Advent

Advent 3A: Expecting the Desert to Bloom

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Blooms in the DesertOLD TESTAMENT:  Isaiah 35: 1-10

To read the Old Testament Lectionary passage, click here

This passage is actually paired with the preceding chapter (Chapter 34) and together they provide a significant part of the total writings of the prophet Isaiah.  Chapter 35 is definitely plays the key role.  Even though the chapter is part of what we know as “First Isaiah”, there are questions as to whether or not it was actually written during the time of “Second Isaiah” (which probably occurred at the end of the exile about 540 BCE).  If you read Isaiah 40-55 (Second Isaiah), there are many similarities in the poetic phrasing.  The writer of the 35th chapter echoes the writings of the return of the exiles (the “highway”, the “streams in the desert”) but it is apparent that whoever wrote this chapter expected even more.  The dispersed of Israel from throughout the world shall return to Zion, and the dry and lifeless desert will become a fertile garden.

Although it resembles a prophetic announcement of the coming salvation of the Lord, it almost sounds a little like a writing that would have been read to an audience.  There is no “thus says the Lord” language or specific addressee that follows most prophetic writings.  Its central theme is the proclamation that the natural order will be dramatically transformed and that the “ransomed of the Lord” will come in joy to Zion.  Even the land will rejoice, as vegetation flourishes even in the desert.  The desert itself will bloom!  There is a promise that help is coming from the Lord, who will heal the sick and bring streams that flow through the desert.  The highway in the desert, which is normally filled with threats from wild beasts and enemies, will become the “holy way”.  For the writer, this highway is restricted to those who are holy, or ritually “clean”.

As we’ve mentioned before, this is not depicting a destruction of what is there and a replacement of something new.  What is there now will still be there, but it will be recreated into something new.  It is similar language that is used when one talks of buying someone back from slavery or debt.  Here, it is reclaiming of the exiles from Babylonian captivity and bondage.  There is an image of the exiles returning along this road with praise and celebration.

In this season of Advent, we are not just called to look toward that day.  We are reminded to look FOR that day, to imagine and believe it into being and to see what of it is already there.  We live within a holy tension of the way the world is and the way God calls the world to be.  But we are reminded that the blooms in the desert are already planted.  We just have to open our eyes to the possibility and then sing and dance for joy.  It will be the fulfillment of the promise that has always been there and, finally, “joy to the world.”

a.      What are your thoughts about this passage?

b.      What does the notion of “redemption” mean for you?

c.       How is this promise of redemption reconciled with the suffering and despair, the deserts, if you will, that still exist in the face of our lives?

 

PSALTER:  Luke 1: 47-55

To read the Lectionary Psalter for this week, click here

Our tradition (and in particular, the Protestant one) seems to domesticate Mary, giving her characteristics of one who is meek and downtrodden.  Maybe so, but these words are anything but meek.  They are downright radical.  Less language has started wars.  Somehow the insertion of Mary has shifted the story.  This is not some doe-eyed girl bowing to the whim of a frightening God; this is a strong and faithful young woman who responds to God’s call to bear God for the world.  She has transfigured the story itself and brought God’s presence into something that we can grasp, something that we can embrace.

E. Stanley Jones called The Magnificat “the most revolutionary document in the world”.  It is said that The Magnificat terrified the Russian Czars.  It is an out and out call to revolution.

The Magnificate is God’s revolution. The Magnificate is the charter, the document, the constitution of God’s revolution. The Magnificate is the basic, fundamental document. You don’t change the constitution. I saw the Magna Carta, the real thing, in a museum in London. That Magna Carta is the fundamental document on which freedom is based in English society. So also, the Magnificate is God’s charter; it is God’s Magna Carta. That document lays down the fundamental principles of the Christian revolution.

In the Magnificate, God totally changes the order of things. God takes that which is on the bottom; and God turn everything upside down, and puts the bottom on top and the top on the bottom.  God revolutionizes the way we think, the way we act, and the way we live. Before God’s revolution, we human beings were impressed with money, power, status and education. We were impressed with beauty, bucks and brains. But God revolutionizes all of that; God totally changes all of that; God turns it upside down.  The poor are put on the top; the rich are put on the bottom. It is a revolution; God’s revolution. The Magnificate clearly tells us of God’s compassion for the economically poor; and when God’s Spirit gets inside of Christians, we too have a renewed compassion and action for the poor.  Our hearts are turned upside down.

Listen carefully to the words of the Magnificate. Not the poetry of the words, the beauty of the words, the loveliness of the words. Listen to the five important verbs. In the Magnificate, God tells us that God regards or respects the poor, exalts the poor, feeds the poor, helps the poor, remembers the poor. In that same chapter in Luke, we hear the story that God chose a slave girl, Mary, to be the mother of Jesus. God didn’t chose the beauty queen of Ballard; God didn’t chose a mother who was a millionaire; God didn’t chose a bride with brains. God chose a little thirteen year old girl from a fourth world country, with dark skin and dark brown eyes and dark brown hair to be the mother of Jesus. The Bible didn’t call her a handmaiden. The word, “handmaiden,” sounds so pretty. The Greek word is, “doulos,” which means slave or servant. Mary was a servant girl.  God exalted a servant girl from a fourth world country to be exalted and lifted up. And this servant girl sang her song and it is called the Song of Mary. The actual words of her song are revolutionary. The Song of Mary is a revolutionary bombshell because it turns the values of this world upside down. (“The Magnificat and God’s Revolution”, by Edward F. Markquart, available at http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_c_magnificant.htm.)

 NEW TESTAMENT:  James 5: 7-10

To read the Lectionary Epistle, click here

The Letter of James is traditionally seen as the first of the “general” or “catholic” epistles.  It is clear and forceful in its moral emphases.  It actually was made part of the canon much later than many of the other epistles, even though it seems to have been used by philosophers and theologians prior to that.  (As an aside, Martin Luther made clear is distaste for the letter because of the emphasis on justification by works.  But it is fairly clear that the writer of this letter and Paul are not in conflict over this; they are just addressing two different points.)

The letter deals primarily with four ideas:  concern over morality (as opposed to just acting nice), intentional community (rather than just one household), egalitarianism, rather than hierarchy (you’ll notice that it has lots of “brother” and “sister” language), and a focus on the community rather than just an individual or a specific group of individuals.  There are many that think the letter may have been written by “James the brother of the Lord”, which would place it before the year 62, but many also consider it to be written under a pseudonym and perhaps later in that century.  As far as a Christian writing, it is the New Testament writing that most clearly yields a social ethics grounded in the perception of the world as created and gifted by God.

The passage that we read is addressing a community with the assumption of the expectation of judgment—to vindicate the righteous and poor and to punish the oppressive and rich. (so you can see why it fits with our other writings this week).  For those who are waiting, James tells them that they must strengthen their hearts and stay focused.  They must exercise patience.  In the meantime, oppression and injustice will continue and the community needs to focus on solidarity and unity in the meantime.  For now, we are called to patience and courage, strength and fortitude.

a.      What are your thoughts about this passage?

b.      What do you think is meant by patience here?  How well do we exercise that?

c.       What does this “call to community” vs. our own society’s call for individualism mean for us?

GOSPEL:  Matthew 11: 2-11

To read the Lectionary Gospel passage, click here

We talked last week about John the Baptist, a Jewish prophet with his own message and disciples who was ultimately executed by Herod Antipas.  We saw John depicted as this sort of wild wilderness man who preached the message of repentance in the name of Christ, the Messiah.  The passage today begins with John in prison.  And here he starts to doubt what he is doing.  He sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the One, or should I be waiting and looking for another?”  Essentially, what Jesus was doing was not in the mold of what John had envisioned.  John was going around preaching repentance in the face of what was surely the Kingdom of God coming soon.  And here was Jesus healing and freeing and raising the dead.  John probably didn’t see it as wrong—just sort of a waste of time.  After all, in his view, there were people that needed redeeming!

Jesus responds not by rebuking or patronizing John but by praising him for having the courage and the conviction to stand up for his beliefs.  The concept of the “reed shaken by the wind” probably held more meaning for Jewish hearers than for us.  There was a Jewish parable in first-century Judaism known as “The Parable of the Reed and the Oak”.  According to the parable, a giant oak tree and a thin reed were both planted by a river.  When a storm came, the deep roots of the oak kept it firmly established, enabling it to withstand most winds.  There was nothing wishy-washy or compromising about the oak.  The reed, on the other hand, would bend to the left or right, even with a slight breeze.  The conclusion of the story was that the oak, because of its refusal to compromise, could end up losing its life in a fierce storm, snapping in two at the hands of hurricane-force winds, but the reed, though it might survive, could only do so by continual bending to the force of the winds around it.  Jesus was probably pointing to this familiar Jewish story when he asked this question about the reed.  In other words, he was probably saying, “Did you expect this prophet of God, this forerunner of the Christ, to be a weak-kneed compromiser?”

Often people look upon theological or Biblical study as something that answers questions.  I don’t think that’s the way it works.  I think it instead teaches you how to ask the questions.  Hans Kung said: Doubt is the shadow cast by faith.  One does not always notice it, but it is always there, though concealed.  At any moment it may come into action.  There is no mystery of the faith which is immune to doubt.  As we’ve said before, God does call us to blind faith; God calls us to illumined doubt.  Another issue here is the idea of someone (like John was) being so locked into their own convictions and images of God that they neglect to see what God is doing in the world.

The message in all of our passages today have to do with standing firm and being open. Be patient but work hard  and keep planting, knowing that someday the desert will bloom.  Faith is a balancing act between knowledge and mystery, conviction and newness, life and death.

Christmas did not come after a great mass of people had completed something good, or because of the successful result of any human effort.  No, it came as a miracle, as the child that comes when his time is fulfilled, as a gift of the Father which he lays into those arms that are stretched out in longing.  In this way did Christmas come; in this way it always comes anew, both to individuals and to the whole world…

And so it shall be with our yearning for the redemption of humanity and for a new shining forth of the world of God.  When we are discouraged by the apparently slow progress of all our honest efforts, by the failure of this or the other person, and by the ever new reappearance of enemy powers and their apparent victories, then we should know:  the time shall be fulfilled.  Because of the noise and activity of the struggle and the work, we often do not hear the hidden gentle sound and movement of the life that is coming into being.  But here and there, at hours that are blessed, God lets us feel how [God] is everywhere at work and that [God’s] cause is growing and moving forward.  The time is being fulfilled and the light shall shine, perhaps just when it seems to us that the darkness is impenetrable…

For the miracle of God comes not only from above; it also comes through us; it is also dwelling in us.  It has been given to every person, and it lies in every soul as something divine, and it waits.  Calling, it waits for the hour when the soul shall open itself, having found its God and its home.  When this is so, the soul will not keep its wealth to itself, but will let it flow out into the world.  Wherever love proceeds from us and becomes truth, the time is fulfilled.  Then the divine life floods through our human relationships and all our works.  Then everything that is lonely and scattered and seeking for the way of God shall be bound together by divine power.  Then, of human effort and of the divine miracle, shall the world be born in which Christmas is fulfilled as reality.  (“When the Time Was Fulfilled”, by Eberhard Arnold, in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas, January 1st.)

 

a.      What are your thoughts about this passage?

b.      How does this speak to you about convictions and beliefs?

c.       How does this speak to you about doubts?

d.      In this Advent season, what does this say about our time of preparation?

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.  (Albert Einstein)

The ultimate goal is to transform the world into the kind of world God had in mind when it was created. (Harold Kushner)

The birth of Christ in our souls is for a purpose beyond ourselves:  It is because his manifestation in the world must be through us.  (EvelynUnderhill)

Closing

This text speaks of the birth of a child, not the revolutionary deed of a strong man, or the breath-taking discovery of a sage, or the pious deed of a saint.  It truly boggles the mind:  The birth of a child is to bring about the great transformation of all things, is to bring salvation and redemption to all of humanity.

As if to shame the most powerful human efforts and achievements, a child is placed in the center of world history.  A child born of humans, a son given by God.  This is the mystery of the redemption of the world; all that is past and all that is to come.

All who at the manger finally lay down all power and honor, all prestige, all vanity, all arrogance and self-will; all who take their place among the lowly and let God along be high; all who see the glory of God in the lowliness of the child in the manger:  these are the ones who will truly celebrate Christmas. (From Christmas With Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. By Manfred Weber)

In this Season of Advent, join me on my daily blog at http://dancingtogod.com/!

Advent 2A: Imagining A New Way

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Stump of JesseOLD TESTAMENT:  Isaiah 11: 1-10

To read the Old Testament Lectionary passage, click here

Remember the background of the book that we know as Isaiah.  They are probably three separate groups of writings.  The first (Chapters 1-39) was probably written about the 8th century BCE and includes the writings of the person that we know as Isaiah, the Prophet.  It reflects the time leading up to the exile and the sense of God as creator of the whole world is reflected.  The second part (Chapters 40-55) is probably from the end of the exile and the third part (Chapters 56-66) was probably written about 520 BCE when the people began reshaping their community following the exile.

When reading the Book of Isaiah, it is important to try to view this without our Christian “hindsight” lens reshaping what it was meant to be.  It was not originally meant as a foretelling of Jesus’ birth.  It is a story of God’s deliverance and redemption, but the notion of Christ as the redeemer was imposed by later New Testament writers.  This passage that we read is extremely well-known by probably both of our traditions.  The unifying theme is, of course, the coming Reign of God.  Isaiah saw the Davidic monarchy as Yahweh’s means of implementing Yahweh’s will, first for Judah and Jerusalem, and then for the whole world.  It looks toward the rule of one whose life and rule is shaped by God.  This is the part that many more fundamentalist Christian believers will assume to be Jesus Christ, prompted, for the most part, by the writer known as Matthew.

The second part promises the Reign of God in the order of creation with the establishment of peace and tranquility among all creatures.  Here, the “world” is understood as God’s Creation.  The vision of the new order for all the world is set forth.  Essentially, it is the hope for that which is “uncommon”, a reordering, if you will, in our world.  By putting these two parts together, we’re left with a view of the relationship among justice, mercy, and peace in human society and harmony in the natural order.  Essentially, “if you want peace, if you desire the fullness of the Reign of God, work for justice and unity.”

We are reminded of the many predators that are in our world.  After all, it is important to name and place them.  But, here, the predators, those things that we have just learned to accept as the “order of nature” or the “order of humanity”, along with everything and everyone else, are transformed.  And a little child shall lead them?  Like the calf, lamb, kid, and ox, the child here stands for the vulnerable, finally living in a safe and peace-filled world.  This, of course, is what we Christians see in Christ—the vulnerable, peace-loving child who ushers in the peace of God and leads the rest of creation onto transformation.  And, further, this New Creation, this New Kingdom, will encompass not simply the future of God’s people but of all nations and all of creation.  It is the universal vision of hope for the world.  We read this text in Advent as a new generation that lives between two times—we celebrate the coming of Christ and we look forward to the promised final consummation of God’s peaceable Kingdom yet to come.  We stand in liminality, on a veritable threshold between what is and what will be.

In essence, the Advent, or “coming” (Latin), that we celebrate is about three comings—the remembrance of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the recognition of the coming of the very presence of God into the world, and the anticipation of the final coming of God’s Kingdom for which we all wait.  When the peaceable Kingdom comes to be, all of these comings will be one, and Advent will be complete.  It is then that the things that we have accepted as “natural” in this world will become the abnormal and the things of which we only dream will be life as we know it.

Here’s the hard thing about this text in all its beauty: the little child has come to us — two thousand years ago and counting — and we have not yet made it to God’s holy mountain. The cows are still grazing in the fields waiting to be processed into cheap beef for our hamburgers. The lamb is still getting shorn to make clothes that will last less than a few seasons. Children don’t come anywhere near a snake’s lair because they don’t play anywhere outside much anymore.

And righteousness? Justice? We are so drunk on the process of hurting and destroying one another that we can no longer see past the ends of our military-might-political-fight-I-am-always-right noses. Death tolls rise, wars rage on, hunger and sickness strike day after day…and we have lost sight of the mountain altogether.

If the little child has come, and shall lead us, did we simply not follow? Did we miss our chance? Did we get lost along the parade route and never realize the party broke up? ‘Tis the season to dream big dreams and hope big hopes. But the hardest question remains: Why is the earth not yet filled with the knowledge of the Lord? (From “ This Branch is Slower Than Christmas”, by Danielle Shroyer, available at http://thehardestquestion.org/yeara/advent2ot/, accessed 1 December, 2010.)

Perhaps the reason that the earth is not yet filled with the knowledge of the Lord, that the Reign of God has not come into its fullness, that poverty and homelessness and injustice and war still exists is because we do not dare to imagine it.  This is not some vision of an inaccessible utopian paradise; this is the vision of God.  It is worth waiting with hopeful expectation.  The passage that a shoot shall come out the stump and a branch shall grow out of the roots.  In other words, life shall spring from that which is dead and discarded.  Because in God’s eyes, even death has the foundation, the roots of life.  We just have imagine it into being.  So, imagine beyond all your imaginings; envision a world beyond all you dare to see; and hope for a life greater than anything that is possible.

a.      What are your thoughts about this passage?

b.      What is your image of the “peaceable kingdom”?

c.       What is your vision of the “ideal ruler”?

d.      With what hope do you identify in that “peaceable Kingdom” about which we read?

 

 

NEW TESTAMENT:  Romans 15: 4-13

To read the Lectionary Epistle passage, click here

Remember that the main theme of Romans is that God’s gospel unveils God’s righteousness, so this reading is indeed fitting for this season.  In this letter, Paul concentrates on the Gentile audience, not because he thought the Jews had denied Jesus but because he truly thought that for God’s reign to be ushered in to fullness, the whole world must come into the picture.

The passage that we read begins with Paul’s explanation of the Scriptures as instructional and from which we can gain hope.  It is interesting that, compared to many modern-day thoughts about Scripture, there is nothing here portraying Scripture as any sort of moral code or outline for living a godly life!  Rather, Scripture’s primary purpose is to create hope.  Then he turns to a prayer for unity and harmony.  This is actually Paul’s regular appeal, whether or not he thinks a congregation is divided.  It was important to him, though, that the church come to a “common mind”, a “common worship”, and, therefore, “one voice”.  He then begins with what most call the “messianic” welcome, open to all people.  He then launches into an explanation of the basis for that “messianic welcome”.  Paul celebrates the theme of this united worship with three biblical quotations–Psalm 18: 49, Deuteronomy 32, and Isaiah 11: 10 (part of our Old Testament passage).  The passage is ended with the hope that, for Paul, was always present.  For Paul, this hope can only be realized through an awareness of our shared story of hope in God and by emphasizing two things–pleasing others instead of ourselves and praising God in unity and harmony.  Hope, for Paul, is communal.  It is only realized within the community that we share.

So, the advent of Christ does not just belong to one group.  There is no group that is more privileged than another.  All are invited; all are included; indeed, all are expected to be a part of it.  That is the hope of the world.  The Kingdom of God would never be complete otherwise.

The sign above Dante’s hell reads “Abandon hope all you who enter here.”  To enter one’s hell is to give up hope and to give up hope is to enter one’s hell.  But we are instead called to “abound in hope”, to live as though our live depends on it.  Maybe that’s the point.  Maybe life depends on our hope for something more, our willingness to trust in God’s vision for what we will be, and to have faith in the faith that God has put in us.

  a.      What are your thoughts about this passage?

  b.      What do you think “unity” and “harmony” mean in our world today?

  c.       What does hope mean in our world today?

  d.      Soren Kierkegaard said that “hope is the passion for the possible.”  How does that change your view of hope?

GOSPEL:  Matthew 3: 1-12

To read the Lectionary Gospel passage, click here

John the Baptist was a significant figure even in his own right.  He was a Jewish prophet with his own message and disciples who was ultimately executed by Herod Antipas.  He had his own movement, which continued long after the Resurrection and into the beginning of the Christian community.  The description here depicts John as sort of a wild, hairy man, not at all part of elegant society.  He definitely identified more with the wilderness than ordinary society.  But here, John is cited as a “precursor” of the greater one to come.

John definitely saw an impending time of judgment for those who did not know God.  The image of the ax at the root of the tree indicates the judgment that is already prepared and is just waiting to begin.  The whole idea of “repentance” that John emphasized is not one that we good Methodists often focus on.  It sometimes sounds a little too “hellfire and brimstone” for us. But repentance means turning around, a new mind, a change of direction.  It means throwing off those things that bind us to the life we know for those things that point to a life with God.  It does not mean that God has finally won us over; it means, rather, that our own self, our own story, has finally come to be.  Just being there is not enough; just having Abraham for your ancestor is not enough.  You must change your life.  There are no favorites.  This includes everyone.

The idea of the wilderness is a whole other concept.  Think about the wilderness—it calls us into things outside our normal routines, outside of the establishments that make up our lives.  It calls us to a cleansing, to a repentance and acceptance of life anew.  Essentially, John message was  to “prepare”; in the wilderness prepare for the coming of the Christ; in the wilderness be washed clean; in the wilderness, change your life so that you will be ready to receive Christ.  John probably would be labeled today as a liberal evangelical, challenging the conservatism of his day and yet his ideas and his theologies are not new.  At their very core is the heart of the Gospel itself.  In Resident Aliens, Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon wrote (without identifying which one of them thought it) that “indeed, one of us is tempted to think there is not much wrong with the church that could not be cured by God calling about a hundred really insensitive, uncaring, and offensive people into ministry.”

This is a good reading for Advent because the season is not only about beginnings, but also about transitions, about changes, about finding a new way—the Way of Christ.  John’s wilderness sermon points beyond himself to God.  Whatever our message is going to be, it is not going to be found in ourselves.  We are not the message. The church is not the gospel.  The community of faith is not the savior. Preaching worthy of the name strives to point ever and always to Jesus.  He should increase in every sermon, and the preacher, and even the church, should decrease. (Mark E. Yurs, in “Feasting on the Word”, Year A, Volume 1, p. 49)

We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us.  We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us.  The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience. (From “The Coming of Jesus in our Midst”, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in Watch for the Light:  Readings for Advent and Christmas, December 21)

Maybe that is why, to us, John’s message seems so “over the top”.  Maybe he saw the same thing that Bonhoeffer did—that this vision of God that is coming closer to us each and every moment, that little by little is taking hold, will shake the world as we know it to its core.  Because God’s vision and the way the world lives cannot exist together.  The stump will die and from it, all of Creation will be resurrected.  The Way of Life is found by turning and changing and accepting life anew.

a.      What are your thoughts about this passage?

 b.      What does “repentance” mean for you?  What stands in the way of that for you?

  c.       Where, for you, is the desert or wilderness that calls you out of your normal routines?

 Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God where we met thee, Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.  Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand true to our God, true to our native land.  (James Weldon Johnson)

No language about God will ever be fully adequate to the burning mystery which it signifies.  But a more inclusive way of speaking can come about that bears the ancient wisdom with a new justice. (Elizabeth A. Johnson)

Believers know that while our values are embodied in tradition, our hopes are always located in change.  (William Sloane Coffin)

 Closing

In each heart lies a Bethlehem, an inn where we must ultimately answer whether there is room or not.  When we are Bethlehem-bound we experience our own advent in his.  When we are Bethlehem-bound we can no longer look the other way conveniently not seeing stars, not hearing angel voices.  We can no longer excuse ourselves by busily tending our sheep or our kingdoms.

 This Advent, let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that the Lord has made known to us.  In the midst of shopping sprees, let’s ponder in our hearts the Gift of Gifts.  Through the tinsel, let’s look for the gold of the Christmas Star.  In the excitement and confusion, in the merry chaos, let’s listen for the brush of angels’ wings.  This Advent, let’s go to Bethlehem and find our kneeling places.

                        (“In Search of our Kneeling Places”, Ann Weems, in Kneeling in Bethlehem, p. 19)