that they had gone soft on the locals and was no longer enforcing Roman Rule.  Enough soldiers and tax collectors changing their attitudes to the people they were supposed to be controlling and the system would collapse.  Which eventually it did. 

We can’t escape our hamster wheels or our cages until we recognize that we are in them.  People like Zephaniah and John help us to recognize that.  It’s not until we have heard their call and ask ‘what should we do’, that the cage opens up and we can feel the joy at being able to run like a hamster as God intended.

My favorite example of this is the Sister Act movies with Whoopi Goldberg.  In Sister Act 2, she goes to an inner school where the kids are trapped in a system of oppression.  They don’t want to run like hamsters, but no one is willing to support their dreams.  Sister Mary Clarence comes in, challenges the kids to get off the hamster wheels, challenges the administrators who are intent on closing down the school, and takes the new school choir to state championships where they win the contest and save their school.

This movie was inspired by a real teacher, Iris Stevenson-McCullough, who teaches music in Los Angeles in a school predominantly attended by visible minorities.  Her choirs have risen to national prominence, performing in France and Jamaica, winning many competitions.  At one point she and many other teachers were going to be fired by the Los Angeles School Board.  She publicly spoke against the cuts, inspiring media attention and reversing the cuts.  In doing so, she also inspired the people behind Sister Act 2!  In 2014, she took her school choir to perform at the White House for the Obamas and was suspended for 4 months by the school board for doing so.  Students protested again, and she still teaches as well as leading music at her Church.  She encourages her children, like John the Baptist, to not let them get stuck in cages on hamster wheels.

What can we do?  What cages are we in?  What hamster wheels are we running around in?  Who could we be sharing a second coat with or some food with?  When we break out of our cages of shame and fear, we can feel real joy as God intended us to.  Joy comes to us all, when we answer God’s call!