This sermon was given at Church of the Morningstar on October 3rd, 2020, during a mass themed around workers’ struggle.

When we honor workers, we honor ourselves and our history, even when we feel removed from that identity. While most in our society are not a part of the ruling class and, therefore must work to survive, so gradual and global are the chains of social and economic hierarchy, that many individuals who serve the wealthy are orders of magnitude more wealthy and influential themselves than widely encompassing cross sections of humanity. Whether by the exact nature of their work, or their self-awareness, such liminal people may not consider themselves workers. Which is only causal, after all, Capitalism makes use of alienation to support its continuation, and narratives such as the middle class serve to alienate workers from workers. If some workers can take on the attitudes of the wealthy toward workers in general, without having to enjoy the corresponding advantages, all the better for the wealthy. And that is why it is rejuvenating to examine and celebrate our identity as workers, and to enjoy the freedom to explore theology that sanctifies our struggle. We are not the first people to think so, if the Congregation will indulge me in a religious history lesson, I may explain. A mythological narrative that may hold modern significance.

I’d like to tell you a story from Mesopotamian Mythology, a story that has roots with the Sumerians and echoed throughout the cultures who followed them. The version of this story tbat I will begin with today is from the Akkadians, a cultural adopter of the Sumerian cuneiform writing and pantheon, whose empire lasted for about 200 years after first annexing the fallen Suemrian cities-states around 2300 BCE. Enki and Enlil are both characters in this story, but the narrative focus is on the Igigi.

Who were the Igigi? There are multiple schools of thought on the exact meaning of this term. As many Sumerian words were often derived via numerology, some have sought a definition in the numbers that make up Igigi, equaling a sum of 600, which is one of the numbers given to the entire population of gods. But this story excludes the most powerful gods from the term Igigi, who are identified as the Annunaki. So perhaps “Igigi” could be read to mean “The masses” of the gods, in the way that the term excludes the most powerful when used today. The other school of thought breaks down the name Igigi into its composite words, as Sumerians also used word compounding in the naming of complex concepts. The words beak down to “The Heavens, eyes or sight, and [this being the Sumerians] penatrative sex”. From this, historians offer these possible translations: “Those whose view from the sky penetrates all obstructions”, or “The Observers on behalf of heaven”, or possibly “The Watchers, who deflower”. Make of that possible influence on later mythology what thou wilt. 

The story is clear that the Iggi were, like all gods, made in an act of birth or artifice by other gods. The Sumerians believed that Enki created the Igigi, though the Akkadians did not specify this detail. The story is also clear that the Igigi outnumbered the Annunaki significantly. But let’s get into the context in which our narrative hangs, shall we? 

In the mythological roots that came from Sumer, the gods did not practice what Sumerians would call civilisation, at least not at first. They had houses, they had implements, but they did not generally labor for their survival. When they were hungry, the gods grazed as animals do, “ate of the field”, the tablets say. But Enlil did not like this.

Enlil was a god of armies and storms who, sometime in the Akkadian prehistory and possibly sometime during Sumerian history, came of prominence and supplanted An, the sky god, of rulership over the other gods. This often occurs in Middle Eastern mythology when people with a cultural god conquer or otherwise take command of other peoples, who have their own cultural god. Both gods get folded into a shared mythology over time, with the victorious symbol becoming the King of the Hill. After he took on this glory, Enlil was forever after the god of tyrants, and his followers seemed to mean that earnestly. I may have already told the earliest myth about Democracy in this Church, in which the gods hear of Enlil’s sexual assault upon his betrothed, and put the matter to a vote, succeeding in dethroning and exiling him to the land of the Dead. In that myth Enlil becomes the symbol of what Democracy stands in opposition of, totalitarian rule. 

Similarly, in this story, Enlil is a jerk. He does not want to pick things up off the ground and eat them, his will is to eat the bread produced from agriculture. And, furthermore, his will is that it be delivered to him without much effort on his part, much like an folklore Jeff Bezos. In what mythologists call the Dictatorship of Enlil, the Igigi are set to digging the first ditches needed to irrigate for farming and Enlil goes to rest in his house.  The Igigi know they are being forced to do this, they know the share of labor is unfair. So what do they do? 

They strike. The Igigi burn their implements and stand en mass outside of Enlil’s house, accusingly. Enlil is given a rude awakening, possibly by the shouting of those he once thought of as peons outside. While the myth does not specify this, we might suppose that the god of armies and storms….is afraid. So afraid that he doesn’t rush to action, which is unusual for him. Instead, Enlil convenes a council of the Annunaki, and they agree to send a messenger to the Igigi. The Igigi receive the messenger with earnest honesty, advocating for their rights against this unjust treatment. Upon hearing of the Igigi’s complaints, Enlil still does not go to war. He does something he hates to do, he asks Enki for help. 

Now, in the Sumerian version of this story, which also features the Igigi suffering the dictatorship of Enlil, there is no strike, just despair. The working gods cry tears that tremble the heart of the earth goddess, Ki, who birthed them. In response, she wakes the sleeping Enki and entreats him to open himself to the suffering of the Igigi. Enki reaches his arm to them, concerns himself with them, and decides to resolve the situation in their favor. There is more compassion and perhaps a lesson in shutting up and listening to those less privileged than you in this version, but in both versions, Enki’s solution is the same.

Enki proposes that they relieve the Igigi of their work through automation. Specifically, through the creation of a new type of being to do this work. You may have heard of this robot, or as the Sumerians envisioned them,  clay-formed golems, because you see them every time you look….. in a mirror! That is right, the golems are humanity. In the Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonion creation myths humans are formed to resolve a labor dispute. Make the humans do it.

Which is telling, I think, the story has obvious theo-sociological uses in Mesopotamian society, by explaining why people relied on irrigation farming to survive, and therefore the massive cooperation of cities full of people to support farming on a societal scale. To the Sumerians there was no urban/rural divide. The City was invented to supply the Farm, who feed the cities in turn. It is all cooperation, always has been.

This myth also had obvious uses in explaining class hierarchy built on a laboring class at its base. Certainly, when the Sumerians first started speaking their language, government may have been radically different than the imperial monarchies they passed down to the Akkadians, as their myths hint at direct democracy and merit-based management. As far as we know, in the earliest literate Suemrian cities, priests trained to read the texts in which instructions on farming had been written down, by previous generations, and to note down occurrences and their possible causes in further texts, so that some kind of progress could be eked out by later generations. Unfortunately, the temples became too self-serving and from them arose monarchical families, who innovated kingship from past managerial roles, and started an ongoing and yet never-ending series of conflicts over dynastic rulership in the area. To summarise so far: the Igigi, like the Middle Class, are a narrative that upholds social hierarchy, imagining that it extended all the way into the heavens. Your boss had a boss, who had a boss, who was a god, but also had a boss. Such a worldview would hold Enki in regard for his contribution to the status quo. Why am I even telling this myth to you, then?

Because it seems to uphold injustice power structures until, I think, we crack that story open and examine some underlying themes. There are two things that I want to highlight about this myth for ruther study and the first is the victory of the Igigi. The Annunaki have primary importance in Mesopotamian religion, and the head god had a symbolic place of narrative, if not historical, primacy. And yet the Igigi won their strike, and not just won but withheld the labor they were bullied into playing without any reprisal or further oppression. They were no longer required to labor, but to watch over those who labored, and advocate on their behalf to the powers that be. This is where the Sumerian and Akkadian belief in a personal god clears things up, by which I mean the belief that every person has a god devoted to their well-being. This god’s job was to watch over you and to advocate for you to the Annunaki. When people suffered ill fates, they often sought to soothe and care for their personal god, to make their job easier so they could spend more time arguing with the gods of Heaven to make your fate easier in turn.

The Igigi, as the masses of the gods, can be assumed to be these personal gods. Which makes sense, as the priesthood and then the monarchs claimed that their personal gods from among the Annunaki, the gods of state. This was a deeply introspective divinity, a person and their god were said to identify with each other, as humans were made of not just the mud provided by Enki from the Abzu, but the blood shed by all the gods in that labor strike. Later myths identified this blood having come from a single sacrificial god, usually the titan-like figures of Tiamat and Abzu, from which later societies were inspired to create Leviathan and Abyss. Humans were made, the myth suggests, from the blood of the struggle for justice and freedom. The Igigi, the Annunaki, and humans share that blood, though not from equivalent participation. This is not a myth of Tyranny’s victory over Labor, but of Tyranny’s failure in thinking it is of a personhood distinct and superior to those of Labor. In the Sumerian myth, the Earth Goddess Ki knows that the narrative of superiority is not true, and via compassion, Enki knows it too, and by solidarity proves the truth. In the Akkadian myth, the Igigi know that this dominance narrative is not true, and by direct action, proves the truth.

The second thing I want to highlight is the greater context of this myth, for the story does not stop there. No sooner had the tablet explained the Akkadian paradigm of a humanity derived from a strike, and Enlil getting what he wanted in the form of human religious offerings, when the same tablet continues thusly:

    ‘‘There had not passed twelve hundred years, The inhabited land had expanded, the people had multiplied, The land was bellowing like a wild bull. The god was disturbed by their clamour, Enlil heard their din. He said to the great gods, “Grievous has grown the din of mankind, Through their clamour I lose sleep. . .”.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “I know what story this is leading up to, there is a story just like it in the book of Genesis.” And, of course you are right, but not yet. And the distance between this story and that one, holds wisdom.

You see, in his annoyance at the very beings created to appease him, Enlil first sends a plague that ravages the human population. In response, Enki goes to Atrahasis (in Akkadian, his name in Sumerian is Ziusudra,hw essentially inspired the character of Noah) and the god tells Atrahasis of what the Igigi have accomplished, of the role of humanity as labor for the gods, and that what worked for the divine would also work for us. Enki advised a worship strike against all gods, including himself, except for that in benefit of the god of Plagues. And so Atrahasis goes out and advises the temples,  they withhold all offerings and sacrifices, except to the plague god, who receives more than usual. And in return, the plague god disobeys Enlil and stops the Plague. Again, strikes work.

So Enlil sends a drought, and Enki advises the same reaction. The People withhold their prayers, except to the god of rain. It rains, the drought ends, and Enlil starts again. What he does next is obscured by a damaged tablet, but it causes a period of prolonged death, which the people reacted to with a third strike, which also worked, and then – THEN – came the flood. But first, a thought finally appeared in the vacuous caverns of Enlil’s mind, and he first went to Enki to lay a ban upon him. This is the same type of Enkian ban we perform in the First Church of the Morningstar, when we chant “En-Sagba-sagba” *, but this ban used upon the god of magic himself, and Enlil forbids interference by Banning Enki from talking to any human about the impending flood. 

So Enki goes to the house of Atrahasis, refusing to speak to his acolyte, saying “I am here to address  your door, you may go away, but not too far… OH DOOR! If only the humans knew what was about to befall them, a terrible and unending rain for all 40 days of the month, if only a particularly wise human would build a boat exactly to these dimensions, are you getting this door? Welp, good chat, I knew I could talk to you, door. Give my best to Atrahasis.” And Atrahasis gets the hint, sheltering farm animals and people in a large bowl-like boat, and survived Enlil’s temper tantrum of a flood, a story the Suemrians used to explain the flooding of the gulf of Iraq into a marsh plain. Enlil was so pissed that Enki had found a way around his ban, that he elevated Atrahasis to the status of a demigod after the fact, so that Enlil had not technically been disobeyed, and here we see the egotistical weakness that is Tyranny;

Their abuse of us is never going to satisfy them, until we so refuse the conceits of their demands that they have to accept our boundaries. Enlil could never appreciate the personhood of humans, could never learn from the strike of the Igigi, because to do so would require humility. And here Enki teaches humanity a theo-technical tactic that was WIDELY used, even up to today. In the Chinese Traditional Religion, the gods of villages hold a position of employment, and the people of the village are within their rights to terminate their ties to that god in response to poor performance. Similarly, Jewish trials of catharsis during the Russian Progroms sued Yahweh for breach of Covenant, allowing the congregations to release themselves of the disappointment in their insufficiently-proactive supposed superior.

When I read deeply of this myth I read that our gods, our inner divinity, serves us, and we never have to accept a theology or a power over us that is harmful to us and agnostic to our consent. Our boundaries, our own bans, are as sacred as the bans of the gods. Our right to freedom, justice, self-determination, and non-exploitation are divine, for even the gods could not deny these to each other, nor to their worshipers, when the power of collective action is implemented. The values and figures we worship, just like the governments and businesses we choose to support, are subject to our consent, end of myth. The powerful need us more than we need them, and when we withhold their use of us, we are practicing a divine magic. Workers are Divine, the Strike is Sacred, and an ounce of Compassion and Solidarity will beat a pound of Oppression in any era. Such is the wisdom of Enki, from my personal gnosis.

Thank you for reading.

*The famous “Ban Ban” circle spell, known to the Sumerians as the Zisurrû.